The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1954. Dock Strike Ended

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27496, 2 November 1954, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1954. Dock Strike Ended

There will be relief that the dock strike in Britain has ended, though there must be reservations until the cost of what appears to be a truce can be assessed in terms of industrial relations. The full terms of the settlement are not yet available. It is natural for the leaders of the National Association of Stevedores and Dockers—the union which called the strike—to make loud claims. That union precipitated and led a fight on the question of voluntary or compulsory overtime; but the stevedores’ union was fighting as much to get more power for itself at the expense of the Transport and General Workers’ Union (to which most dockers belong) as for the ostensible issue. The huge Transport and General Workers’ Union, whose leaders condemned the strike as reckless and unnecessary, will not lightly accept a rebuff. But if it proves that the’stevedores’ union, whose leaders deliberately cultivate a militant policy, have achieved a “ glorious victory ” at the expense of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, the truce in dockland may have been dearly bought., It remains for time to measure, also, the extent of the “ glorious victory ” the dockers claim to have won Over the employers. On the one hand the employers appear to have abandoned their insistence that overtime in the docks is comoulsory, within the terms of their agreement with the National Dock Labour Board. But on the other hand, the stevedores’ union .has given up its ban on overtime; the union’s leaders are urging the dockers to do “ all the overtime “ possible to get the port of London “ working normally again ”, Of course, from the dockers’ viewpoint, there will be a great deal of selfinterest in accepting this advice. The dockers will be interested in recouping the wages they lost during the strike, and there is more than a touch of irony in the fact that to do this they will use the avenue that the stevedores’ union has closed to its own members since last January. With ships queued up for discharge and loading, there will be an abundance of overtime

offering—and wages at high rates. But when the excitement of the moment has worn off, and as the dockers work long hours to make up their lost wages, they may have reason to reflect wryly on their “glorious victory”.. Unhappily, the loss the strike has caused to the British economy will not be made up so conveniently or so easily. The immediate impact on the British public was not great; the strike leaders probably deemed it expedient to end the strike before shortages of food and materials caused deprivations and unemployment that would marshal trade union opinion solidly against them. But the delayed impact of the strike will be considerable upon the economy of Britain ’ and of other countries; shipping schedules cannot be grossly disrupted without serious effects. It is deplorable, of course, that a strike which grew to damaging proportions from a trivial pretext will cause harm to persons who were innocent of the causes and quite unable to influence the course of events. They will hope that responsible leadership will be able to reassert itself in the British docks, and will hope most sincerely that the terms of the settlement will not have damaged the prestige or prejudiced the prospects of the trade union leaders who believe in the virtues of arbitration and the need for sensible compromise.