Dockside Obduracy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31190, 14 October 1966, Page 14

Dockside Obduracy

The British Minister of Labour, Mr Gunter, in rejecting Lord Devlin’s recommendation that peace in the main British ports should be bought by the granting of an inflationary wage rise, has reinforced the principle underlined in the Government’s wagefreeze policy—that wage improvement in future must result chiefly from an increase in productivity. The dockers have been seeking a change from casual to regular employment, with improved sick pay and pensions. They have also sought substantial pay rises, not by way of bonus, as the employers prefer, but through a higher hourly rate. One estimate is that their demands would represent a rise of 38 per cent above the 6 per cent lift involved in “ decasualisation ” and sick and pension benefits. This, in effect, would be their price for consenting to modernisation at the ports and the abandonment of restrictive practices which are a major cause of the slow turn-round of shipping.

Lord Devlin, called in last April to resolve the employer-union deadlock on the method of payment under a system of regular employment, chose what the “ Economist ” called “ the soft way out ”, He recommended an immediate 16 per cent wage increase —the 6 per cent referred to plus 10 per cent offered by the employers—on the assumption that the union would accept shift work and mechanisation, thus easing loading costs and accelerating cargo handling. The union leaders, who obviously proposed to use the 16 per cent offer merely as a basis for further bargaining, rejected Lord Devlin’s proposals. To their surprise—and to the relief of others—the Minister uncompromisingly made it clear that promises of improvement on the waterfront were not to be bought at the cost of another inflationary award. A new award, in Mr Gunter’s view, must result from, not precede, a firm undertaking to end restrictive practices.

It was recalled during discussion that six years ago on the Pacific coast of the United States the unionists accepted a substantial wage rise in return for greater efficiency at the ports, and that peace had since prevailed, with higher wages and profits and lower shipping costs. Lord Devlin thought that that example could be followed in Britain. There is, however, little to support this view in the history of union intransigence. The unions have refused to abandon the restrictive rule-book on other than selfishly lucrative terms, in spite of experience at smaller ports where modern handling equipment is worked round the clock and the "dockers are able to take home regular pay packets of up to £3O a week. What the National Docks Modernisation Committee has been seeking to impress on the dockers is that, because of the faster working in shifts, handling costs at such ports—Grangemouth and Felixstowe among them—are as much as 40 per cent lower than in London. If dockers at London and elsewhere are unwilling to accept shift work with mechanisation, the question of wage improvement should scarcely even arise. Their obduracy not only delays port modernisation where it is most needed—London alone handles a third of Britain’s seaborne trade—but also affects shippers in other countries, New Zealand among them, where shipping costs are inevitably kept at a high level.