Dockers win dispute

Press, 23 September 1980, Page 8

Dockers win dispute

NZPA London Liverpool dockers have had meetings to hear details of a peace formula which yesterday lifted the threat of a national docks strike. The strike, due to start yesterday, was called off when dockers’ delegates meeting in London unanimously accepted, the formula. The 90 delegates from ports all over the country were told that the employers side had agreed to find work for 178 Liverpool dockers at the heart of the dispute.

The 178 men had been told that they would be going on to a “temporary unattached register” from September 30 because there was no work for them and the employers could not afford to pay their full wages. Listing on the register would have sharply reduced the men’s pay. The unions said, this was in breach of an agreement worked out in 1972 after the last national dock strike, and they' threatened to stop work unless the employers backed down. The National Ports

Employers’ Association said that the 178 Liverpool dockers would be reallocated to other jobs by the local employers’ board by October 1, and agreed that the recommendations made in 1972 should be observed. Talks will continue between the two sides on the future of ancillary workers in Liverpool, whose jobs were also threatened. The employers talked about increasing severance payments but the unions insisted they were only interested in preserving jobs.