Talks fail to end crippling strike by dockers

Press, 20 July 1984, Page 6

Talks fail to end crippling strike by dockers

NZPA-Reuter London Britain plunged further into industrial turmoil yesterday after talks failed to settle a marathon coal strike, and a related dock strike paralysed ports and brought chaos to crossChannel ferry services. Miners’ leaders and employers ended a round of peace talks with no accord in sight, dimming prospects of an early breakthrough in the dockers’ walk-out, which has led to a virtual blockade on freight at main harbours. Angry lorry-drivers marooned on both sides of the Channel by the clampdown on cargo movement meanwhile threatened to tighten their own grip on ports and paralyse tourist ferries. Truck-drivers from several countries, who have been stranded in France since Sunday, have blocked access to ferries and hovercraft at Calais in a bid to force a settlement of the port dispute. The dockers’ action, sparked by the use of noncontract labour to move iron ore to a steelworks picketed by miners, is widely seen as a sympathy strike in support of the miners’ campaign against planned pit closings and widespread job cuts. In spite of 13 hours of talks with the State-run Coal Board, the militant miners’ chief, Arthur Scargill, said yesterday that there was no agreement and the 19-week-old strike would continue. Before the talks, the seventh and longest round so far, both sides had pledged they would not nudge from their entrenched positions. The chairman of the Coal Board, Mr lan MacGregor, said afterwards that he had made no concessions. No date had been set for more talks. The chances of ending the 10-day-old stranglehold on the nation’s 61 ports rose slightly when dockers emerged guardedly optimistic

from fresh talks with port employers. “I think we made progress,” said Mr Jim Connolly, the president of the Dockers’ Union. Cautious employers said a settlement was still far off. Late yesterday convoys of lorries stranded outside Dover, England’s busiest ferry outlet to France and Belgium, were allowed to move to the port area under heavy police supervision. More than 180 drivers, most non-British, had threatened to break through police barriers and blockade the port entrance. There were no plans to let them board the waiting ferries. At Calais, foot passengers were let through the juggernauts’ lines but cars were stopped from boarding or leaving vessels. A French union representative, vowed yesterday to close all remaining French Channel ports during the night. “The outlook is grim,” said Mr Andre Soler, of the Truckers’ Federation. “We’ll be asking our members to block all French Channel ports.” He was speaking on his return from Dover after a drivers’ delegation had talked with dockers and harbour officials. An English driver who was at the talks said the dockers had promised to try to resolve the dispute by today, but in the meantime the truckers’ blockade would continue. Another Briton commented, “The last thing we want to do is to cause headaches for holidaymakers. “But unless we do something like this, nobody will take any . notice of us and we could be stranded here for weeks.” Officials of the three main carriers — Sealink, Townsend Thoresen, and Hovercraft — said services had continued yesterday out of Boulogne but they were pessimistic about prospects for today.

Dover port authorities said all freight services to the continent were paralysed, but passenger ferries to French and Belgian ports were running, “if somewhat haphazardly.” In the Belgian port of Ostend, lorry-drivers called off a blockade yesterday after being told that an agreement had been reached between Dover dockers and drivers. Officials in England said they knew of no agreement. The Conservative Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, already confronted by economic problems and discontent in her own political ranks, received a fresh set-back yesterday with the publication of an opinion poll placing her behind the Opposition Labour Party, which usually lags in voter surveys. The Gallup poll, published in the pro-Conservative “Daily Telegraph,” newspaper put support for the Government at 37.5 per cent and at 38.5 per cent for Labour, with 55 per cent of those polled dissatisfied with Mrs Thatcher’s handling of her biggest industrial challenge yet. Mr Scargill has been over-ruled by a High Court justice who declared that a new disciplinary code adopted by the union was "void and of no effect.” • Justice Sir Robert Megarry, ruled in favour of 17 non-striking miners who had asked the Court to rule the code illegal. They said it could be used to deprive them of union membership and thus their livelihoods. The 17 miners were all from the Nottingham area, where there has been open defiance of Mr Scargill’s call for a stoppage throughout the coal industry. Union officials said in advance of the Court hearing that they would ignore any legal strictures and strick to the new rules which effectively threaten non-strikers with loss of union membersnip.