600 U.K. dockers defy strike call

Press, 28 August 1984, Page 6

600 U.K. dockers defy strike call

NZPA-Reuter London More than 600 dockers at two key British ports have defied their union’s call for a second national dock strike in six weeks and are likely to influence votes by other ports on the issue. The men at Immingham and Grimsby, in northeastern England, came out on Friday after a call for an immediate all-out stoppage by. Britain’s 26,000 dockers in support of striking coal miners, but went back after voting not to join the strike. “It’s nothing to do with us,” said one docker at Immingham, where last month a dispute over the State-owned British Steel Corporation’s use of nondockers to transfer cargo eclated into a ,12-day

national port strike which badly hit British trade. A patchy response to the strike call would be divisive and could lead to the sort of violence seen over the last few months on coal miners’ picket lines, when strikers have clashed with the police while seeking to dissuade men from working. Dockers’ leaders have made clear that they see themselves allied to the coal miners, who are in the twenty-fifth week of a strike against proposed pit closures and job cuts. The dock walkout began last Friday when British Steel unloaded 95,000 tonnes of imported coal destined for the big Scottish Ravenscraig Steelworks, starved of supplies by the miners’ dispute. The dockers’ union

refused to handle the coal and said British Steel was using “scab” labour. Scotland’s 12 main ports stopped work immediately, followed by a few in England, including London, Liverpool and Hull. In England and Wales 26 ports are still working, including Dover and Felixstowe, the country’s busiest container outlet. Some 25 Scottish ports are also still open. Individual dockers say they believe the strike, unlike last month’s stoppage which paralysed 61 ports, has nothing to do with a threat to their jobs. Ministers also see it as a political act, designed to boost the miners and embarrass Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Goveojment.