Liverpool dockers on the road to victory!
International solidarity with sacked dockers has caused Liverpool port's main customer to shift all its traffic
Stop press elsewhere. SHARES IN THE MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR Company (MD&HC) fell 49 pence in the first hour of trading after the latest news broke. Their key customer, Atlantic Container Line, would withdraw from the Port of Liverpool on Saturday June 22nd! Their decision is a direct result of the international solidarity which has characterised this nine month old dispute, which started when 500 dockers were sacked for refusing to cross a picket line called to defend working conditions. ACL, which links European ports to the North American coast, will now call at Thamesport.
The move follows the rejection of the dock company's latest, "final" offer of 60 jobs, possibly rising to a 100, with redundancy payments of 25,000 pounds for the majority of the 329 men formerly directly employed by MD&HC. The written offer excluded any provisions for the 80 Torside men whose original sacking provoked the dispute.
At a jubilant mass meeting on Friday 21 June, dockers continued their demand for full reinstatement and vowed to target the Canadian shipping lines, CanMar and Cast, which compete with ACL. Andrew Weir Shipping is another likely casualty, its vessels already suffering a near-total boycott of Liverpool trade in Portugal plus go-slows in Italy and Greece. In mid-April, the line told International Freight Weekly it would consider leaving Liverpool. Two weeks later, an internal company memo warned the "Master of the City of Manchester" that in view of escalating damage to Andrew Weir containers whilst in the care of MD&HC, any such damage should be notified to Andrew Weir "immediately and not at the completion of operations".
AL's departure has been predicted for six months, but only materialised after industrial action escalated in Sweden and in Liverpool.
Last December, rank-and-file members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) on the US East Coast refused to cross a picket line set up in a Newark blizzard by three Liverpool dockers, delaying an ACL vessel for four days. The shipping line sought an injunction to force longshoremen back to 36 International Viewpoint work, but then threatened to leave Liverpool if the dispute was not resolved by 15 January. A series of such deadlines came and went while Mersey Docks tried using the US courts against its own former shop stewards, and then threatened legal action against the ILA for loss of revenue, should ACL leave Liverpool.
More recently, Swedish dockers imposed a 12-hour go-slow on all ACL boats in Gothenburg. In Stockholm, most members of the Dockers Union donate one hour's salary every week to a Liverpool strike fund. "The response of the lads is tremendous," reports Björn Bjord, National Secretary of the union.
On June 6th, Sweden's second largest daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, published a two page article on the Liverpool strike, placed next to the sports pages, so as to reach as many working class readers as possible. "Sports and jobs are just the same" said dockers Ronnie Bibby and Peter Atkinsson. "Only by sticking together is it possible to win fights like this."
In the last two weeks, Liverpool tug crews have refused to cross dockers' picket lines. ACL took the risk of navigating under their own steam. A CanMar ship attempted the same, but dropped anchor in the Mersey after drifting towards a sandbank. Other boats suffered 12-hour delays.
By mid-June, ACL had had enough. But the Bishop of Liverpool was appealing through the media for dockers to reconsider the redundancy package. He even faxed US dockers' leader John Bowers, the ILA President, asking his intentions. In view of his public concern with unemployment and its social consequences, the Bishop's intervention in favour of their redundancy has led dockers to wonder who gave him the ILA fax number.
Mersey Docks' stance is fluctuating rapidly. Port operations director Bernard Cliff, who has led the dispute in public, told BBC local radio the company had the resources to deal with the loss of trade. But in another radio interview, the Chairman of Liverpool Ship Owners and Port Users" Association, Terry Malone, called on other customers to "hold the line and keep faith in the dock company, an indication of just how much is at stake. Bernard Cliff told the Liverpool Echo that "the impact could run in many hundreds of jobs, possibly a thousand, not in Mersey Docks alone but in supporting industries such as haulage firms, shipping agents and the like. There is no doubt the decision will have serious job implications."
The propaganda war now seeks to blame dockers for potential job losses amongst other port employees who have chosen to continue working alongside the scabs.
But the job implications of ACE's move depend on how long the shipping line stays away, and there is no evidence that ACL has made anything more than a temporary arrangement. As a small East Coast port Thamesport can't conceivably rival Liverpool for size or location. Their own managing director, Robin MacLeod, told the Echo: "ACL has had good service in Liverpool and has been a very major customer there. They would be silly to rush away, but if it become impossible they may have no choice." Furthermore, the port authority at Thamesport is Medway Ports Ltd, 100% owned by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company!
Meanwhile, the international pressure on the port of Liverpool increased with the arrival of an IT inspector with a mandate to prevent shipping lines from using seafarers to perform dock work. Sacked dockers are convinced that crews on the North Irish ferry service between Liverpool and Belfast have been lashing and unlashing containers on the boat deck. Mr Brian Allen immediately obtained a promise from the Dutch owners Wagenborg that they would instruct crews not to perform dockers' work. Over the next weeks the ITF inspector will target all shipping arriving in the port. * Source: LabourNet in London and Peter Lindgren in Stockholm * MPSSC, c/o TGWU, Transport House, Islington, Liverpool, L3 8EQ, © +44 151 207 3388 fax 298 1044 The Mersey dockers' World Wide Web page including their newspaper, Dockers Charter is on the Internet at http://www.gn.apc.org/labournet/docks