Liverpool MPs Bob Perry and Eddie Loydon with delegation presenting petition at 10 Downing Street.
To add to the prime minister's other worries, representatives of Women of the Waterfront went to No. 10 on Tuesday January 9 and handed him a petition, which called for "the immediate reinstatement of the 500 sacked Liverpool dock- ers'' and condemned the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company as "a callous, uncaring and bad employer''.
A LETTER from KW of Bootle, published in the Liverpool Echo on 18 December under the heading `Dock Puzzle' asks:
`. . . if the dockers claim to have so much support in their action why is there not one other dockworker in the country out on strike in support of them?'
Fair question. Frances James answered on behalf of `Women of the Waterfront':
`. . . Liverpool is the only port in this country with a permanent unionised labour force.
`The vast majority of docks in other parts of the country are run on casual labour, many of whom took severance pay in 1989. Their support has not been sought as it would be of little use to Liverpool dockers in their struggle against casual labour in the port of Liverpool.
`Our husbands' and partners' campaign has been so successful because the support they have sought at all levels of our society has been achieved because, quite simply, they are seen to be right and the employer wrong.'
back to Dockers Charter #3
WOW
