Report by LabourNet
For the first time since they were dismissed for refusing to cross a picket line, sacked Liverpool dockers have had the pleasure of sitting down with their former employer.
In a four and a half hour face-to-face meeting, five dockers joined the T&GWU delegation confronting Bernard Cliff on 6 March. The talks were adjourned and the dispute is full steam ahead.
Until now, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company has negotiated with national union officials but refused to meet dock stewards. But February made them shiver as the company's “final offer” was binned by a 5-1 postal ballot and dockers from 16 countries converged on Liverpool to pledge a world wide boycott.
John Bowers of the International Longshoremen's Association let the MDHC know that transatlantic shipping line ACL would pull out of the port if the company declined to meet the dockers. It was the US East Coast longshoremen who ignited International solidarity in December by individually refusing to cross a picket fine mounted by Liverpool men in Newark, New Jersey.
MDHC directors may also have noticed that their shareholders AGM is just a few weeks away.
All of a sudden Mr. Cliff was dispatched to a Warrington hotel room to face Jimmy Nolan, Jimmy Davies, Frank Lanaghan, Bobby Morton, and Mike Carden along with T&GWU Ass't Gen. Sec. Jack Adams, Docks National Officer, John Connolly, and Region 6 Secretary Dave McCall.
His hands shaking as he declined to meet the stewards' gaze, Cliff looked as though 6 months on strike and a good dose of Egon Ronnie's picket scran would do him the world of good.
The talks focused on reinstatement, voluntary severance, pensions, and the future employment of the men who “replaced" 500 sacked dockers.
Cliff insisted that "even if" Drake International and PDP - an MDHC subsidiary which has shipped in men from the Medway - were removed, there would still be less than 200 Jobs available. The men sacked at Torside and Norse Irlsh are "nothing to do with" the dock company. Meanwhile, the Port of Liverpool is said to be "booming".
The company want men to volunteer for severance now, after which an offer would be made to employ some of the remainder.
Citing Rule 10e of the pension scheme, Cliff claimed that sacked dockers would lose their pension entitlement after 6 months out of work, making 28 March the deadline for a settlement
On casualisatlon, Cliff made the revealing comment that if we forget about the last 6 months Mersey Docks has never employed casual labour! And while the company would employ some sacked dockers in peripheral areas, the men recruited by Drakes and PDP would remain in Seaforth Container Terminal. On that note, the T&GWU delegation called for an adjournment.
The dockers' position is crystal clear: full reinstatement for all workers sacked in this dispute followed by voluntary severance for those who wish it, with permanent employment by the MDHC not contractors. Pension entitlement to be retained. And Drakes, PDP, and all the scabs recruited since 28 September must go.
