Dear Colleagues,
On Friday 20th December, a full mass meeting of all sacked Liverpool dockworkers overwhelmingly rejected the "final offer" from Mersey Docks and Harbour Company. Liverpool dockworkers had spent all week studying the written offer which had been issued after 6 hours of talks on Monday 16th December.
Mersey Docks had refused to enter into the call for free and unfettered negotiations. Instead, they stuck to the old formula of the failed offers of the past and produced a rigid, non-negotiable document that gives no hope of ever achieving dockers' jobs back in the Port of Liverpool. The package that they put forward includes an offer of a possible 40 ancillary jobs or a redundancy payment of £28,000 for the 329 dockers who used to work directly for the MDHC.
The young Torside workers whose unfair sackings started the dispute in September 1995 were offered nothing at all. The employers believe that they should just walk away from the fight and accept total defeat.
The offer not only undermines the Liverpool dockworkers fight for justice but undermines the whole of the International Dockers' Movement that has been built up. If the Port employers in Liverpool are successful in defeating us, their blueprint for destroying organised labour will be passed on to ports around the world.
For this reason, we appeal to all dockworkers in all ports to join an international blockade of Liverpool cargo and of shipping lines using the scab port of Liverpool - particularly ACL, CAST, CanMar, Zim, Gracechurch, and Andrew Weir Shipping, Morline/Baltic and Lazerline.
The International Transportworkers Federation (ITF) has endorsed our call for a Day of Action on 20th January, and we would ask all unions organising dockworkers to join the boycott.
Please fax messages of support and pledges of industrial action to Liverpool dockworkers at (+44) 151 207 0696, and copy them by e-mail to LabourNet via chrisbailey@gn.apc.org
Yours in Solidarity,
Jim Nolan
Chairman
Merseyside Port Shop Stewards
