Deputy General Secretary Jack Adams, National Docks Officer Graham Stevenson and Regional Secretary Dave McCall joined Merseyside Port Shop Stewards Chairman Jimmy Nolan and local Church spokesman Randall Moll, to present the media with a "A Proposal to supply Dock Labour in the Port of Liverpool".
The 5 page document, drafted by Stevenson and Adams last week and backed by the dock stewards, presents an initial statement of principle and questions for consideration by Mersey Docks. It invites the company to join the union to "realistically assess their mutual interest - and that of the whole community of Merseyside - in achieving a negotiated settlement".
The TGWU explains that the dockers' repeated call for "reinstatement" is no longer to be interpreted as reinstatement by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company who insist on contracting out all dock labour. "The TGWU - and its shop stewards - and its members - seek a job for those who wish it and a voluntary retirement package for those who wish it... We believe the only way to achieve this is by a two-fold strategy which (a) establishes a new labour supplier which has the consensus support of the Merseyside community, which can also be secure in the knowledge that b) a Ports Minimum Standards Agreement exists for all stevedoring operations."
The new supplier is variously described as a "labour supply device, company, Employee Share Ownership Plan, co-operative, or consortium which could adequately provide permanent work". While "Articles of Association, a detailed Business Plan, Marketing Strategy, Skill Profile, and best Employment policy" are still being developed and remain subject to "business confidentiality", the objectives are "non-profit making, so as to create the maximum number of jobs consistent with business efficiency".
Inviting Mersey Docks to work with the TGWU, the union asks:
TGWU National Docks Officer Graham Stevenson, who took up his post last Autumn and has played a key role in recent TGWU liaison with the International Transportworkers Federation, led the media presentation. He saw "no obstacles to resolving the dispute" provided Mersey Docks accept the "open, pragmatic and flexible" proposals aimed at providing "a reasonable number of decent dockers' jobs, with reasonable pay and reasonable conditions".
Regarding Drake International, Stevenson cited the proposed "minimum standards agreement" and described Drake as "MDHC's problem, not ours". Asked whether "Drake's workforce must go?" Stevenson replied "We haven't said that at all". He described as "hypothetical" the question of whether the proposed Labour Supply Unit could work alongside Drake, insisting Mersey Docks must reply to the union's questions before any detailed negotiations begin.
TGWU Deputy General Secretary Jack Adams declared that while the union retained the option of holding a secret ballot, the "ultimate offer" tabled by MDHC in December did not provide sufficient jobs to justify re-balloting. In February last year, dockers rejected a similar offer by a 5-1 majority. "We must overcome the jobs issue and until then, there is no point to an imposed ballot," Adams stated.
Randall Moll stressed that the Church could not replace the dockers or union leaders in negotiation with Mersey Docks. Instead, it was properly concerned with the hardship suffered by families, job prospects, and the possibility of a partnership as shown in the document which had "more potential than ever" to resolve the dispute. In February '96, Moll urged men to vote for the company offer after considering it in the privacy of their own homes.
Last Friday, stewards told the dockers' mass meeting the Labour Supply Unit proposals were aimed at drawing on the West Coast US experience of "hiring halls" and achieving international parity on pay and conditions. All contract labour must be removed from the port and there is no intention of establishing a co-op competing with contractors, stewards insisted. Mike Carden welcomed the extensive criticism the proposals have received, describing the stewards as "learning, in a dangerous situation". Replying to a question on continuity of pensions, stewards' Chairman Jimmy Nolan explained that Mersey Docks would be offered a 51% share in the Labour Supply Unit; should they decline, pensions would be transferred to the new company. The joint ownership concept, cited in "Morning Star" articles (25 Jan, 10 Feb) is denied by other stewards and absent from the TGWU document.
A copy of the proposals was sent to International Longshoremen's Association President John Bowers who spoke to ACL Executive Conrad De Zego last week urging the shipping line to use its influence on Mersey Docks. Bowers told the stewards' Secretary Jimmy Davies that Mersey Docks' injunction, lodged against the ILA President last year after rank and file ILA men honoured a Liverpool picket, has now been lifted and members participated in the international solidarity action on 20th January with stoppages affecting ACL in Newark, Baltimore, and Norfolk.
LabourNet Report by Greg Dropkin
Labournet invites readers, particularly dockers, to comment on the Labour Supply Unit. For example, what concrete experience do dockers have of such proposals? Is the approach outlined by the TGWU actually similar to hiring halls, whether on the US West Coast or elsewhere? If an L.S.U. is created without the removal of all other employers, what problems would be faced by sacked dockers investing their severance pay or by stewards taking up, or declining to take up, management roles in the new company? What if the L.S.U. is the sole employer? Do the TGWU and Mersey Docks have a mutual interest? Should they?
