Liverpool docker Terry Southers reports from Japan that a dockers delegation has just visited the British Embassy in Tokyo, where they were given sympathetic reception but told that "you must understand that it would be difficult for the Government to solve the problem of Liverpool".

The delegation also visited the offices of O.O.C.L. and Sanko shipping, demanding a world wide boycott of Liverpool and Sheerness, including Slot Sharing Schemes with CAST, CanMar, and ACL. When OOCL denied any connection with the Port of Liverpool, Terry Southers and fellow Liverpool steward Bob Ritchie pointed out the links with shipping companies CAST, ACL, and CanMar who call in Liverpool. The entire delegation told OOCL that unless they instructed CAST, ACL, and CanMar to stop using Liverpool, Sheerness and Thamesport, they would be hit by solidarity actions in the Japanese ports.

During their conference on 4-5 September, Zenkoku Kowan (National Federation of Dock Unions) passed the following resolution:

Considering that five hundred (500) Liverpool dockworkers have been out on the streets for twenty three months;

Considering that the aims of the strategies adopted by the Liverpool employers are the destruction and the pure and simple elimination of our brothers in Liverpool;

Considering that, all around the world, the same employer strategies are used to bring about the complete annihilation of the dockworking profession;

The delegates attending the Zenkoku Kowan Conference agree the following plan of action:

A work stoppage movement organised in series and relays, in accordance with the itineraries and destinations of the vessels of the shipping companies (Pan Ocean, OOCL, Sanko Shipping) will be implemented immediately after the International Day of Action, if the Liverpool dockworkers are not reinstated in their jobs.

Efforts will be intensified by all means possible to lobby the British Government to bring a just resolve to the Liverpool dispute.

Efforts will be intensified to convince the I.T.F. and all other trade union organisations to bring power to bear in bringing a just resolve to this dispute.

Conference agrees to maximise fund raising efforts, to alleviate the hardship being endured by the Liverpool dockworkers and their families.

If we do not react quickly, we will see the defeat and the death of our Liverpool colleagues' fight, the death of dockworkers' internationalism and consequently the irreversible process of privatisation and deregulation which in turn will affect dockworkers the world over.