Liverpool rejects

[wdrb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Mersey dockers **unanimously** reject offer.

In a stormy two and a half hour meeting 400 dockers rejected the joint pleas
of T&GWU officials and church leaders and **unanimously** threw out a "final
offer" from the Mersey Docks & Harbour Company. In the offer, MD&HC agreed
to re-employ 40 of the 500 sacked men and pay 20-25,000 pounds each as
severance pay to the rest.

In a separate deal for the 80 former Torside employees, whose sacking
provoked the original dispute, one third would be re-employed by a re-formed
Torside company and the rest given 1,000 pounds each.
The offer will now go to a secret ballot, but Mersey Port Shop Stewards, who
called for the rejection, are predicting that the result of the ballot will
be the same as the mass meeting. Speaker after speaker from the dockers
rejected the deal, reminding each other that they had not fought for money,
but for solidarity and secure jobs for themselves and their children. The
overall feeling was summarized by Doreen McNally, who chairs the support
group, Women of the Waterfront: "The whole world's eyes are on these men.
Every working man and woman in this country is affected, because they all
face short term contracts and loss of rights. The dockers' wives are one
hundred per cent behind their husbands in continuing this fight for jobs and
rights."

The dockers are still demanding the re-instatement of all sacked men from
both companies.

MD&HC acknowledged that the offer would cost 7-8 million pounds, but
admitted that the international support action of dockers throughout the
world for the Liverpool men had itself so far cost them 4 million pounds
plus an additional loss by Euro-link of 3.3 million pounds.
In a clear indication of the company fears provoked by the threat of
withdrawal from the port by ACL, the largest user, following solidarity
action by US east coast longshoremen, the whole deal was made conditional on
ACL continuing to use the port.

The dockers are now planning to revisit all the ports throughout the world
that have supported them so magnificently and ask for their continued
support. They are angry at what they see as an attempt to undermine this
action by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), who issued a
statement saying:

"Not withstanding the mood of many of our affiliates, we wish to stress the
need for an effective co-ordination in order to prevent any damage to the
case of the Liverpool dockers. Effective co-ordination requires the ITF's
affiliates to wait for a request from the ITF before supportive actions are
organised. **Do not start any action against any vessel known to be
loading/discharging cargoes to and from the port of Liverpool without
contacting the ITF secretariat!**"
The dockers believe this statement does not correspondence with the mood for
stepping up support action expressed by the majority of the more than 100
international delegates that attended an ITF meeting in London last week.


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