THE EMPLOYERS OF PORT LABOUR There are 54,000 port workers in the country, of which 47,000 will be involved in the strike.
WHO EMPLOYS THEM? (i) 14,650 are employed by Port Authorities such as the Port of London Authority, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and the British Transport Docks Board, the latter being a nationalised concern which owns the port installations in Hull, Southampton, Grimsby, Goole, the S. Wales ports, etc. (ii) The rest are employed by a mixed group of licensed private port employers, sometimes called stevedores. Amongst these the biggest are shipowning firms, as well as specialist stevedoring companies.
Amongst the ship-owners which are big employers of dock labour, Furness Withy, ranks among the biggest, It makes an annual profit of £4,5000,000, and its distributed gross dividend is of the order of E1 million. The employers are always telling dockers that they must work harder in order to compete for trade with other ports. In fact, a firm like Furness Withy owns subsidiaries which employ dockers in at major ports..
In London, Furness Withy owns or has an interest in: a) Metropolitan Terminals, atong with Blaer Dempster Palm Line Sea Lion Investment(subsidiary of British and Commonwealth Shipping) b) Southern Stevedores along with London and Southampton Stevedoring Co (A British & Commonwealth subsidiary)
Ocean Steamship Co., c)Thames Stevedoring, along with Fred'k Leyland.
In Liverpool, Furness Withy owns or has an interest in:
a) Port of Liverpool Stevedoring Co., along with ser Lion nvestment b) Ocean Port Services, along with Palm Line Booker Bros d) Cargo Operations(Liverpool) along with Royal Mail (itself a subsidiary of Furness Withy) McGregor & Holland (subsidiary of Ocean Steamship) In Hull, Furness and Withy owns or has an interst in: a) Cargo Operations(Hull), along with Royal Mail, McGregor, Gow and Holland.
This is a typical example of the inter-locking of a major shipping company with stevedoring (port employer) interests in the major ports. A similar tale could be told about the P&O Steam Navigation Co., British and Commonwealth Shipping, Howder cutes. ec.
The P&O Company itself owns General Steam Navigation Co., North Sea Ferries, Moss Hutchinson Line and twenty-five other SUPPORT DOCKERS! KIDDERMINSTER:Nigel Brown way, Kidderminster, Wores. *LANARK: (same address as Har LEICESTER: Alan Lenton, 19 G Leicester.
LINCOLN: Mike Smith, Flat 7, 2 o'Cliff Hill, Lincoln. *NORTH LONDON: Teresa Hay Pentonville Road, London N.1 *SOUTH LONDON: Jim Clough