Liverpool Dockers Reject ‘final’ Offer

By Robert Taylor, Financial Times, 21 December 1996

Liverpool's 329 dismissed dockers rejected a final offer at a mass meeting yesterday to end their 15-month dispute with Mersey Docks and Harbour Company.

They said they intended to remain in dispute until they are reinstated in their old jobs. The company had offered severance pay of z28,000 per worker and a chance to apply for 40 vacancies at the docks. But Mr Jimmy Nolan, the shop stewards' chairman, said they were not interested in any figure because their objective was to have their old jobs back.

The company said it was disappointed the dockers had not been given the chance to decide on the offer through a secret ballot. Calls we have received indicate that even in the intimidatory environment of a show of hands at a mass meeting, far more people voted in favour of the offer than the leaders conceded, it said.

The company hopes the TGWU general union will hold a secret ballot on the offer that expires on December 31. If the offer is then rejected, sadly, the file will be closed once and for all and no further offers of any kind will be made.