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ADDITIONAL CONCESSIONS
It remains to examine the additional concessions gained by the J-A Committee during the 3 weeks of the strike. Because the dockers had asked for more tangible guarantees of container jobs and action on unregistered ports than the promises of persuasion and inquiry given by the interim report, the Committee actually approached container employers and started persuading. It was able to give definite promise of 200 jobs. Certain companies, notably Midland Cold Storage, remained unconvinced. However, Lord Aldington, this time in his capacity as PLA chairman, strongly hinted that if Midland proved uncooperative, they could be 'municipalised' by the PLA. The schemes of persuasion were spelled out more concisely by the Committee: e.g. "Directly approach each company and business carrying on groupage container work in the neighbourhood of the port, with a view to obtaining an agreement either: (i) to give preference to the recruitment of registered dock workers, whether directly employed or on contract from a licensed employer; or (ii) to define the area of work which that company or business will transfer to the Port Authority or to some licensed port employer, for the employment of registered dock workers." (FT, 17.8.72, p.l5).
The Committee also decided that agreed, standardised working conditions were necessary, "which were there defined as the high standards prevailing on the port authorities' own facilities and the container bases. The committee accepts that one appropriate procedure would be that groupage containers should only be handled in the ports on normal charges if received from or supplied to groupage operators who observe proper conditions of working." (ibid). This is undoubtedly an additional way of giving the Committee's persuasion teeth. It amounts to official, above-the-board blacking of firms by the employers and unions of firms which do not work to the same standards as the ports - presumably including wages. It is these groupage employers who the Committee will attempt to get to hire registered dockers.
In addition, though the Committee itself was unable to give any more assurance about unregistered ports, the Minister for Transport Industries, John Peyton, announced that he had asked the National Ports Council to carry out an immediate inquiry into the operations of the unregistered ports and wharves to report by October. The reason the Minister gave: "In a letter to Mr. Philip Chappell, chairman of the NPC, Mr. Peyton says: 'It has been suggested that the growth of small ports and wharves is attracting traffic away from the larger ports, damaging their finances and diminishing the opportunities of employment in them.' He points out that this is a matter which affects port capacity and efficiency, with which the NPC in closely concerned ..." (ibid). The state has acknowledged its responsibility to protect the registered ports as it is 'in the national interest' they should be maintained. The inquiry will try to strike a balance between the economic usefulness of the unregistered ports both to shipowners and as a spur to modernisation to the registered ports (again under capitalism, competition through the market acts to force changes and development in the productive forces and until this can be done directly and consciously by the producers competition will be necessary) and the political necessity of continuing to maintain the registered ports.