Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 21:23:41 +0200
To: marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu,
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-G: Casual Labour


This is from LabourNet:

(http://www.labournet.org.uk)

__________________________________________

Casual Labour
Exclusive LabourNet report by Greg Dropkin

Documents from inside the Port of Liverpool reveal the web of employment
agencies supplying scab labour behind picket lines. With the accident rate
shooting up, Mersey Docks faces prosecution by the Health and Safety
Executive.

"Eddie Gray" (not his real name) is 18 and lives near Anfield in
Liverpool's North End. On 11 March, he was recruited for a day's work and
eventually paid =A355 by the employment agency "Country Wide". He was told it
was a packing job. It turned out to be heaving 60 kg bags of cocoa beans
onto pallets in the hold of the "MV Rison" at the Langton Dock in the Port
of Liverpool. As he dragged and lifted sacks, a crane lowered a steel plate
into the ship's hold and lifted out the pallets full of cocoa. From time to
time, a crane hook or a 60 kg bag fell off en route. Inside the hold, lads
fell down the piles of cocoa sacks. There was no supervision. The normal
shift was 12 hours.

Like his workmates, Eddie had no training. He didn't get a helmet, high
visibility vest, overalls, or work boots. Eventually, after complaining
that the sacks were ripping his hands, he got a pair of gloves.

Meanwhile, a team of Customs men scoured the ship, looking for drugs among
the cocoa sacks. Shocked by the "behaviour of the dock workers and in
particular their lack of attention to Health and Safety issues", they
approached the Supervisor on deck, who shrugged his shoulders. In a written
complaint to their own management, the Customs men detailed:

* hardly any workers wearing hard hats
* no workers wearing safety boots (some in fact wore trainers)
* hardly any workers wearing reflective jackets
* no evidence of 'manual handling' training having been applied
* horseplay involving workers on a ladder entering the 'hold'
* one worker dangling into the 'hold' having his hand stamped on
intentionally by a colleague
* one worker using his hook to scale a ladder out of the 'hold'
* a general lack of supervision
* a crane working overhead for the duration

The West Langton dock is operated by Sontrade, shipping and forwarding
agents 63.75% owned by SONAE Investimentos, the holding company for
Portugal's biggest banking, retail and industrial conglomerate. Work
formerly carried out by Liverpool dockers employed by Mersey Docks &
Harbour Company is now subcontracted to agencies, named by Eddie Gray as
Kirkby-based "Man & Machine", "Country Wide", and "Workforce".

Workforce Managing Director Eddie Davies says his agency was tricked into
supplying dock labour. "Workforce are a qualified company with 22 years in
the business and would never supply in an industrial dispute," he insists.
But the agency did supply Accountancy staff to Sontrade. On this occasion
Sontrade asked for "half a dozen labourers", and Workforce obliged for 2
days before pulling out "when we found out they were doing dock work".
Davies confirmed the Workforce labourers were not trained or given
induction as stevedores.

Country Wide said the agency had supplied labour for 1 day but withdrew "as
soon as we realised there was strike action". Asked if any training had
been provided and if this was the sole occasion on which Country Wide had
supplied labour to the port, they declined to comment.

Man & Machine Director Peter Main offered a terse "no comment whatsoever"
and declined to hear the allegations.

Sontrade Director Graham Robertson explained that it was company policy not
to discuss the business with journalists. "Our only dealings are with the
Mersey Docks & Harbour Co. and our employees".

But a sheaf of soaking and partly charred papers recovered over Easter and
now in the possession of shop stewards for the sacked men sheds further
light on Sontrade and the web of contractors operating in the Port of
Liverpool since September 1995.

One labour supply company, Warrington-based P.N.T., opened a Liverpool
office on 6th August while offering a "24 hour 7 day service" to supply
"contract labour when required" to no less than 5 companies, including
Sontrade, operating on both sides of the Mersey. A timesheet lists 22 men,
mainly working 12 hour shifts, whose weekly totals vary from 9 to 60 hours.

One such P.N.T. employee was S Coan. A handwritten note from Sontrade
confirms that on 29/30 July 1996 Coan worked 20.5 hours on the North Alex
Dock for Sontrade via another company, Henry Bath. P.N.T. then invoiced
Henry Bath at =A36.95 per hour.

By coincidence, Henry Bath and "Man & Machine (North West)" have the same
address: Acornfield Rd., Knowsley Industrial Estate, Liverpool L33 7UG. Two
Henry Bath directors, Kevin John Rhodes and Edward Paul Dablin, are also
directors of Man & Machine. Rhodes became Director and Company Sec. for
Henry Bath 10 weeks before the dockers were sacked, and joined Man &
Machine this February.

Another labour supply company "PDP Services Limited", based in the Canada
Dock, sent a model contract to Liverpool Freeport manager Frank Robotham.
It set conditions for service commencing "8th May 1996 and terminating when
the worker is unable to attend for any reason or when the contractor, with
the consent of the client determines". Pay would be "=A34 per hour, all
hours" but "there is no obligation on the contractor to provide the worker
with a guaranteed number of working hours in any day or week" and "there
will be periods when no work is available". In other words, PDP would
provide casual contract labour on demand.

Other PDP documents cite a rate of =A35.75 per hour charged to clients for
supplying a Fork Driver/Picker. A separate handwritten note observes that
with wages paid at =A33.50 per hour, the profit was =A32.25 per hour, or =A34680
per year per man.

Mersey Docks & Harbour Company, which has consistently denied employing
casual labour, was also supplied with men from P.N.T.. On 31 July 1996 the
P.N.T. director James Morgan wrote to Walter Scott of the MDHC, specifying
labour supply terms and confirming that "your 11 men will be on site at
0800 as requested". Mersey Docks was then billed =A31049.40 for 11 General
Operatives working 12 hour shifts at =A37.95 per hour on 1st August.

Morgan's letter states "All staff supplied will have completed a Mersey
Docks and Harbour Company induction and safety course". Walter Scott was
Operations Manager at the "Royal Seaforth Forest Products Terminal".

Three weeks later at this same berth, a major accident involving a P.N.T.
employee precipitated a joint investigation by the Health & Safety
Executive and MDHC. The HSE concluded that on 20th August "unloading and
moving copper cathode cargo (was) being conducted under the control of
Mersey Docks and Harbour Company during which operation a bundle of copper
cathodes fell causing injury to Perry Birch" who "suffered serious leg
injuries caused through an unsafe system of intermediate quayside storage
of copper cathodes".

At the time, a PNT spokesman Mr. Evaton Binns declined to discuss the
incident but stated "of course all employees are covered by an insurance
scheme," adding that he had been "legally told" not to give any information
on the company's size or origin. PNT is not registered with Companies
House. The Liverpool and Warrington phones are dead, and Mersey Docks say
the company left the Port of Liverpool "sometime last year".

While Mr. Birch lay in hospital with a broken leg, an almost identical
incident took place on 27th September just as sacked dockers entered their
2nd year in dispute. This time Albert Knowles, an employee of Drake Port
Services, the key agency which supplies labour to Seaforth Container
Terminal in the heart of the port, was run over by a stacker truck at 3:30
am as it picked up a bundle of copper cathodes. Knowles suffered a broken
ankle.

HSE proceedings against Mersey Docks under the Docks Regulations 1988 and
the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, arising from the August incident,
were due to be heard at Sefton Magistrate's Court on 15th April. In law,
Mersey Docks is responsible for the health and safety of its sub-contracted
employees. The Government has a 13.87% shareholding in MDHC.

A few days before the hearing, it was postponed to 7 May. After the
Election, it was adjourned at the request of Mersey Docks=ED solicitors to 9
July, and is currently scheduled for 16 July.

In March the Dept. of Enviroment replied to a written question from Bootle
MP Joe Benton, stating "The number of accidents recorded by the Health and
Safety Executive as occurring at the Royal Seaforth Container Terminal and
Royal Seaforth Forest Products Terminal in 1995-96 was one and in 1996-97
there were eight".

Mersey Docks' spokesman Eric Leatherbarrow states that "the Port of
Liverpool has a safety record among the highest in the UK ports industry,
as borne out by national statistics which show that standards rose in
1996."

"MDHC has never had casual labour, does not employ casual labour and do not
deal with subcontractors employing casual labour," he declared. But asked
if P.N.T. had employed casuals, Leatherbarrow replied "PNT was employed on
a temporary basis to enable the Dock Company to keep open jobs to offer to
the dismissed portworkers, over whom it was in negotiation with the
Transport union. The work therefore offered by P.N.T. was of a temporary
nature. However those jobs have now been permanently filled and P.N.T is no
longer employed in the Port of Liverpool."

"Supervision of operations at West Langton dock are the responsibility of
the operator (Sontrade). When the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company became
aware of the circumstances concerning the discharge of the "Rison" by a
small independent operator, it immediately had work stopped on the vessel,
until all aspects of statutory controls were fully complied with. All
operators are aware that it is an absolute requirement that all cargo
handling operations are undertaken by appropriately trained, certificated
and physically qualified people, provided with the necessary equipment to
ensure their safety at work."

Eddie Gray quit his job on the second day. "I was going past in a taxi and
they was saying 'scabs, scabs'. I just went 'fuckin hell', I just got out
of the cab and walked up and said 'Is this your jobs that I'm taking here?'
They said 'yeah, it's all our jobs off the Rison'.

"They told me it's better to keep your pride than to cross a picket line
and take a man's job who's got mouths to feed, he's not no little punk
coming in taking a job for a quick buck and that. No sign of a pension, no
sign of security is it?

"The dockers are like everyone else, everyone human, getting treated like
shit in this fucking country, getting used and abused. They don't really
care about you in the docks, it's money, isn't it, profit, they don't
really care about the families and that."

"If I knew what the job was before, I wouldn't have went. I wouldn't have
went."

(ENDS)




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