From the archives: Unloading of food ships, 18 April, 1947

WHILE additional troops, assisted by a contingent of airmen, were unloading cargoes of foodstuffs from four ships at Glasgow Harbour yesterday, over 1000 dockers at a meeting in St Andrew’s Hall reaffirmed continued strike action and opposition to the redundancy cut of 500 men in the dock labour force.

The strikers further agreed to make another approach, through the local conciliation officer of the Ministry of Labour, for an impartial inquiry. Mr Michael Byrne, general secretary of the Scottish Transport and General Workers’ Union, said they were asking the Minister of Labour to lay aside political philosophy for a while and put practical men to work in order to get practical results. They would ask the Trade Union movement to do something about the employment of troops, and they had already been in touch with the Glasgow Trades Council and the Scottish TUC on the matter.

• archive.scotsman.com