Sacked workers fight on

About 60 people demonstrated at Dover's Eastern Docks

Ferry workers sacked in a dispute over working practices 15 years ago have held a demonstration in Dover to protest at their treatment.

The former P&O employees say they still have not been given compensation after they claim they were laid off unfairly in 1988.

A spokesman for the campaigners said 60 people demonstrated at the port's Eastern Docks on Saturday.

About 2,000 P&O Ferries workers were dismissed in 1988 for refusing to sign new contracts in a dispute over working practices and safety.

We are not going to give up, we are not going to go away Steve Stevenson, campaigner

Their campaign was backed earlier this year by Dover's Labour MP Gwyn Prosser and 40 other MPs.

Campaign spokesman Steve Stevenson said he was disappointed John Prescott had refused to meet a delegation of former ferry workers.

He said: "We just want recognition that we were right and a bit of compensation for what happened.

"I was with P&O for 11 or 12 years and some other people had been there 20 years and got nothing out of it, just stood up for principle.

'Let down'

"I think at the end of the day, people just feel they've been let down, not only by P&O at the start but by the unions and even the government now, with John Prescott.

"We are not going to give up, we are not going to go away."

The ferry workers, based in Dover, began their protest in 1988 when they felt new contracts they were asked to sign compromised their safety - just months after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.

Their strike continued into 1989 and after 14 months they were sacked.

P&O maintained at the time it was just modernising working practices.

The firm says now that the sackings are consigned to the past.