DUTCH PORT EMPLOYERS RESUME LAY-OFF PLANS

  Employers in Rotterdam's troubled
  general cargo sector have decided to restart stalled redundancy
  procedures within a week, employers' organisation labour
  relations manager Gerard Zeebregts told Reuters.
      Port and transport union spokesman Bert Duim said the
  employers' decision would not lead to the immediate resumption
  of eight weeks of strikes in the sector.
      The strike action was called off on Friday after an interim
  court injunction against the employers' plans for 350
  redundancies this year.
      A court in Amsterdam ruled last week the employers had made
  an error in the complicated procedure for obtaining permission
  for the redundancies and therefore could not proceed until a
  final ruling on May 7.
      Zeebregts said the initiation of new procedure might well
  take up to two months, but the employers were not prepared
  simply to sit and wait for the May 7 court ruling with the
  chance they would have to start all over again in any case.
      "We cannot afford not to continue with our plans. The
  strikes have already cost a lot of money and damaged business,
  and further delays would do even more damage," Zeebregts said.
      The campaign of lightning strikes in the port's general
  cargo sector began on January 19 in protest at employers' plans
  for 800 redundancies from the sector's 4,000 strong workforce
  by 1990, starting with 350 this year.
  

