Three dockers have been laid off unfairly after they took part in a 40-day strike at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals, the Union of Hong Kong Dockers claims.

The 12 per cent slide in Hong Kong's container throughput last month underpinned a structural problem exacerbated by a strike at one of the terminals last month, a port operator said.

The first batch of more than 300 dockers who were on strike will report back to work today, but arrangements for the remaining 108 have still to be settled.

No one emerged as a winner from the 40-day dockers strike, with the workers failing to get the raise they demanded and the port operator involved suffering a tarnished image, analysts said.

Before March 28, they were just a bunch of contract dockers at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals who were dissatisfied with their wages and conditions but had never made their voices heard. That day they told themselves they had had enough and walked out on strike - not realising the industrial action would last for 40 days.

The decision came just hours before the Kwai Tsing port workers accepted a 9.8 per cent pay rise offered by four dock contractors and announced an end to their 40-day walkout.

The deadlock was broken when four contractors pledged to write the increase into their contracts and to improve conditions, one of the strike leaders said. Just two days ago, the strikers voted unanimously against a 9.8 per cent rise, insisting on a "double digit" increase. The salary rise will be backdated to May 1.

Some 66 per cent of the nearly 200 dockers polled in the past two days back the 9.8 per cent offer, which was made on Friday night, the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions said.

Leaders of the strike at the Kwai Tsing container terminals, now the longest in Hong Kong industrial relations history, said the offer - made on Friday - fell short of the double-digit pay rise they wanted and did not cover issues involving working conditions which are also in dispute.

The contractors - Everbest Port Services, Pui Kee Stevedore Company, Lem Wing Transportation and Comcheung Human Resources - said they would not engage in more talks over the pay dispute.

More than 80 dockers have walked off the job to join the industrial action that enters its 40th day on Monday as the fifth round of talks involving the strikers, a main contractor and the port operator ended without progress.

Emerging from seven-and-a-half hours of talks, Union of Hong Kong Dockers spokesman Stanley Ho Wai-hong accused Everbest Port Services of being insincere.

The Union of Hong Kong Dockers had insisted it would not resume talks if they were only with contractor Everbest Port Services on March 28. But union spokesman Stanley Ho Wai-hong yesterday said they were willing to go back to the negotiating table with Everbest in an attempt to break the deadlock.

While the dockers strike is costing Hongkong International Terminals a reported HK$5 million a day, the actual cost of the dispute is costing the maritime and logistics industry much more as ships and cargo are diverted to other ports.

The striking dockers last night made an unannounced move to mark their walkout's first month by marching to Government House, although their target, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, had yet to return from his Beijing trip.

We regret that the article ("Attack on tycoons with no conscience", April 22) helped perpetuate stereotypes at the expense of truth. The Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa groups - which are firmly rooted in Hong Kong - are a corporate family of 270,000 employees across 52 nations.

Mr Justice Derek Pang Wai-cheong, sitting in the Court of First Instance, said he would not hear the application in the absence of the demonstrators because it involved a constitutional right to demonstrate and freedom of expression.

Patience is wearing thin as the strike at the container terminal has dragged on for weeks without any sign of coming to an end. Over the weekend, the situation worsened after bosses and unionists stepped up attacks against each other. The escalating tension is not just counter-productive to negotiations, it also risks provoking public anger against the rich and powerful if the consortium behind the scenes continues to stay away. Instead of trading insults through the media, the parties concerned should talk and try to compromise. The deadlock is best resolved with cool heads rather than finger pointing.

A main dock contractor caught in the thick of a pay dispute at the Kwai Tsing port has hired 50 new dockers and is sure it can do without all 300 striking workers in two weeks, the company says.