OLDER men on the docks
remember the thirties very well. The humiliation of the stands. The 'muscle
feeling’. The scramble for a job.
They remember the ‘blue
eyes’ system—the whisper of ‘You’re staying behind’
into the ear of the favoured ones.
The militant was isolated.
The man who refused to overload a sling on the last ship was left standing.
For the employers those were
the good old days. In that peculiar phraseology the employers like to
use, they were the days of a ‘better employer-employee relationship’
than has existed since the end of the second world war.
Organised resistance to employers
They were also days to which the docker is determined never to return.
But unless his determination is expressed in organized resistance to the
employers plans, the docker will be flung back into the conditions of
the hungry thirties.
‘To ensure greater regularity of employment’ is one of the
stated aims of the Dock Labour Scheme.
Today regularity of employment is the exception for the majority of dockers.
The number of men without work is higher than at any time for six years.
Already the shortage of work has sharply reduced the living standards
of a great number of dockers.
Ever since the end of the war most dockers have worked regular overtime.
Because of the failure of trade union leaders to carry forward the fight
to raise basic pay, the standards of these portworkers have become dependent
on a week of fifty-two hours, plus occasional Saturday and Sunday work
Now that overtime is not so readily available the docker-particularly
in ports where piece-work earnings are low-is beginning to realize more
clearly just how inadequate is his basic pay.
Three paltry half-crowns
At the recent inquiry into dockers’ wages, trade union spokesmen
declared that the docker needed 35s. a week to bring his real wages up
to what they were at the end of the war. Since that time the cost of living
has gone up by 84 per cent., but wages have risen by only 55 per cent.
Dockers were given a 7s. 6d.
increase after that inquiry— 7s. 4d. after a deduction of twopence
which is being put into a fund for purposes yet unspecified.
These three paltry half-crowns have already rolled away in increases in
rents, coal, fares and food since the award was hastily agreed to by the
trade union leaders,
The docker signing on is near
the starvation line. Many dockers now live on new housing estates miles
away from the dock. Their rents are higher, and fares eat a large Slice
out of their fall-back or attendance money.
T wo calls a day mean dreary,
wasted hours waiting on the dock road, with money spent on snacks and
cups of tea. Today a docker with four children who goes home at the end
of the week with his basic wage has less in his pocket than he would receive
from national assistance.
Yet national assistance scales
arc based on what are considered to be the absolute minimum nutritional
needs.
Want to end militancy
With fewer men in the Scheme, tonnage handled has gone up by 41 per cent,
since 1945. The extra productivity, however, has not meant steadily better
conditions for the docker.
On the contrary, now that the
Scheme has produced a ‘surplus’ of labour, the employers are
seeking to use it in an attempt to increase their power over the men on
the docks and drive all trace of militancy out of dockland.
The employers have as one of
their aims the break-up of the Dock Labour Scheme. In 1955 they proposed
to the Devlin inquiry that the principle of joint control of the Scheme,
by employers and unions, should be replaced by control of an organization
of representatives of the employers alone’.
In the recent Tooley Street
‘black meat’ strike it was only the commendable spirit of
the men in the ranks which prevented a break through the scheme.
The employers flooded in non-registered labour in an attempt to smash
the men’s stand for trade union principle.
Trade union officials shamefully
gave assistance to the employers when they signed the infamous ‘perishable
goods’ agreement.
That agreement, if operated would make strikes against even the worst
conditions impossible—if dockers were handling cargo that in any
way could be termed perishable’— or else it would allow the
employer free use of non-registered labour to break the strike.
Scheme
FROM the docker’s point of view there is much that is wrong
with the Dock Labour Scheme. In many ways, it gives added power to the trade
union bureaucrat and the employer to discipline militancy and enforce onerous
conditions such as compulsory overtime.
But the employers chafe under
it because they have only an indirect control of labour. They want even
more power over the docker, so that as profits become harder to get they
can squeeze more out of him.
They want to be able to hold
a knife-point directly at the back of every serious and active trade unionist.
One of their demands to the Devlin inquiry was that ‘all those who
incite unconstitutional action should be liable to dismissal’.
They look upon even the meagre
provisions of fall-back and attendance money as a luxury. The more so
when their levy is increased as a result of the number of men proving
attendance.
The big master stevedore or the shipowner will spend more in a round of
drinks after a board meeting than a docker receives in fall-back.
But dividends and profits are
a thousand times more important to him than a pittance for men who move
the cargoes.
Want cut in register
The employers’ plans are clear. Immediately, they want a cut in
the register. They want to push the ‘surplus’ into the rapidly
growing pool of unemployed.
The way they have been using
permanent men shows what conditions they want in place of the Scheme.
They want a small permanent force, with the rest of the dockers on the
Labour Exchange—to be drawn on when it suits them.
It was the boast of a Liverpool employer that, given 5000 or 6000 weekly
workers and mechanization, he would run the port efficiently.
In such circumstances the majority
of dockers would be like seagulls grabbing a crumb here and there. Weekly
workers, having committed themselves by contract, would be forced to do
any type of job for which they were required.
And the out-of-work fringe would he a constant threat which the employer
would use against the weekly worker.
Like others of their class
the port employers have been itching for a show-down which would smash
organized militancy once and for all.
Before the last wage increase was granted they were preparing for a bitter
struggle. Some of them were enraged that the Cameron report should award
even as little as 7s. 6d.
Warning about fighting
abilities
But big business and the Tory government had been given a salutary lesson
by the busmen and by the Tooley Street and other London dockers. They
had been given a warning about the fighting abilities that can be roused
in the working class.
So the show-down on the docks
did not take place, although it was reported that preparations had reached
the stage of the authorities’ taking over Harringay Arena in London
as a distribution centre and training certain army units for work on the
docks.
Show-down
LET no docker be under any illusion. The show-down which the employers
wanted over wages has only been postponed. Their aim is not only to prevent
wages rising, but to worsen drastically the conditions of the portworkers
in the interests of their profits during a period of slump.
To get that desirable state
of affairs (desirable for them), they must crush the docker’s spirit.
In a recent (October 1958) issue of the Docks and Harbour Magazine—an
authoritative journal of shipping and port employers—their aims
were set forth in an article called ‘A Remedy for Dock Strikes’.
The author called himself ‘Poseidon’.
He declared that the disciplinary
powers of the Dock Labour Board had proved ineffective. The ‘welfare
activities for which it is responsible,’ he wrote, ‘are achieved,
so many think, at too high a price.’
His propositions were: that
the employers should cut down on their number; and that the Board should
be done away with.
To these proposals he added another. It was that ‘absorption or
integration’ of the ‘blue union’ into the ‘white’
must be carried out by legislation, and the sooner the better’
‘Strike to end
strikes’
Now, note carefully what was said in the concluding sentences of that
article:
‘The point will certainly
be made that in the early stages of the cure a strike will be precipitated.
This is undoubtedly true. Appeasement over the years encouraged and tolerated
strikes at regular interval…
‘There is much to be said for tile strike to end all strikes. It
is a fact remembered still, that the General Strike ushered in the longest
period of peace within living memory.’
The employers are ready for
battle. That is the conclusion to be drawn from this article in an authoritative
employers’ journal.
By beating them down in struggle,
by breaking up the Dock Labour Scheme, by creating a pool of dockers on
the Labour Exchange hungry for work, by victimizing the militants, the
employers hope to destroy the dockers’ fighting spirit and solidarity.
Struggles of our forefathers
They hope to set docker against docker and port against port. They want
to return the docker to jungle conditions to the days of dog eat dog,
to condition, where men fight each other for work.
Portworkers must organize and
fight back now. Every militant docker must be seriously concerned with
building unity in struggle on every dock and between port..
The only way to defeat an enemy who is preparing and organizing for a
show-down is by more powerful preparation and bettor organization.
Over half a century ago our
forefathers organized in struggle against bestial conditions and inspired
the Labour movement in the fight for the dockers’ tanner.
Since then the traditions and dignity of dockland have found their highest
expression in the way it has rallied to the call ‘an injury to one
is an injury to all’.
The noted solidarity and fighting
capacity of the docker are the guarantee that the employers will not be
able to carry out their plans. But that guarantee lies solely in the rank
and file.
There is no trace of it in the leaders of the Transport and Genera! Workers’
Union, which organizes the majority of British dockers. If the employers
offensive has gone as far as it has then the responsibility rests on these
leaders’ shoulders.
Designed to tighten
‘discipline’
Such advances as were won on the docks during the post-war boom
were won by the activity of the rank and file and against the opposition
of TGWU officialdom.
When, as a result of the strength
in the ranks, these leaders were given any concessions in negotiations
they almost invariably handed the employers something in return.
The most blatant example of this was the agreement which caused the strike
of 1951. The union leaders accepted 2s. a day increase, and in return
agreed to a worsening of conditions through the introduction of new manning
scales as well as measures designed to tighten ‘discipline’.
These trade union leaden have
not only failed to fight on behalf of their members but have actively
helped the employers in the victimization of militants.
But for the cowardice and failure of these ‘leaders’, the
Dockers’ Charter and much more could have been won during the post-war
years when trade was booming.
Actively opposed Charter
fight
In 1945 the Dockers’ Charter was adopted by a national delegate
conference of dockers’ unions, and thus became official policy.
It consisted of the following
demands: 25s. daily rate; two weeks’ annual holiday with pay; payment
for statutory holidays; reduction of hours to forty a week; a retiring
allowance for aged and infirm dockers; welfare services in all ports.
The leaders of the TGWU not
only failed miserably to put up any real fight for the charter but actively
opposed the rank and file’s fight for it.
When Merseyside dockers were on strike in 1951 demanding the charter Deakin
denounced them. He declared at a Press conference on February 8 of that
year that the charter
—officially agreed—was impracticable’.
‘Impracticable’
to demand pensions for old dockers! ‘Impracticable’ to demand
better welfare facilities! ‘Impracticable’ to demand a living
wage and the forty-hour week!
That is the type of leadership the dockers have suffered under since the
end of the war.
To cover up sell-out
To cover up their sell-out on the recent wages demand, the present leaders
declared their intention of pressing forward for pensions for old dockers.
That was nothing but demagogy.
For they refused in the past to back the rank and file in the struggle
for pensions at a most favourable time for such a struggle, when trade
was at its peak.
They viciously attacked militants
who were demanding that, instead of reducing the employers levy, the Dock
Labour Board use the increased revenue to compensate old dockers who had
given their life and strength to the industry.
Splitters
THE way the TGWU officials have treated the ‘blue union’
is further evidence that theft first interest is the defence of their
own privileges and power.
Disgusted at the failure of
TGWU officials to fight for the men they claimed to represent, unable
to express their needs through this union’s machinery—With
its permanent officers blocking all demands and using their power in the
union and on the Board to victimize militants—the northern dockers
joined the ‘blue union’.
Their right to be members of
the union of their choice was in accordance with the principle operated
in the past by the Trades Union Congress before the big trade union bureaucracies
consolidated their power—that a transfer of union membership should
be accepted if it was voluntary.
That right was sanctified in
the eyes of every serious trade unionist by the fact that men were prepared
to make the great sacrifices of a six weeks’ strike to defend it.
And, finally, their membership was established in a court of law.
But TGWU officials never accepted that the northern men had any rights
at all.
They have used every method in an attempt to destroy the ‘blue union’—every
method, that is, except to build the TGWU as a fighting organization against
the employers and a magnet for the docker striving to maintain and better
his conditions.
Bludgeoned or driven
off
They look on the dockers who left the TGWU as ‘their’ property,
a source of revenue to be bludgeoned back under their control or to be
driven off the dock.
At the TUC two years ago, delegates
from the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers proposed that the
TUC should encourage a united campaign between ‘blue’ and
‘white’ to eliminate non-unionism on the docks.
TGWU officials have opposed
such a campaign. Discussion on it was shelved at the TUC by a ‘previous
question’ motion—a trick performed by a well-known member
of the Communist Party.
Rather than organize against
non-unionism, the TGWU officials have organized to try to deprive ‘blue
union’ men of their jobs. If they had put half the energy into a
fight against the employers that they use in fighting the ‘blue
union’, then dockland today would be a far better place.
‘Please remember this—no
docker who is not a member of the TGWU is entitled to anything,’
wrote P. McSorley, a full-time TGWU branch secretary, in the November
1958 issue of Merseyside News, the official organ of the docks section
of the TGWU on Merseyside.
The guiding line for TGWU officialdom
is clearly: ‘there is no union but MY union and no unionists but
those who contribute to my salary.’
The biggest crime of those
trade union leaders today is that they are trying to split the dockers
in face of the employers’ offensive. They are doing it so as to
avoid their responsibility to fight unemployment.
Bold words, but despicable
The editorial in the Merseyside News declares boldly: ‘We must lay
the blame [for unemployment] fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the
present government.’
But those bold words become
all the more despicable when we see that these trade union leaders want
to evade a struggle against a cut in the register by putting ‘blue
union’ men off the dock.
‘If redundancy is to
start,’ the editorial ends, ‘it won’t be our members
who go first.’ Note the ‘first’!
The suspension of the ‘blue
union’ from the TUC is meant to help these people to dodge their
duty to fight redundancy.
In the interests of the TGWU
leaders the TUC General Council put demands to the executive of the NASD
that it knew -very well could not be carried out.
Now it suspends the union from
the TUC so that TGWU officials can declare its members to be ‘non-unionists’
and can ask the Board to sack them.
This is a betrayal of the interests
of all dockers. An unholy alliance of TGWU officials and employers to
decide who should be sacked from the dock can end only in the weeding
out of all militants, including those in the ‘white’ union.
Any retreat in the fight against
unemployment will only aid the employers’ offensive.
Solidarity
UNITY in dockland to prevent a return to the conditions the employers
want to impose is an urgent necessity. But that unity will have to be built
in the teeth of opposition and sabotage by TUWU officials.
Policies are needed that can
unite ‘blue’ and ‘white’ dockers to defeat the
employers’ plans.
The biggest and most immediate problems arise from the shortage of work.
The demand of militants in the industry for many years now has been for
an increase in fall-back pay and attendance money, and for one call a
day.
These demands must be part
of a new Dockers’ Charter, one that can unite the rank and file
in struggle.
The employers want to maintain
their profits by passing the burdens of the slump on to the backs of the
workers. They must be given warning that a cut in the register will meet
with immediate and complete resistance in all ports. ‘White’
and ‘blue’ must fight together against sackings.
Must find a place
The forty-hour week is now more ‘practicable’ than ever, with
the shortage of work, and so are pensions for the old men, so that they
can afford to retire. These demands must find a place again in the charter
for portworkers.
If the demand for 25s. was
justified at the end of the war then—bearing in mind the rise in
the cost of living—a demand for 45s. is justified today.
Compulsory overtime is an even
sharper issue with the shortage of work, as the employers will seek to
use the men they hire for any hours they wish, while other men are unemployed.
The rank and file of the TGWU
and the ‘blue union’ must fight for 100 per cent, trade unionism
on the docks, and for the rights of ‘blue union’ members to
be in the union of their choice.
In 1945 a strong national link-up
of dockers in solidarity action won 3s. a day—the highest wage increase
since before the war.
There is need for the same
strong connexions between each port today. There is need for connexions
between the ‘blue union’ and rank-and-file committees of the
TGWU.
This was the pattern of organization which successfully combated the London
employers in the compulsory overtime strike of 1954.
Socialism
FINALLY, and above all, the docker must realize that the problems
he faces are the same us those faced by the whole working class. The world
or dockland is not a world of its own.
The employing class is engaged
in an offensive all along the line. Defeat or victory for one section
of the workers affects every other section.
No worker today can afford
to be non-political’. Aiding and abetting the employers is the Tory
government. And the problems of unemployment, of defending living conditions,
lead straight to socialist conclusions—for it is the unplanned system
of capitalist production for profit which is responsible for the slump
in trade.
The docker must play his part
in fighting for a socialist society. The nationalization of the port industry
should be an aim expressed and fought for by every militant docker.
Complete and secure decasualization
can come about only in a nationalized port industry which is part of a
planned socialist society, with planned international trade.
Only then can there be a real
Dock Labour Scheme in the interests of he docker and the whole working
class, in a Britain where workers will no longer be exploited by shipping
monopolies and port employers whose first interest is to maintain and
increase their profits. |