E OF THE BOSSES PRESS henever there is a dock strike or an indudispute of any sort the national press of ountry makes every effort to misreport onfuse the issues. Their purpose is to * the working class and prevent solidarity 1s by other sections of it. For instance vening Standard commissioned a Gallup in the dock strike proposed for July They published the results of the poll ly 10th and surprise, surprise: 68% of orking class were in favour of the use of of a strike. This is a lie engineered by the military labour in the docks in the in order to get other sections of the ng class opposed to the dockers even the strike took place. We all know the al results of the polls which preceded the ineral elections. e press have been claiming ever since the i enquiry of 1964 that dock workers are ng wages of up to E50 a week. But the Mirror, whose share-holders include ng interests, has admitted on more than ccasions in the last year that only one r in 4 receives £25 a week or more for a ur week; and dockers are employed in the irduous and dangerous conditions of ry. If dockers were in reality enjoying rages as claimed by the Press and the yers, why should they be unanimously ed to strike for a E20 a week • Red Mole is a small left wing socialist aper which is continually harried by tablishment; it does not have the resource. journalistic toilet roll euphemistically the Daily Mirror. But we are determined le facts in the dock dispute be known. KERS WAGES: THE TRUIH ock worker receives £11.1.8d basic pay O hour week. In addition to this he receives ng an hour modernisation pay, which es the total to E13.1.8d. If, however, he is loyed for a full week he receives an unement benefit of E17 a week less deductions in n and £16 a week less deductions in other i the country. It is true that most dockers aged in piece work, and can in fact on n earn É30. All piece work earnings are is is the berts of ne prehena dispute. Wie ted as a t employers are 5 should receive reawe to asan thimum ill not concede any increase in piece work employers have reasons for this. Any worker you what an evil system piece work is. locks 6 men working in the hold of a ship, tone age conditions, shift manually 60 tons ent an hour. A ton a minute. It has to be be believed. The men unfortunate enough gaged in this operation are covered from foot in cement dust for a whole day. THey protective clothing, such as masks; they ly a pair of tatty ill-fitting overalls, which they on the pool (under National Dock Labour argue or stop work in order to obtain. s like most people like to eat, drink and much sex as possible. Any docker will after a day on cement that he does not eating, drinking and it is also doubtful he'd be able to satisfy a nun's desires. overcome by physical and mental ennui.
The POSED FISH her commonplace operation in the docks scharging of fish meal, which is decomposed only. There are no machines for extracting from the work area, either on cement th meal. After a day of fish meal the socially minded worker feels he should publie transport. The stink which permeates e being is a delight to all cats in creation. ray home he can be smelt even by none many other operations equally nasty, and rse. In 1967 dock workers refused to restos due to the fact that they cited reports according to which if a man sbestos fibre the fungus would attack / parts of his body and result in incurable luring this 8 month ban the bosses hat dockers were BLOODY-MINDED, ers (the so-called 'national"
LAND ARROGANT. But strangely Il those concerned about the national were not prepared to scab on the dockers HE DOCKERS WANT rs are only asking that they rapairo half million pounds. One one wharf (Tooley Street), Hayes Wharf, the largest wharfingering in the country, increased its profits by £300,000; this was announced the very same week in which they sacked 300 dockers.
WHAT DID DEVLIN DO The Devlin enquiry, which was set up in August 1964 and took 3 years from conception to operation, promised the dockers a basic wage of around £20 a week. Lord DEvlin himselt is on record, In September 1967, as stating that £20 would be a just figure. That was three years ago. Yet at that time the port employers proposed £15 a week as unemployment pay and no increase in the basic minimum. The dock workers, by engaging in a 1 week strike at the beginning of Devlin hase One, were able to increase their fall back to £17. But the basic wage remained the same at a11.1.8d.
Dockers were disgusted with the T& GWU's official attitude to Devlin. Many trade union bra nches were totally opposed to the Devlin scheme.
They voted against it and in favour of the Labour Party's Port Study Group, which called for natio nalisation of the docks. The T&G's official attitude was that it was easier to surrender work practices and conditions of employment, which had taken 40 years to win, than to oppose the employers. It is difficult for the non-dock worker to understand the chaotic situation which exists in dockland.
HISTORY Before 1947 men were employed on a completely casual basis. They were treated with ess regard than rats. It was not unusual for a man to be killed on the labour call while struggling to obtain the privilege of working 12 hours in nhuman conditions. In the 1939.45 war i became necessary, due to the fact that the British capitalist class had to defeat the German capitalist class in their scramble for markets to have a more stable, efficient and controlled dock labour force An enquiry under the chairmanship of Lord rorster was set up for this purpose. The right-wing social-democrat Ernie Bevin proposed that this enquiry should be a joint employer trade-union Sock Labour Board, which, in theory, was to be From this enquiry came the National responsible for the recruitment, employment conditions and training of dock labour. This Board was to consist of 50% trade-union representation.
over their labour through the trade-union which went against the spirit of the findings of the Forster enquiry. This employment of permanent abour led to serious inequalities and divisions among doek workers. In any given dock a number pf men would enjoy the privilege of regular employment whilst thiusands of their comrades Board Control) were on the stones on &4 a week It even came to pass that in disputes the "perms" scabbed against the pool men. Although the war forced the employers to make a few concessions, once they had successfully recovered from the war economy, they were determined to smash the joint control of the Dock Labour Board.
'perms" whist whilst getting no better conditions or wages became prone to employer loyalty. This system prevailed until the setting up of the Devlin enquiry.
WHAT DO WE WANT?
NATIONALISATION+ WORKERS CONTROL Before Devlin the trade-unions repeatedly stated that the cause of the major unrest in the docks was too many employers. This is one of the few things on which rank and file militants agreed with the trade-unions. When the Devlin Report suggested a reduction of employers in London to 15, the Liason Committee and most trade-union branches retorted that the real answer would be a complete abolition of port employers, vithout compensation and their replacement ith a system of workers control. lan Mikardo M.P., Chairman of the Labour Party Port Study froup, at this time was instrumental in gettin he Parliamentary Labour Party to adopt th work. principle of dock nationalisation. Within one week of the principle of nationalisation being accepted the Labour Government amended the National Dock Workers' Regulation of Employment Scheme(1947) in favour of the Devlin scheme, which extended the rights of private employers. Dock workers were then of the opinion that these people, who were engaging in two contradictory actions in the same week, should make use of the National etely dissatisfied with the T&GWU were unable to join the Blue Union and are in fact non-union.
It is disgusting that an official trade-un.un's desire to be part of the bureaueracy has resulted in approximately 1000 men in Liverpool docks not being organised. Despite the non-trade ui.Jon actions of the leadership, the non-union labour in Liverpool have an excellent strike record, as do their fellow trade unionists in Liverpool.
EMPLOYERS STRATEGY The port employers have played a very carefully thought out strategic game. Although it took them three years to fully solve the problems arising from Devlin Phase One, they have actually used this situation to their economic advantage. . The national docks registered labour force in 1967 was 63,000. At present it is 47,000: a reduction of 16,000. THey have achieved a greater tonnage turnround with a reduction of £360,000 in their annual wage bill. These figures are based on a realistic average dockers wage of approximately $20 a week. Therefore even if there were no further reductions of Labour, Devlin would have been a very profitable plan from the point of view of the port employers.
WHAT THE DOCKERS HAVE SUFFERED Since Devlin Phase One, dockers have suffered more than they did before. When London port employers took their operations away from the riverside to inland container bases, they either deported the displaced workers to Tilbury or returned them to the National Dock Labour Board to be permanently unemployed which even according to Lord Devlin would be tantamount to dismissal from the industry."
When the displaced men were sent to Tilbur there were cases of men of 55 to 65 years o age, who had been employed in a wharf maybe for the last thirty years and had never been used to the more arduous ship-work, being haphazardly forced to work alongside younger men without any regard to their physical condition. In iddition to this they had their 10 hour working day extended by 3 hours travel. The London men who were sent to Tilbury were effectively reduced to the status of non-trade-union labour, due to the fact that although the 2,000 Tilbury hold tradeunion cards they have scabbed on every strike except the 1926 strike and that includes 1889.
Many London men in this position thought they had been transferred to an eczsema hosphase Tro of Devlin makes provision for a total abolition of the National Dock Labour Board. It further gives employers complete control over manning scales. There will be complete mobility and flexibility of labour. Phase Two has contained within it a clause known as the "replacement clause": Dockers at present will not scab on another man or another gang in dispute. This clause states that any man of any gang in dispute shall be immediatly suspended and replaced by another man from another gang. It is hard for any trade-unionist reading this, unless he has been subjected to productivity deals, to believe that the T&GWU could agree to such a retrogressive step. Phase Two will bring into operation shift work and 24-hour, 7 day round-the-clock working. This will happen because the agreement allows any firm to make its own agreements. In fact the Port of London Authority is already operating at 40-berth Tilbury, a 3-shift, 24 hours, , 7 day working week. There are men who work the whole 24 hours with only a 3 hour break. At most automated berths 20 or 30 men in 6 hours do the work which was previously done by about 250 men in 5 days on conventional operation. How then can the Port Employers say they are in a serious economic position. The facts disprove this.
DOCKERS AND PIECE WORK For many years when dockers have tried to abolish the piece: work system in order to achieve regularity of earnings the port employers have resited at all costs. Now the port employers want to rationalise the docks and have a very small docile, non-militant labour force. They are repared to offer an agreement not based on piece The reason for this is that on containe operations a gang can shift up to 6,000 tons in 8 hours. At 5/- a ton this gang would be able to enjoy fabulous earnings. That is why the port employers and their press hacks are claiming hat in abolishing piece work they are only nterested in the social welfare of the dockers Under Phase Two, in addition to a complete change in work practices, the docker will be expected to do shift work. Question any shift worker about the serious efforts chift monk hoo THE ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE CURRENT DISPUTE ON THE DOCKS The curreat dispute is over an issue on which the trade unions have been negotiating for the last 8 months. Pressure from the rank and file forced the reluctant officials into actually calling an official strike. The unbiased, impartial, objective, agents of capital have been screaming in the press and television about negotiations, ete, etc. Is 8 months not sufficient time for negotiation't not then the negotiators should satisfactory deal for their members. the part satisfactory deal for their members.
employers, like other employers, are prepared to use the pressure of the government, the army the navy, the police, the press and treacherous trade-union officials in order to smash any worke action to achieve decent wages and conditions.
Against this the dockers have every right to withdraw their labour power at any time they see fit to achieve their rights..
The militant rank and file shop stewards, in putting forward the demand for a E20 basic together with its increases in piece work earnings, know that if they won this they would smash the Phase Two productivity deal. A victory in the strike would make all dockers aware that it is not necessary to give up hard-won work practices and to accept, all the evils of shift work in order to get a decent standard of with the employers on all issues or be made redundant in the same way as they have agreed for their many dockers to be made redundant under Devlin Phase Two.
The present system in the Transport and General Workers' Union, whereby the fulltime paid official is selected for life, and is NOT elected subject to recall by his members.
makes for complacency and apathy on the part of these officials.
THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS THE REAL CRIMINAL AND THIS MUST ALWAYS BE STRESSED AND REMEMBERED It is vital that dock workers realise that it is the capitalist system which makes the would not change one whit. The mines were not nationalised for some altruistie motive. They were nationalised because of the declining rate of profit and because it was thought necessary that the tax-payer became responsible for all capital development and other programmes in the mines. A similar position would arise in the docks if they were to be nationalised in the way the Labour Government proposed when it was in power.
As socialists we are certain that the problems of duckers and indeed of the working class will be solved when the workers begin to see their problems in political rather than in industrial terms. There is no reason why the dockers could not operate and control the docks. They do so, in fact, except that the profits at present go to rovide palatial homes and luxury yachts for me ike Sir Andrew Crichton, chairman of P&0 an of ACT-OCL container consortium (the man who is so concerned about the 'national interest' and 'the economy' that he places his orders for It would be very simple to bring about a sane social system in which dockers and other worker control the means of production in which they are engaged. Any surplus wealth accruing from their labour could be put to good use to build hbmes, hospitals, schools and other social amenities for the workers as a whole instead of lining the pockets of pimps and ponces like the port employers.
Terry Barrett FOOTNOTES 1. LIASON COMMITTEE:
Before 1967 there were no shop stewards in the docks. The dockers convened mass meetings on the dock gates and elected rank and file representatives who were known as the London port workers liason committee and among the men as the unofficial strike committee. The liason committee members were elested at mass meetings which were held at least twice a week, and were subject to recall at any time. The committee has led all the dock strikes since the war. 2. SCOUSE:
From Liverpool 3. NAS& DU:
National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers nion Kuan it nice
it's happened before! None too impressed by the peace-seeking efforts of Jack Jones, the national docks' delegate conference has called an official national strike.
Portworkers have got a healthy distrust of "left' trade union leaders, 'honest brokers" from the TUC, 'neutral' Ministers of Labour and patriotic employers.
The docks movement has a proud history. It has fought the employers, it has faced the challenges of Tory and Labour governments who have not hesitated to use troops to try and break strikes, and when its leaders have openly collaborated with governments and employers, it has created its own democratic rank and file committees to conduet its struggles.
THE DOCKERS IN 1945 No sooner had Germany surrendered on 7 May 1945 than the Tory Caretaker government and its National Dock Labour Corporation were negotiating with the unions on how to replace the western agreement'. This agreement had given dockers higher piece work earnings in return for changes in work conditions. From mid-May 1945 until 22 August, Britain's ports were gripped by a series of unofficial strikes and go-slows. Troops were moved into Clydeside on 14 July, into London's Surrey Docks on 25 July and again into the Surrey Docks on 1 August. Every port in Britain was affected by the dispute, the government, employers, trade unions and the TUC meanwhile maintained a solid united front against the men's demand for 25sh per day basic and increases tied to the cost of living.
Nineteen forty five was the prelude to an whole number of major battles on the docks. Strikes took place over the new Dock Labour Scheme and in solidarity with the Canadian Seamens Union. Without exception the strikes were opposed by the TGWU and the Labour Government, which like its Tory predecessor brought in troops to unload cargo.
WORKERS DEMOCRACY elected their own rank-and-file committees. In London these committees invariably included representatives from both the TGWU and the NASD. It was such a committee which led the 'Zine Oxide Strike' in 1948 when the National Dock Labour Board disciplined 11 dockers for refusing to load zine oxide for less than 5sh per ton as opposed to the official rate of 3/4d. Responding to the defence of their victimised mates the dockers closed the entire port of London. Speakers from the London Committee went to Liverpool and 60 percent of the Merseyside portworkers came out in support of the London men.
On 2 February 1951 Merseyside dockers began a began an unofficial strike against an agreement on wages negotiated by their union and accepted the previous day by Merseyside docks' delegates at a conference in Liverpool The agreement gave dockworkers an increase of 2sh per day, with corresponding increases for pieceworkers. In return the unions had agreed to merchanisation; new manning schemes; measures to abolish restrictive practices and the reduction of absenteeism.
The Merseyside Port Workers' Defence Committee an unofficial body, had been campaigning for a Dockers' Charter, which included a guaranteed wage of 25sh per day; 14 days paid holiday; and a pension scheme. The TGWU rejected the Charter as being unpracticable The strike which began in Birkenhead spread immediately to Liverpool and three days later Manchester came out. By 8 February 77 ships were idle in the three ports, although attempts to spread the strike to London had met with only limited success.
RED-BAITING DEAKIN Arthur Deakin, the hysterical anticommunist who was then general secretary of the TGWU denounced the strike and alleged it was part of a conspiracy by the World Federation of Trade Unions: ...to strike at countries which do not have the Communist outlook.....' The next day dockers, Johnson, Harrison and Crosby from Merseyside and Constable, Timothy, Dickens Street Magistrates Court with 'having conspired to induce dockworkers to take part in strikes in connexion with trade disputes in contravention of the Conditions of Employment and National Arbitration Order'. This was the infamous Order 1305. The Minister of Labour who had used his special powers under Order 1305 was the 'left' social democrat Nye Bevan, patron saint of Labour's contemporary left-wing.
That day 6700 London men demonstrated their confidence in British justice by joining the strike, Merseyside voted unanimously to stay out until their leaders were released and Order 1305 was rescinded. On 23 February there was over 16000 men on strike in Birkenhead, Liverpool, Glasgow, Greenock, Manchester and London. Solidarity strikes were held on 16 March, 9 April 16 April and 18 April when Sir Hartley Shaweross, Labour's Attorney General agreed to drop the charges on the grounds of the jury's illogical findings'. This no doubt disappointed Lord Chief Justice Goddard, the presiding judge, who after denouncing workers enjoyed nothing better than a good hanging.
Dickens and Constable were later expelled from the TGWU for their militant activities and the employers tried to sack Constable because he did not have a union card. This action provoked a mass walk-out and the bosses and their full-time trade union allies were forced to accept Constables reinstatement. Constable's militant activities continued for many years afterwards.
Those dockers at Liverpool, Dundee, Southampton, Glasgow, Hull and London who went on unofficial strike on Tuesday 14 July knew that the employers and their government would be far more impressed with their action than the alleged statesmanship of Jack Jones and Victor Feathers. A glance at the post-war history of the ports shows only too clearly that nothing has been gained or can be gained without the independent action of the ordinary dockworkers.
Subscribe N EDITORIAL BOARD: Tariq Ali, Ro Chenhamo Chimutengwende, Pete: G Hay ter, George Joseph, Dave Kendal Ligougne, Branka Magas, Neil Middle roda. Join weat DESIGN: Peter Till Published by Relgocrest Ltd for The 01-837 6954, 01-278 2616. Printed by The Prinkipo Press Ltd. 182 Pentonville Road, London NI. 0 If you like this broadsheet we ca you into a secret: The Red Mole i fortnightly dedicated to the strug capitalism, imperialism and burea easy way of staying in touch with struggles throughout the world is form below and put it in the post Please send me THE RED MOLE 6/12 months. I enclose P.O./che Name.
Address .
THE RED MOLE, 182 Pentonv London N1. 01-837 6954, 01-2 KED CIKCLES/KED MOLE CONTA I you live in or near any of the areas
----- pull-quotes -----
is ofcourse is not so physically hard as THe men engaged in this receive
ig noses at a distance of at least 500 yards. ou can smell him before you can see him.
Most dock workers saw this as progress and were highly delighted that they had some control
representation on that board. Shortly after the Board came into being the port employers were allowed to employ their own permanent labour,