ceeding and -obviously enough-campaign against anything they didn't like. Also "the three officers (of the Blues) can speak at the (Executive) council but cannot vote. It appears in practice the officers are given little or no authority. Mr Barret, the general secretary, is the voice of the union rather than its leader." (para 105). An agent of the state can be expected to recoll in horror from such a state of affairs.
The most amusing suggestion is one aimed at the T&GWU. The report points out that that union had called no official docks strike in 20 years of unparallelled docks militancy (para 116) and says '*If a trade union leader inclines too far to the employers, he may make agreements excellent in themselves perhaps, but which his rank and file dislike and dishonour" (see last issue of The Red Mole for more details on the T&GWU and its arse-licking National Docks Secretary Tim O'Leary). 2. Proposals Regarding Decasualisation. Devlin suggested that decasualisation was important for ending dissension. If the pool system of casual labour was replaced by permanent jobs with specific employers it was hoped that the independent docker would become "normal" and loyal and come to regard his employer with the dog-like devotion so sadly lacking. The liaison committee was demanding nationalisation under workers control. The docker was responsive to this demand because it was seen as an extension of the existing system of joint control which was enshrined in the Docks Labour scheme. Devlin and the employers who gave evidence were ill-disposed to consider nationalisation and were forced to suggest concessions on job-security to sell decasualisation to the dockers. It is the removal of these and other concessions which is causing the present crisis. 3. Proposals Regarding the Piecework System. The destruction of the piecework system has become a stock task for the shrewd manager. Rank and file militancy has been fostered by the local bargaining necessitated by any system which takes the specific situation into account. In addition piece rates had to go to enable modernization to take place. There is no point in financing modern handportional to the work done. This is illustrated by the 1970 attempt made by the militants to price Devlin Phase Il out by gaining an increase on the basic which would then be reflected in the piecerates. 4. There were also ranges of suggestions regarding "restrictive" practices. These practices had emerged as a defence against the casual system, and for the most part died with The proposals were often unfavourably receiCompetition between rival capitalisms as makes impossible any guaranteed retention of reforms. Any reform granted now is a temporary expedient to stop or "buy off" a struggle. The real value of reforms isoften reduced even in a situation where direct withdrawal is inopportune. With the British ruling class in a particularly weak position economically the withdrawal of concessions and reduction of existing reforms is currently more typical than their granting. The recent developments in the docks are an ample illustration of the current fate of concessions or reforms. Both the Dock Labour Scheme and the security promised after phase I are threatened. Similarly, to return to an example already employed (Labour and Devlin), the 25 percent overmanning accepted to sell the reorganization in Hull is now rejected by the employers.
To be consistently successful in a struggle for reforms whether wage reforms, concessions on conditions, the preservation of traditional work practices, or resistance to redundancy, can only lead to the use of the State to redress the balance. The State can do this in a series of ways and has a number of covert solutions as well as the more or less open offensive the Tories are currently waging against public employees. Again the docks provide us with examples: the use of royal commissions as courts of inquiry is one type; the threat of unilateral modification of the Docks Labour Act to bring it into line with the Devlin proposals the other. The State was used against the dock workers in the middle and late sixties precisely because of the success the dockers had had in resisting the reduction of manning scales, and pushing up piecerates, etc. Finally, the State can use its heavy mob, break pickets like the police did at Longannet power station during the miners strike, or send the army into the docks as the Labour government did in 1947. How do these points influence our attitude to the pending Docks strike?
So far the options open to the British bourgeoisie have been looked at in general terms. What can they accomplish on the docks? Firstly, as they are in no position to legislate in a whole range of reforms in the manner of the post war Labour government a wholesale reform for one industry or new Docks Labour Scheme is unlikely. - (It would require a Labour Government and a trade boom to be possible.) The Scheme gave a limited degree of job security to large numbers of casual workers by setting up a Joint Control Board to limit the size of the labour force. The Devlin reorganization meant a massive reduction in the register, and subsequently there has been a growth of new container ports outside the scheme. (It cost little during the period of boom and was a way of keeping hold of experienced labour during a period of scarcity.) The remaining options are for limited concessions or a government-provoked confrontation. The balance of payments is in disarray at a time when the government is attempting to reflate the economy. Additionally the army is heavily committed in the North of Ireland and to invoke the hostility of the working class towards it during the Irish crisis may be thought unwise. For these reasons a major confrontation may be avoided and the government may encourage some sort of deal which slows the rate of containerization and abandoned dock closure. The point to remember is that these demands are unlikely to be any more permanent than the ones offered previously to defuse the resistance to Devlin. A more opportune moment would be found to withdraw the concessions. If the struggle for reforms offers no prospect of ending but only the prospect of eventual exhaustion then the choice is obvious-raise the stakes or give up.
There is one typical solution offered in the attempt to go beyond just a few concessions. That is to pose the de mand for nationalisation. This demand in unqualified form, inthe Communist Party's latest pamphlet on the docks.
KS is of job loss and fall back • the docks,and in particular present dispute and the kind he struggle in Hull.
Nationalisation as practised by the Labour Party solves nothing. The interest is paid on the loans needed to renew any plant, etc; compensation is paid to the previous owners; inleaders, and the men wishing to preserve their jobs.
The demands for an effective veto on all future redundancies and average dockers' income for those on the register have to be established jointly to stop the fluctuations in trade and search for profits from affecting the style of life of the existing dock worker. The suggestion for the enforcing of a national work-sharing scheme was advanced by Brian Nicolson and Walt Greendale (Docks IIIIWC Pamphlet). This scheme offers a strategy to fight the divide and rule game played by the employers, and establishes a veto over work movement. Due to the movement of traditional work the ports have been affected by redundancies unevenly. Only the enforcement of traditional proportions can stop this from effecting solidarity between the ports. A veto over work movement would be established. The existing shop stewards committees are the only institutions capable of leading this step. That is not to say that much extended organisations wouldn't be required to operate the tactic and preserve mass support. One problem connected with this is that, as a first response to the threatened redundancies, dockers have been calling for the return of the work removed to inland container depots. The response at Heatons, Stratford terminal and the other inland depots was, as might have been expected, violently antidocker. Stratford have threatened to occupy or work-in against any attempt to remove this work. Any splits of this sort in the working class (and in this case, one union-the T&GWU) can be all too easily exploited by the press who like to show that militants are acting against "the nation", and against other sections of the working class. The demands for full money on the unattached, and for an end to redundancies should have been sufficient. Rather than attempt to remove the jobs of men who have in some cases worked at them for the last two years the dockers would be better advised to establish links at rank-and-file level and start a joint fight to get them earning dockers money. This would half des troy the financial advantage in the expansion of these units outside the traditional dock areas. A similar policy could be pursued in the case of the unregistered ports. Additional demands, of course, are for a substantial pay increase and greater pensions.
Due to the export situation, the dockers are in a strong position. They may well follow the miners in defeating the Govern ment and giving the decisive sections of the bourgeoisie more doubts about the effectiveness of their current policy.
E. Waring delegates called by the Trades Council and fewer still supported a steet demo involving 150 workers organised by Hull I.M.G. At that time dockers had not felt themselves to be involved. With a £2,000 "handshake" for "early retirement" announced at the beginning of the year, it was not surprising that they failed to readily perceive the dangerous and irreversible implications of their acquiescence. All this has now changed. With the more recent announcement that two of the central docks are to "close down", all those post-Devlin promises of security fade into thin air. Added to this the issue of containerisation, and the £55,000 fine on their union, and it is easy to understand why Hull's dockers are once again at the centre of industrial activity and eager to strike the initiative for the movement as a whole.
BACKGROUND TO THE STRUGGLE British shipowners are now turning to container ships at a rate faster than any other country in Europe. Of the 700 or so cargo ships currently in operation-by far the world's largest liner fleet-over 500 could be scrapped by 1980. By then, it has been estimated that over 80 per cent of the world's cargo would have been containerised. Already it seems fairly certain that the 9 container ships working the U.K.-Europe -Australia trade will soon come to replace over 50 conventional vessels (for full details see the McKinsey Report).
Nor is it simply a matter of changing old ships