The fight to release the five dockers has been greatly helped by the production of thousands of leaflets printed in an occupied factory. The factory is Briant Colour Printing on the Old Kent Road, sowth London. The workers there occupied originally when the management said the company was going into liquidation and handed out redundancy notices on the spot. By sheer luck, it coincided with the arrest of the dockers and the struggle which it sparked off.
Suddenly those 150 workers at Briant's discovered that because they controlled the means of production, even in just one place, they were able to provide a vital service in aid of the actual struggle - printing the leaflets for the London Ports Shop Stewards' Committee. That act represents a new departure as far as forms of solidarity action are concerned. In the past, solidarity has taken four forms: first there is purely verbal solidarity of the kind most favoured by trade-union leaders. It is a token gesture which commits them to nothing. Next there is the blacking of goods as in the miners strike.
A higher form still is the solidarity strike such as the South Wales miners gave to the dockers recently. A variant of this is that the strikers use their mass support to aid the course of the struggle. This happened when the Birmingham engineers marched on Saltley coke depot and closed it down. Now there is Briants.
At Briant's instead of witholding their labour, they are using it instead of leaving the factory or work-place, they are staying on in it and instead of producing something because it can be sold on the market, they are producing because it is usclul and only because of that.
LEARNING THE LESSON Bill Freeman, the leader of the Briant workers was given the biggest applause of the morning at Tower Hill on Tuesday, before the Pentonville Five were released, when he explained what the Briant workers have been doing. But an hour later when the same militants who had cheered Bill Freeman passed the Morning Star offices, they called on the workers inside to come out and join the strike.
Why should the Morning Star workers have stopped producing a paper? The ruling-class had the tremendous advantage of being able to use the BBC throughout the strike to get their ideas across. But the only means of mass communication at the disposal of the working-class was that provided by Briants.
What the action of the Briant workers meant Shortly after the five law lords had unanim.
ously ruled that the T&GWU is responsible for the actions of its shop stewards, Lord Wilberforce motivated the decision in a statement.
He said that the basic mistake made by the Court of Appeal when it reversed the NIRC decision was that of saying that there had to be some express delegation of authority from the union's leadership. He commented:
"It is hardly conceivable that a dock: worker joining the union would be content to be represented in an industrial dispute by someone who was not in a position to call for industrial action by him and his workmates in support of their claim."
This argument was used to justify the decision of the law lords. In legal terms it means: was that the whole of Fleet St. could have been turned into a centre for producing papers for the workers' struggle.
Instead of simply striking, bus drivers could be on call to carry around flying pickets to where they are most needed. Telephone engineers could keep the STD system going, but could disconnect all lines or calls linking different sectors of the state machine. BBC workers could black all government statements Five The leaflet that helped to win the strike -printed by Briants but could organise programmes where workers could state their case. Dockers could unload food ships and distribution could be carried out through local action committees.
THE FIGHT AGAINST CAPITAL The importance of those leaflets produced by Briant's workers is that they have a dual nature. By producing them, the workers are flying in the face of all that capitalists regard as holy-profit. But in themselves they actually play a part in furthering the course of the class struggle.
Everything which the International Marxist Group argues for in its programme for this struggle also has this dual nature. In the fight against what capitalism through the state is doing to the working class, whether it be to lock up dockers or to fine a union £55,000, we say that the working class must develop new institutions, new social relationships 1 In accordance with the policies of the union, embodied in its rules and practice, shop-stewards have an implied authority to act in the interests of the members they represent.
by 2 That at the time of the dispute it was union policy to retain work on containers for dockers and, consequently, to prevent other workers from doing such work.
3 Shop stewards representing the dockers had implied authority to take industrial action in furtherance of that policy. That includes the blacking of the haulage firms. which begin to challenge capitalism as a whole. For instance, we call for the spreading of solidafity strikes and for factory occupations. These prevent capitalism functioning as an economic system.
HELP THE STRUGGLE.
Tha tactic of production under mass occupation both helps the struggle and contains within it the seeds of a new society. Of course it also requires organisation. So it is necessary for democratically elected factory committees to be elected, for action committees on an area basis, connecting these factory committees, to be formed, for support committees which involve the surrounding population, instead of being passive in society will begin to make decisions about all aspects of its existance. This may seem pie in the sky but it does happen. For instance in a town called Nantes in France during the General Strike of May 1968, the workers took control of the town and organised the entire food supply, health ete.
In Quebec a few: months ago, in response to the arrest of three trade union leaders on the same sort of issue as the dockers question 18 radio stations were occupied and one town completely taken over.
Once there is a situation where many factories are occupied and a lot of them are doing the same as Briant's - producing what is needed for the struggle- -, once the action committees co-ordinating the areas are organised into a national delegates conference representing millions of people and their families, then you have a situation of 'dual power in the country. Tha national delegates conference is the "parliament' of the working class and organises their defence and well being Isolated like small islands in a sea of vital activity, the old state machine would remain the organising centre for the capitalist class and those in society who still support them. We are not by any means at this situation now. But a firm struggle in defence of workers' organisations, such as the Transport and General Workers Union, hounded by the Industrial Relations Act, against the Act itself and the class which feeds off it, such a struggle will lead in this direction.
FLINCHING.
Far from flinching at such a task, we say that the working class in Britain has waited far too long. has been far too kind to those who oppress it day in day out. It must take up this struggle with a will to win. The importance of Briant's is that the action there, small though it was, can be the straight arrow which points the way forward for the rest of the working class.
4 The NIRC was entitled on the basis of the evidence before it to conclude that the union, because its shop stewards were operating with implied authority and carrying out union policy, had been guilty of an unfair ind.
ustrial practice.
5 As soon as the NIRC ordered the ending of the blacking, the union became responsible to take all possible steps to stop the blacking.
6 The NIRC was also entitled to conclude that the union had not taken such steps to stop the blacking.
7 That the order it made against the union was in accordance with the stipulations of the Industrial Relations Act.
This all goes to show how flexible the:
"Rule of Law" is when the ruling class is squirming and wriggling to get itself out of a mess. The scene outside the docks delegates meeting on Thursday
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Trade Unionists are inside. WHY AREN'T YOU OUT?