the London containerisation redundancy strikt, Jack Jones has taken another step towards putting thousands of dockers in the dole queue.
Jack Jones has known for years the scale of the attack being mounted by the employers in the docks. In 1967 the Mckinsey survey estimated that with new technology the work force in the docks should be reduced by 90 per cent in 10 years.
That was probably an exaggeration, but the actual operutions were so less hair-raising. It was calculated that the entire UK to Australia container trade, eventually amounting to 2,000,000 tons a year could be handled by one berth at Tilbury employing only 15 men. By 1969 number 43 berth at Tilbury was tuming around 14 ships in a week with only 26 dockers cach docker doing the work previousiy done by 1001 Faced with this massive lechnologScal development, the TGWU leader, ship should have embarked or a campaign to win massive benefits for dock workers, If a half or quarter of the men could do all the previous work, then the whole dock force could have been employed working only a half or a quarter of the prevlous work week.
CO-OPERATED Instead, at every stage, Jones has fully co-operaled with the employers is cutting the labour force. He has pose to extreme lengths to break Rockers resstance to sackines During the 1967 strike aguinst the Devin proposals, he went to Liverpool at the personal behest of Wilson to try to get the dockers back to work. Although he lost the vote then, nearly getting thrown in the Mersey for his pains, he had started the process of undermining the strike leaders. The Government was then able to step in, isolate London and Liverpool, and slam through the Devlin proposals.
It is true that the Communist Party-led Port Liaison Commitlee failed to fight the Government in the most effective way for example it completely failed to work out demands such as work-sharing with no loss of pay that could unify all dockers. Nevertheless, it was cicarly Jones who hore the main responsibility for this defeat.
Even worse were jones' activities in the 1972 strike, If ever there was Jones scabbing has its effect: dockers mass meeting is not convinced by Billy Powell Ispeakingl and witch-hunted T&G Executive member Brian Nicholson Ibehind himl a strike that could have been easily won it was this one. Right at the beg inning of the struggle the threat of a general strike had forced the release of the five imprisoned dockers from Pentonville jail. The Government and the employers were on their knees. The door hardly had to be kicked in -it could have been blown Jones managed to get the dockers defeated. He gained a promise of a mere 200 jobs when i was already kamen that the National Ports Council report forecast 11,000 dock redundancies policies of refusing to fight inevitably Jed to his betrayal of shop floor democracy on which he based his rise to power in the TGWU. When he announced the vote for the return to work in 1972 Jones made much 15,000 Tory Party Instead, by backstage manoeuvring GONE FURTHER But 1972 also showed how Jones clearly dockers. of the fact that it had been passed by the dockers delegates. But what he didn't say was that the delegates who bad voled against a return to work represented 30,000 while those who were for it represented only Equally significant is the fact that in his attacks on the dockers Jones continually finds himself lined up either by choice or by the inevitable logic of his actions, with the most extreme reactionary forces. In 1967 he took no action when employers for a whole period diverted work from the militant ports so as to demoralise the dockers and undermine their leaders, In 1972 he produced the Jones Aldington report with an ex-deputy chairman of the the man who, us vice chairman of GEC, had presided over the sacking of 50,000 workers. Within a year of that particular report 9,000 dockers jobs liad gone.
Hut in this strike Jones has gone far further. The strike was completely solid. Every dock and every whart in London was our. But Jones waded in. In the middle of a press witch hunt he leaked stories about his meeting in Poplar being invaded by a 'gangster clement when all the workers at the meeting checked by union card, were He stayed silent when the employ eis paid lorry drivers to attond the dockers meetings to vote for a ret urn to work, or when supervisors and foremen - not even on strike turned up to vote against the docks leaders. He didn't raise one peep of objection when it became public knowledge that the Special Branch had formed a 'Docks Squad' to intervene in the dispute. Finally he got his way and the strike was broken.
The benefits the employers hope to get out of this defcat are high Already 35,000 docks jobs have been lost in seven years. The biggest single port employer, Scrutton's-Malcby, is going into liquidation which threatens 2,000 more jobs Mean while all Jones can talk about is some vague future legislation which won't be introduced until next year at the carliest. It's going to be a hard continuing fight against red undancy in the docks a fight made ten times more difficult by the policies of the TGWU bureaucracy. But the lessons of Jones role are not con fined to the docks. The Communist Party and others still believe that the 'lefts' can be relied on in the struggle to protect jobs. In the car industry and elsewhere they subst itute pressure on the 'lefts for ind ependent working cluss organisation and class wide demands Those 35.000 jobs in the docks should he a terrible reminder for anyone who wants to tread the path of relying on the Joneses of this world.