Decades of betrayal that led to the dockers' last stand
The National Dock Labour Scheme is under assault from the Tories. with the connivance of the employers. Here BOB
PENNINGTON, who was an official of the 'Blue Union' on the docks in
1954-55, looks at the history of the scheme and the struggles of dockers for improved conditions.
Right until the last war and the National Dock Labour Scheme of 1947, casualisation had been a scourge on Britain's waterfronts.
Mayhew, the Victorian philanthropist, wrote of the hinng system, saying: Then begins the scuffling and scrambling forth of countless hands, high in the air to catch the eye of him whose voice may give them work To look into the faces of that hungry crowd in to see a right that must ever be remembered".
It was not until the first world war that entry on the
Jocks was regulated but the
"free call" was still the way the overwhelming majority got their jobs. How little improvement had been made to that degrading and humiliating system can be seen by the report of the Shaw Commission in
1920 which argued; 'I men were merely spare parts in an industrial machine, this callous reckoning might be appropriate. But society will not tolerate much longer the continuance of the employment of human beings on these lines.
The system of casualisation must, if possible, be tom up by the roots. It is wrong.
Casualisation had its roots in the fluctuating nature of dock work and in the employers' conviction that it was the only economic way that demand and supply could he matched. Ar they were only trading for profit, they saw no reason why men should not make tbemselves available for hire when, and only when, there were ships to lood and unload. Because the unions did not challenge the profit motive, and naw their function simply an getting the best deal within the system, they were unable to mount an effective challenge to casualisation.
Wartime measures
The arrival of the second world war saw a
Ernest Bevin, former changed situation.
General Secretary of the Transport and General
Workers Union (TG WL), became in 1940 Minister of Labour in Churchill's coalition govemment. He, along with the rest of the govemment, was seriously worried that labour shortages
FEATURES FEAT would seriously affect the docks. For the first time in over two decades unemployment had virtually disappeared, and the govemment urgently needed dockers. When the interests of the bourgaisie were threatened and the inefficiency of casualisation jeopardised the wareffort, something had to be done. Consequently, the dockers and the employers were registered, and the labour force was given a guaranteed
These war-time measures showed that the The labour force kept demanding better wages. - Liverpool dockers, 1950 old system was neither necessary, nor was it inviolable. However the real question washowto replace it. There was an obvious case for nationalisation. A single employer would have been in a far better position to forecast incoming work and distribute lahour accordingly. How, asked the advocates of nationalisation. could a multiplicity of firms, made up of ship ping companies and stevedoring firms - who never consulted with each other. on such matlers - plan anything so complex as the overall allocation of labour?
The post war Labour government had no stomach for nationalising the docks, nor did it even have the semblance of a plan for such an undertaking But it had promised to end casualisation, and had to come up with a solttion. Under pressure, the port employers reluetantly accepted the principle of a maintenance payment, bur wanted to retain control of hiring. and firing and the administration of docks and harbours. The trude unions were not ad all inclined to give up their ray in administering the register which determined who got hired The full time officials particularly enjoyed the positions that legislation had provided, secing this as an extension of their self-perceived role as mediators between capital and labour.
At the base, among At the base, among rank and file dockers. there was a strong mood of militancy. In March
1945, even before the war had ended, 10,000 London dockers were on strike. Again in that September a strike which started in Birkenhead spread nationally, lasting six wooks, This was over a national pay award and was bitterly op posed by the new Labour govemment, the Tories, the Liberals, the Communist party and of course every "right thinking' trade union of-
The situation was explosive. A militant dock labour force wanted reforms that would end casualisation permanently. would provide a guaranteed pay packet and jobs, and improve safety. Employers who used the ports for importing or exporting their goods favoured measures that would speed up turn-round times, and cut down on disputes. They were Therefore sympathetic to measures that would provide a stable Tahour force, whilst being op posed to nationalisation. The mnion bureaucracy did not favour nationalisation either. They wanted to retain a system thal gave them power by government decree - much preferable in their eyesto having to mobilise the membership in struggle - and which provided them with privileges and perks The Labour govemment saw its job frm the outset as being to reconcile these different interests. They were anxious to get rid of the old anarchic system that had plagued the docks for ycar. They even wanted a better deal for the Labour force - as long as it did not antagonine the employers too much
The 1947 compromise
No single section of the conflicting groups was strong cnough to impose its own solution. The climate of opinion in 1947 would not have tolerated a full-blown retum to the old methods. On the other hand there was no leadership from the unions or Labour's left, that was able, or even wantedto lead a campaign for nationalisa
Thus the 1947 National Dock Labour Scheme was from its inception a compromise. It was certainly an improvement on the part, but hardly represented the dockers millenium. As Lord Devlin said later: *The misconception that the scheme was a concession granted to the dockers and not the best means of sniving the industry's labour problems has to be
Nevertheless the scheme was a step forward. The worst aspects of casualination had gooc
Dockers bad wan some job security and a minimum guaranteed pay packet. The trade unions had the right to control 50 per cent of the register, which meant they could determine the recruitment of half the labour force. The unions were also represented on the various boards set up under the scheme, and on the disciplinary boards.
Of course the class struggle continued. The labour force kept insisting on betler wages. safety improvements and an increased Tail-back guarantee to provide a decent wage if no work was available. In the carly years of the scheme there were national unofficial dock strikes in May-June 1948, April 1949, May-July 1949, April-May 1950, Febaary-April 1951 and October-November 1954.
These were led by unofficial commitice, often in alliance with the National Amalgamated Stevedores" and Dockers' Union (invariably dubbed the Blue Union after the colour of their membership cards), whose 7,500 mem bers were then solely based in London, and always against the official leadership of the TGWU. It was a time when dockers were in a favourable position to build on and extend the gainn of the scheme, but the opportunity was not taken, The TGWU, particularly under the ultra-right wing leadership of Arthur Deakin and his short-lived successor, Tiffen, preferred to collaborate with the goverment and the employers than to allow scope for a politically militant leadership, and so the advances that could have been made did not take place. The break to the Blue Union
The Blue Union played a role in the life of the docks out of all proportion to ils size, and was a constant thorn in the side of the employeis and TGWU officialdom. In 1954 thousands of dockers in Liverpool, Birkenhead, Manchester and Hull, casperated with the Arhur Deakin and the refusal of the TGWU (known on the docks as the "White Union'") to Eglit the employers, decided to join the Blue Union. The Hull dockers sent a message to Liverpool which said: "For many years we dockers in Hull have resented the way that the TGWU has handled our disputes. Time after time we have reported our grievances to the TGWU. only to be told our hands are tied', We of Hull have decided that the time has come to do some 'untying". Thus the Blue Union came
What Birkenhead dockers' leader Billy Jolinson was to describe as 'the biggest prison break in history' followed. Around 15,000 to 16,000 dockers in the Norther ports joined the NASD. In Birkenhead, out of a labour force of about 2,500, only two or three stayed with the White Union, The appeal of the Blue Union in the norther ports was that it was hated by both the employers and the White Union.
The NASD was a relatively democratic
LL A TU union. All its officials were elected every three years, and thus under the constant pressure of the members. Report-backs invariably went to mass meetings ratber than to branches. The of Ficials had to operate on a mandate from the membership, unlike the TGWU where they were controlled from above. Although the 1955 recognition strike failed, the Blue Union still retained a presence in the northern ports, In Liverpool, the successful strike of 1967 should be credited to the unofficial committee, whose chair was Jimmy Benbow, an old-time Bloc
By the mid 1960s, following the retum of a Labour government, the employers and the port users were exerting enormous pressure for change. The age of containersation had dawned, and the technological revolution was arriving in dockland. Who better to make sure it did, than Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who had boasted of Labour's intention to apply the white heat of the technological revolution' to British industry, He and his Minister of Labour, Ray Gunter, appointed Lord Devlin to report on the docks. Phase one of his report completed the abolition of carual labour, in retum for the introduction of productivity deals and the end of the piece work system. It also tightened dis cipline and attacked so-called "restrictive practices. This set the scene for a number of bitter disputes. The unrest on the docks was denounced by Gunter as "communist led': Wilson echoed this when he told a dinner of Landon wine merchants "Everyone here will endorse his (Gunter's) words' - and not surprisingly they did!
Devlin strikes again
In 1972, under the Tories, Devlin stage two was introduced. This accepted containerisation on the employers terms and laid the basis for a proliferation of unregistered ports and the establishment of inland container bases, which would in effect be inland ports doing the job of registered dockers. Dockers began picketing the new unregistered ports; and as a result the TGWU was fined by Ted Heath's National Indestrial Relations Court over the picketing of Heaton's Transport in St Hellens, where dockers' work was being done by unregistered labour.
Liverpool dockers struck, and the strike spread. Eventually five unofficial London dockers' leaders were arrested and imprisoned in Pentooville for refusing to stop picketing Midland Cold Storage. A wave of strikes then hit the docks, the print, and other industries; even the TUC threatened a national one day stoppage: The govemment was forced to find a face-saving formula in the face of such resislance and the dockers were relcased.
After the Pentonville Five were freed, the national dock strike continued, demanding the extension of the National Dock Labour Scheme to all unregistered ports. It was a miltant strike with extensive picketing of the unregistered ports. Terry Tumer, a Hull docker, kept a diary of the 1972 events and he records the condi tions on some of the unregistered wharts; During recent picketing at these places it has been seen that ships work with casual labour employed for a pittance of a wage, and that sometimes the crews work the cargoes'. At the same time, in Turner's own port of Hull. employers were insisting that there was a surplus of 500 dockers.
Jones sells out
When the Aldington-Jones report appeared il war a sell-nut. It talked ahout making a determined effort to bring container work into the docks; but the reality was that in retum for a guarantee that existing dockers in the scheme ports would have a "job for life" (provided they resisted the pressure to take redundancy), the unregistered ports would proliferate and the industry would be split. Tumer commented "Docker see this report as a palliative. Something more substantial is required about dockers' futures before peace can come". The Daily Mirror estimated the proposals would mean the loss of 2000 jobs by the end of the
There was bitter resentment from the dock-