Nocialis (look sailing into the port than there were 2 years ago.
The international support has been tremendous. Ports in over 30 countries took part in actions ranging from 24 hour strikes to boycotting ships who deal with the Port of Liverpool.
The countries include Canada, East and West Coast of America, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, India, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Other countries where there are no ports held demonstrations outside british consuls and de manded that the new Labour government should successfully resolve the dispute. Many of the ports are continuing to boycott shipping lines who use the Port of Liverpool on a regular basis. SO: Women on the Waterfront have been an important development. What role have they played and how have they helped the dispute? HH: The Women on the Waterfront (WOW) have supported us in many ways. They daily attend and take an active role in picketing the port.
They regularly go on delegation work to raise finance, presently they are touring in Denmark. Their moral support has strengthened the resolve of their sacked husbands. This has greatly eased tensions in the families and so far after 2 years not one family has broken up.
Recently, Colonel Gadaffi presented the WOW with the Humane Merit Award - the same award presented to Nelson Mandela 5 years ago. They received $50,000 which has been put into the strike fund. The WOW form an integral element of our struggle. SO: Finally, after 2 years in struggle, are you any closer today than you were 2 years ago to gaining full reinstatement? No. We are still presently continuing to pressurise and hope there are going to be more talks with the MDHC. We have rejected offers of reinstatement of 60 dockers and bigger payoffs for the rest.
What we want is a full reinstatement of all the sacked dockers on the same pay and conditions with trade union recognition - nothing less. We have fought for decades for these conditions and we won't accept anything less.
It is up to us to fight for future generations and for our dignity as human beings. Victory to the Liverpool Dockers! Greg Tucker Two years after they were dismissed for refusing to cross a picket line, Liverpool dockers continue their fight for reinstatement. A successful International Day of Action has again caused millions of pounds of losses for shipping companies around the world.
Despite all forecasts, the Dockers have stood firm. Every Friday, their mass meeting votes to continue the action. Ballots have rejected offers of "redundancy" money, though increasing numbers of dockers are losing their homes as mortgage companies foreclose.
In partnership with Women of the Waterfront, their organisation of pickets, marches and speaking tours have served as a beacon for a movement often too ready to accept defeat.
The dockers' support for others in struggle such as the Magnet and Hillingdon workers and for campaigns such as the EuroMarch has put the trade union official leaderships to shame.
Despite continued financial support from workers in Britain, the two key players able to settle this dispute refuse to move.
The trade union leaderships continue to cry that they cannot take any action which might break the law, and the Labour government refuses to use its influence as a major shareholder of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Company (MDHC).
International Solidarity Despite frequent obstruction from the ITF (International Transport Workers Federation) an impressive international dockers movement has been built.
On September 8, the Maritime Union of Australia defied government threats to bring troops on to the waterfront in the event of any strike, with all major ports stopping.
The International Longshore.
SUPPORTS THE ously affecting the Mersey Docks & Harbour Company.
That they have been able to maintain their stance is down to a series of behind the scenes arrangements in which the major shareholder, the British government, must be implicated.
Under the Tories this was hardly a surprise, but after four months of a Labour government the dockers are entitled to ask why something has not been done. T&G must be forced to Fact The failure of the TGWU and TUC leaderships to openly back the dockers is significant. At the TUC the dockers were denied a stall or even passes to enable them to get onto the conference floor to lobby for support. The TUChid behind the excuse that the TGWU would not officially ask for such facilities. Bill Morris refused to ask, saying "we are constrained by law". AFFECHT nial Conference was a triumph. Nevertheless the conference was a lost opportunity.
The dockers' strategy of trying to go round the TGWU bureaucracy has let the leadership off the hook. Whilst the dockers have been able to clearly expose the role that Morris, Adams and co have played, the bureaucrats have not felt threatened enough to change that role.
It is time for a real fight inside the TGWU. The dockers' leaders have been frequently dismissive of the TGWU's semi-secret "Broad Left", and rightly so. But clearly the left that does exist in the TGWU must organise itself to go beyond fund-raising, important as that is, to place real demands for action on the TGWU leadership.
Firstly TGWU members must demand the implementation of conference decision. If this does not work then there must be a camDOCKERS 5 paign inside the union for a recall Delegate Conference in order to have the strike made official and stop the crossing of picket lines by union members driving lorries and tugboats.
All goods coming through Liverpool must be boycotted. To fight for this there needs to be a meeting of all supporters of the dockers' stand inside the union.
Bill Morris claims he cannot "jeopardise the fabric of the Union in the interests of one section of its members." He must be forced to realise that his inaction is an even bigger threat to the future of the union than any potential intervention from the sequestrators.
Labour could solve the dispute tomorrow There are direct links between MDHC and the new government. Even after the reduction to 14 per cent of the government's shareholding as a result of the purchase of the Medway Ports, the government's interest still represents a 'golden' share, giving special powers.
The new Labour government should have made justice for the sacked workers a priority. All we have seen are vague promises from Prescott of a meeting some time in the future.
Only 2 out of 560 Labour Party Conference resolutions ( Edinburgh East and City of Chester) call for government action to settle the dockers' dispute. But this is no reason not to target Conference, or not to build a serious campaign to place the government in the spotlight.
The trade union movement, and the TGWU in particular, have spent many millions getting Labour elected. Rank and file activists, Labour Party members or not, should organise to make demands for action from their union's sponsored MPs.
Above all, after 2 years, whatever the tactical problems, the dockers' resolve to fight on to victory is an inspiration to the whole movement. Raising funds has now to be linked with a vigorous industrial and political campaign to force the Mersey Docks and the government to settle.
As the dockers themselves have said, "The financial generosity of people has been extraordinary. But the big thing we need is solidarity action."