What the policy described by Kees Marges meant in practice during the Liverpool dispute was that decisions of the T&GWU General Secretary and General Executive Council were binding on the ITF and that Liverpool dock stewards were prevented from addressing the official session of an ITF dockers conference in Miami in June 1997, and that the ITF was unable to participate in or even mention the word Liverpool during the 2nd International Day of Action in Sept. 1997.
Yet a number of key ITF affiliates, including the ILWU, MUA, and Zenkoku Kowan (Japan - National Council of Dockworkers Unions) did choose to support the Liverpool dockers fight both financially and industrially. Their support was not limited to the brief period around the 1st International Day of Action (Jan 1997) when the ITF itself backed international solidarity action - which the Liverpool dockers welcomed.
The ITF was not able to throw its weight behind those affiliates supporting Liverpool in Sept. 1997 because they did not get the green light from the T&GWU leadership - who were poised to impose another ballot (which threw out the offer) and then to ignore its results.
Yet the Liverpool dispute was explicitly fought as an international battle against casualisation and (real) union busting. The sacked dockers never posed their struggle as a local fight and their “internal” dispute, as Kees Marges calls it, was known all over the world. They said they wanted an international alliance to fight issues confronting all dockers - and they meant it.
I hope people will take the time to read the debate on labournet from that period.
www.labournet.net/docks2/other/itf.htm
Greg Dropkin
still in Liverpool - but not a docker
