Liverpool dockers have been locked out by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company
Most of the 500 dockers have given their working lives to the docks; many have between 30 to 40 years' service.
The fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the employers who stand for Tory government policy - "a low wage/high profit" Britain.
In 1989, the government abolished the National Dock Labour Scheme, taking away every right won in trade union struggle for over 100 years. Backed by the anti-trade union laws and huge government financial handouts, the port employers succeeded in defeating the strike, smashing union recognition, cutting wages and introducing part-time casual work in all British ports, except in Liverpool.
This was the only port where a trade union force of dockers continued to exist which was not casualised. But whereas before the 1989 strike there were over 1,000 dockers in the Mersey ports, at the end of that year only 400 remained.
While the shareholders of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company coined government money, over £312 million in 1989, followed by huge Euro and City Challenge grants, dockers have had a continuous battle to maintain the conditions and union organisation which took 100 years to build.
The dockers' fathers and grandfathers had to fight every step of the way against ruthless stevedoring firms for even elementary civilised conditions of work.
Years ago the employers said they could not have decasualisation because of the nature of dock work - the impossibility of accurately forcasting the amounts of cargo to load from day to day.
Since then, with the advance of technology: 'mechanisation, containerisation, larger ships, and computerisation', together with a concentration of employers, these uncertainties have been removed from the shipping industry.
Yet the port employers' demand for the return of casualisation has accelerated.
Like the other great technological developments today, these advances have never benefited the majority.
Only the hardfaced men and women who control business and finance are enriched by such 'advances' by paying themselves enormous sums of money. Since 1989 dockers have had mass disciplining, falling safety standards and constant threats of dismissal. Shop stewards were derecognised and union rights undermined. The employers abused their power in a most disgraceful manner, using threats and intimidation and consistently refusing to discuss problems.
Four years ago 80 dockers' sons were taken on by Torside Limited on different terms from the other dockers. This was agreed only because the dockers were concerned about the future of the port and the future of trade unionism in the industry. It was through an attack on this group that the present lockout was engineered. Torside Limited 'offered' redundancies, saying they wanted to cut the workforce by 20 and employ agency, part-time labour.
There was a unanimous strike ballot. The employers backed down. But only until the legal 28-day time limit for the ballot was used up.
Then they organised a provocation, sacking all 80 dockers who put up a picket line which the other dockers would not cross. All the dockers were then locked out.
Liverpool is one of the most profitable and successful ports in Britain. The profits of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company exceed 35 million, and cargo handling is greater than in the port's heyday of the 1950s, with a turnover of 130 millions. In 1957 there were 16,000 dockers on Merseyside. Today there are only 500.
The dockers' crime is that they fought to protect jobs and help young workers to get a future. Their fathers and grandfathers fought against the humiliation, misery and poverty of the old casual system which was also the lot of ship repair workers, building workers and many others.
Strong unions
Dockers built strong unions. It was the greed and ruthlessness of the port employers which forced militancy and solidarity upon them to protect themselves.
After the Second World War, along with the majority of the British population, the present dockers' fathers decided that they would not go back to the conditions of the 1930s.
Many felt that they had fought for the better world promised with the defeat of fascism. They struggled for security of employment, satisfactory wages and decent working conditions. In 1947, a Labour Government introduced the National Dock Labour Scheme.
Bad Conditions
Even after that they were in a constant battle with the port employers who held the main power.
The shipping and stevedoring companies were only concerned with their own profit and looked on dockers as a labour force which should fit their time and physical capacities to what employers wanted.
They worked long hours with compulsory overtime. It was not until 1967, after a solid six weeks strike that they got proper and decent toilets and washing facilities and only after they got the press to reveal how bad their conditions were.
Last year the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company imposed a work contract on the dockers, after issuing each of them with a 90-day redundancy notice. Their jobs were advertised in the Liverpool Echo and 1,800 of Merseyside's unemployed were interviewed. Not one of them got a job. It was a disgraceful hoax to enforce contracts through fear.
Locked Out
Today the Company has locked the dockers out, and again they have advertised their jobs. They have received 1,000 applications for part-time employment.
In an attempt to break their solidarity 200 dockers have received personal contracts which offer their jobs on new conditions: no union, lower wages and the necessity to work with part-time, casual labour. Clearly no shop steward, health and safety rep or other trade union activitist would even get an offer to sign this slave labour contract. The Company has declared its intention to use Drake International Limited to vet applicants. Dockers in other parts of the country remember this company during the 1989 strike-busting activities.
Scab Agency
It is described as an employment agency with offices in Charles House, Regent Street, London SW1. The directors are:
Robert William Pollock a 67 year old Canadian businessman with an address in Monte Carlo, occupation, president of Drake International Limited; and 33 year old Ian Roots of Mortlake in SW London, whose occupation is manager/officer of Industrial Overload Limited (a subsidiary of Drake International).
Drake International shareholders are Robert William Pollock and a holding company, Drake International Limited BV of Amsterdam.
A Fight for All
The dockers' fight is for regular employment, for the conditions that their forefathers won and for the right to collective organisation. Their fight is therefore the fight of millions of men and women throughout Britain, facing uncertainty of employment both day-to-day and long term.
Pleas Ignored
The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company have ignored pleas for a negotiated settlement made by senior church leaders, various City Councillors, Liverpool MPs Eddie Loyden, Bob Parry and Joe Benton and Euro MP Ken Stewart. The company has cynically ignored the people of Merseyside. The dockers want a public inquiry into the use of tax payers' money by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company.
The riverside area has been ravaged. Seafarers', dockers', ship repair workers' and factory workers' jobs have gone. To be sure, when they did work on the Mersey the biggest share of what they produced did not go to them and their families. It was the employers who prospered.
Now, on Merseyside, as in the rest of the country, the fat cats get fatter, while the people are told that there is no money for social and public services and the dockers and others face unemployment for the rest of their lives.
Who are the faceless people behind this conspiracy? As one Radio Merseyside `phonein' caller remarked: `The dock road is saturated with policemen. We can't go down there without getting stopped'. Who are they there to protect and against whom?
Unite to support
The Dockers Call for Support, Saying:
`We cannot allow this tragedy to unfold. Our Port is the historic lifeblood of our community and it symbolises the regeneration of our great city. We cannot allow the scars of casual labour, inhumane working environments, the absence of democratic rights of representation, to destroy the dignity of our water front. We ask the Merseyside community to support our just cause, to right a wrong. We ask workers everywhere to support us.'
