An international response!

They were surprised when they saw the proposed agenda: comparison of work contracts in the various ports, the role of international solidarity on casual labour and privatisation, the role of women, a tour of the picket lines, a labour lawyer speaking on trade union rights, the role of shipping companies and port authorities in undermining wages and conditions of dockworkers across the globe, international communications: Internet, participation in the sacked dockers' mass meeting.

Mike Carden, the Liverpool Shop Steward dealing with Standing Orders announced: 'We don't want Liverpool to dominate we want to build an international organisation.'

It was through the campaign to win international solidarity that the Merseyside Port Shop Stewards' Committee had gained the confidence to go beyond their own dispute.

Even before the conference began they had learned that every docker in the world was facing the same problems: privatisation, casualisation and anti-trade union laws.

John Bolger from the Amalgamated and General Workers Union of Ireland put things in context: 'The Liverpool fight is the fight of the working class against the Tory governments of the world.'

And since every delegate had arrived with this common agreement, everything else came naturally. At one point when Jimmy Nolan, in the chair, invited each delegation to express their opinion Michel Murray, President of the SCFP Montreal, Quebec, said: 'I cannot see the point of going through the list of everybody to speak. With respect - everybody agrees!'

And it was true, there could never have been a conference with more unity of purpose and action. It was unanimously decided

• to carry out every type of direct and indirect action against all vessels and companies which continue to do business with the employers of the 500 dockers sacked in Liverpool.
• to provide the Liverpool dockers with material aid and call upon other portworkers' unions to do the same.
• to set up an international steering committee to meet no later than August l996 to decide on the venue and frequency of future international conferences, and to co-ordinate actions, first for the Liverpool dispute, and then on any attack affecting dockers.
• to campaign to ensure that the rights of all workers are defended and continually upgraded, and therefore to declare that all laws that take away the right to strike run contrary to basic democratic freedoms.
• to take solidarity action if required in defense of New Zealand dockers facing the introduction of non-union casual labour and the West Coast (US) dockers confronted with possible strike action to defend their contract.
• to support the Trans-Tasman Accord linking the struggles of Australian and New Zealand dockers and seafarers.
• to declare a 'Hot Cargo' edict for all Irving Oil Limited products if called upon to do so by the Canadian Labour Congress in support of the 150 sacked Irving workers, locked out for 22 months.
• to call for the immediate release of the Jailed Sataur-100 trade unionists, busworkers in Mexico City, victimised for their struggle against privatisation.
• to endorse the use of the International Communication Network to provide information on issues and struggles of all maritime workers.
• to send letters: expressing international support to the dockers of North Quay, Drogheda taking a strike ballot against their sacking; and to the Argentinian president protesting at the imprisonment of trade unionists and left activists.