'I was looking at the meeting today and I was looking at the guys I work with. We are all the same people. Same bullshitters, same good guys, same bad guys. We've all got the same culture and it's the same in every port; same with Mexicans and Chinese.
'I look at the employers in Britain þ they say the same as other employers. I see the same containers here. No wonder the Liverpool struggle struck a spark. In the USA it even achieved an important co-operation between unions which had been suspicious of each other for many years.
'The International Longshore Workers Association and us are in solidarity with the Liverpool dockers and for many years the east and west coast were suspicious of each other's agendas!'
Max had been in London during the big printers' dispute against Murdoch in Wapping.
'I went down to Wapping to show solidarity and I got picked up. When the cop found my identity, he said: ''How did you get mixed up with this crowd?''
'I said I was going to look at the crown jewels. He asked me where I was staying. I told him, the Dorchester! He took me there and I walked in, past the doorman in his braid and then had to beat it out again!'
