Comments on "New Proposals"

The proposal on a hiring hall concept could work quite well. The idea has functioned quite well on the west coast of Canada and the U.S. for 60 years and is a tool for solidarity rather than devisive.The scope of work available to the Mersey side dock workers could expand as their skills could be marketed to other terminals, as long as it is run fairly and equitably preferably by the Longshoremen themselves. The idea of a co-op would not work in my opinion.

Hello Chris, Further to my comment the other day to clarify. A Co-op concept would work where the distribution of work and opportunity were balanced among the workers similar to the system of distributing work amongst deep sea and river pilots, also the new system of air traffic control (Fed Nav) where the exclusive right of the Union members is recognized and vested by legislation in the work force.

Good Luck to the Dockworkers of Liverpool in their struggle.

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Dear Brothers

I have been somewhat surprised to learn that the proposal to set up a "labour supply unit" or "coop" is being compared by some as similar to the ILWU West Coast Joint Dispatch Hall. The information available to me as to how such a body is supposed to function in guaranteeing employment to dockers is scanty but maybe I can help to clarify this question by describing the legal/contractual basis of our hiring system and how it has operated in practice to maintain job security and hold back casualization.

The final contractual form of the Dispatch Hall resulted from several years of intense struggle on the docks after 1934 against the employers continuing to select men from the recognized pool of union members. The coastwise contract between all West Coast stevedoring companies and shipping lines representing all waterfront employers and the ILWU representing all West Coast Longshoremen (Dockers) committed both parties to set up jointly administered dispatch (hiring) halls in each port. All union members became recognized or "jointly registered" by both parties to the contract as constituting the work force on the waterfront. An interesting aspect of this was that all longshoremen held "coastwise" registration as well as port registration. This put administration of the total coastwise work force in the hands of the union and the employers association. A practical aspect of this was to allow for transfer of longshoremen to ports requiring more manpower and for the "travel" of longshoremen to ports where there was a temporary demand for additional workers beyond the port registered list of waterfront workers.

The employers became contractually committed to procure longshoremen exclusively from the dispatch halls. Some few shipping lines and port authorities who did not choose to join the employers association agreed with the employers and the union to hire exclusively from the joint dispatch halls and meet the other terms of the contract.

After much struggle the employers agreed to accept workers for each ship or shift on the basis of a system which precluded the bosses from selecting individual men. Each dispatch hall set up systems that equalised work opportunity and earnings through such methods as the "low man out" (man with the lowest hours worked first dispatched) or a rotational system. Some ports even had a system of low-man-out based on earnings (the famous "Moscow Time"). The reaction to the favouritism and causalization of the past created a sentiment for the maximum of equality in work opportunity and earnings. The various dispatch categories of hold, dock, winch, etc. were balanced out so as to provide roughly equal work opportunity with the right to work outside a man’s category when there was extra work in other categories. After finishing a shift or a ship the men returned to the hall to await the next dispatch.

Much sentiment existed on the waterfront to go over to an exclusive union controlled hiring hall but after the Taft Hartley Law illegalized the union hiring halls in 1948 and after beating back the employers attempt to smash the union in the three month plus strike in 1948 longshoremen engaged in a constant struggle to maximize defacto control of the job at the point of production and the dispatch hall.

All dispatchers were elected by secret ballot from among the union members and the actual de-facto running of the dispatch hall in the earlier years was largely in the hands of the union. In recent years the employers have reasserted their legal rights to joint administration of the dispatch halls but all workers must come out of the registered work force, even the so-called steady skilled men. All registered longshoremen have the right to return to the dispatch hall and get their jobs out of the hall.

As far as I have been able to determine this unique form of employment and decasualization was not replicated by longshoremen elsewhere during the long and heroic struggles against casualization and exploitation of the 1930s and 1940s. The system did not rest on a national or regional or port government entity such as the various dock labour schemes. Nor did the system rest on an agreement between a union within a single port and the waterfront employers or the port authority in a given port. Waterfront hiring halls have a long history internationally but almost all of them were controlled by the employers. The "joint" employer/union control and administration of waterfront hiring was a compromise; the longshoremen in 1934 were unable to achieve a pure "union hiring hall". In spite of this legal reality, during most of my 35 years on the waterfront longshoremen thought of the Joint Dispatch Hall as the "Union Hiring Hall" and almost invariably referred to this second home as the "Hiring Hall" and thought of it as belonging to them.

The coastwise contract with the same body of employers guaranteed pensions, health and welfare benefits, working hours and conditions, pay scales and the mechanism for resolving differences. Thus job security is linked contractually with working conditions. Even "deregistration for cause" or permanent firing from the work force are a condition of joint decision.

Of course this system of contractual guarantees is only as good as the ability and determination of the union to defend the interests of the longshoremen. My own opinion is that too many concessions based upon trying to keep "labour peace" have weakened the security and conditions of my brothers and sisters. I can anticipate that another series of desperate struggles will be needed even to keep the rudiments of what we inherited.

It appears to me that the "labour supply unit" proposed for Liverpool is a body that will offer to supply workers to shippers and other port users. Without clear contractual guarantees that workers will be hired for specific docks and dockside operations only from this body there is a danger that the "labour supply unit" or "coop" will only be competing for casual employment with other sources of employment such as Drake International. I find it doubtful that MDHC would agree to anything that resembles permanent employment for the fired Liverpool Dockers.

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Dear Colleagues,

We have received information about your plans of setting up a Labour Supply/Hiring Hall Plan in the Port of Liverpool, and as I understand it, being run by the dockworkers who might also provide some money to realise the plan.

Even though we don't have personal experience of such a way of organising dock labour, we find it a very interesting idea. Of course, as you say yourselves there are some preconditions that must be fulfilled and there are problems to overcome. All scab-labour being recruited after the sacking of all you regular dockworkers must be put outside the gates and you also need an agreement with the MDHC and other port operators - particularly since I understand that MDHC will not in the future be directly involved in port operating - that they will recruit all dock labour from the Hiring Hall (to make it easier I will just call the concept "Hiring Hall") being run by dockworkers.

In the early years of this century there was a situation in the Port of Stockholm, at that time the most important in Sweden, when the Hiring Hall was being run by the trade union providing dock labour to different stevedoring companies and with agreements with all companies that all labour must be recruited from that Hiring Hall. That situation occurred after a situation very much like yours; a victory won by the dockworkers after being locked out for almost a year. During that fight the dockworkers also set up a cooperative stevedoring company competing with the privately owned firms. However this was a bit too much for the employers organisation and finally they succeeded in taking over the Hiring Hall and the cooperative stevedoring company "Progress" was being eliminated from business. What we managed to keep in our hands from those days up till now is the right to set the rules regulating in what order the dockworkers are being called out to work and that is a very strategic right.

In later years we have been playing with the idea of setting up a cooperative manpower company just like you are now, but we never got close to putting those plans into reality.

I am also forwarding to you a copy of a letter being sent to ACL Sweden office and ACL EU office in Rotterdam.

We will always be at your side and ready to take action.

LABOR SUPPLY: WORKER-CONTROLLED OR MDHC-CONTROLLED?

March 7, 1997

Dear Liverpool dockers,

I have just read a copy of the T&G's "Jobs Rescue Package" and, to tell you the truth, it raises more questions than it answers. While I understand that this is your struggle, in a much broader sense it is also the struggle of dockers around the world who have been supporting you through actions not just words. Even though the Liverpool Echo and the British news media have not been fair in covering your strike, let me reassure you that dockers internationally are solidly behind you. During the International Day of Action nearly 100 ships were stopped here on the West Coast of America in solidarity with you. Trevor Furlong may be pretending that MDHC wasn't hurt by the action, but when the big global shippers are angry, he's got to answer to them. After all, Mersey Docks is a relatively small fish in a big pond.

Two differences I have with the T&G proposal are: 1) The references throughout the document to "mutual interest" between the union and the company(!) that provoked the strike in the first place in order to eliminate you and your stewards. 2) Section 4, The Identity of the Labour Supplier states: "As for the Labour Supply Company, it is still too early to be more specific, if for no other reason than business confidentiality." Business secrets to protect whom?! At this most critical stage of the conflict it is essential that the dockers know precisely what is being formulated. There must be time to discuss the labor supply question fully before it is put to a vote.

Is it fish or fowl, worker-controlled or company-controlled? Will it be a form of workers' control as the ILWU exercises through its hiring halls with the docker's right to choose his job and elect union job dispatchers? Or will it be a cloned Mersey Docks labor supply unit that disavows any connection to the company, yet screens out union militants? MDHC claims they no longer want to be direct employers of labor, but they still want control over labor. Most importantly any supportable labor agreement must include all the docks, especially Seaforth, not just general cargo and timber.

Consensus amongst dockers is, as ever: "Scabs out, dockers in! "That's what we international delegates chanted when we marched down to Seaforth Terminal and we meant it. But the T&G proposal is conspicuously silent on this critical question. What is to become of Drake International scabs? Is there room to negotiate on this principled question? Not if there is to be a fighting union on the Merseyside docks or a decent future for the Torside lads.

Bottom line is as stated by dockers: 1) Scabs out. 2) Dockers to get dockers' jobs, not ancillary jobs. 3) A dignified retirement for those who choose to hang the hook. These are winnable demands. What is needed is another push to hit scab cargo internationally and mobilizing Merseyside workers along with us.

REINSTATE THE 500 SACKED DOCKERS !
VICTORY TO THE LIVERPOOL DOCKERS !

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