For most of the last 18 months and with the notable exception of Australia and New Zealand, Liverpool’s trading routes have led the dockers to seek solidarity in Europe and North America. But they had the imagination to see themselves in a world wide fight against the global problems of deregulation, privatisation, and casualisation of the industry.
Soon after Japanese dockers joined the international day of action in January and Brazilian dockers made contact, a new group of allies emerged at the 4th Indian Ocean Regional Trade Union Conference, held in Calcutta 17-22 February.
Over 70 delegates from Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Kazakstan, Mauritius, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam joined about 150 Indian delegates for a week. Liverpool stewards Terry Teague and Jimmy Davies Jr. attended as observers, along with a representative of the French CGT.
Terry had never witnessed the extremes of poverty or the street life of a world underdeveloped by Britain and other imperial powers. He found it hard to believe that workers who had to be smuggled out of their country to reach Calcutta or faced anti-trade union laws backed up by guns and starvation, would identify with the Liverpool dockers. But the same privatisation programmes and anti-trade union legislation pioneered in Britain since 1979, following IMF restrictions on public sector spending from 1975, run rampant around the world. Terry and Jimmy were delighted the delegates "identified strongly with us as workers in struggle and saw South Korea and Liverpool as evidence that their own resistance is global".
"We went to the Seamen and Dockworkers’ hut in South Calcutta where Terry, speaking through an interpreter, addressed about 400 men lining the driveway," Jimmy recounts. "The Indian seamen know Liverpool because animal feeds, fertiliser, iron ore and chemicals are shipped to the UK through the Huskisson and Birkenhead docks. They will discuss the potential for action. "
The Conferences were initiated in 1988 through a joint effort by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Western Australia Labour Council and others, in the knowledge that transnational corporations were seizing the economies of South East Asia. It was a far-sighted move at a time when the apartheid regime remained in power. Back then, Australian wharfies were boycotting South Africa and Liverpool dockers were blockading exports from British Nuclear Fuels whose uranium had come from Namibia and South Africa.
Recently, COSATU has intervened to support the Maritime Union of Australia, under siege since the election of a "Liberal" government pledged to break the power of the MUA. When the Western Australia state government threatened to sequestrate the union and victimise individuals during a fight over a new terminal for Coca-Cola, COSATU boycotted ships and told the Melbourne authorities that even at the height of repression in South Africa, they "never had to put up with laws like yours".
COSATU delegates from Food/Tobacco, Communications, Maritime, Road Transport, Rail, Education, and Public Sector unions came to Calcutta. The conference was based on workshops. A discussion on Maritime-Transport-Communications included delegates from South Africa, Australia, India, Nepal. Jimmy Davies took notes.
Delegates reported that employment in the Indian ports has fallen from 300,000 to 90,000 through containerisation, natural wastage, and the use of sub-contractors. While the 11 major ports remain Government controlled and strongly unionised, there is no union in the small ports. ‘Middlemen’ hiring companies are growing while port owners retreat into a landlord role with a general lack of investment in maintenance and infrastructure.
In Nepal, road transport is mainly in private hands, with high staff turnover of casual employees suffering many accidents. The drivers lack insurance or compensation schemes.
Casual workers in Australian ports enjoy the same base rate of pay as the core labour force, but are given incentives to reduce their pay rates. Some casuals are guaranteed 2 days/week, while others are hired day to day. Full privatisation of telecommunication is feared, through the government has settled on selling 1/3 for now.
The South African TGWU is conducting a recruitment drive in aviation, which up to now has been poorly organised. The taxi industry, plagued by gangland rivalries, now has a new union. The buses are well organised but many drivers are on 3 month casual contracts.
Delegates agreed that casualisation was being used as a wedge to divide the union movement, and must be fought with demands for a minimum wage. The increase in working hours not only risked workers’ health but threatened public safety. The ideology of privatisation would have to be challenged through a wide ranging political debate.
This is just a sample of the discussion, and Labournet would be happy to carry further reports from other delegates to this important conference.
