"The international dockers movement which has come to life during our dispute is now poised to deliver a very damaging blow to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company,"
delegates returning from the 2nd International Dockworkers Conference in Montreal told the weekly mass meeting in Liverpool on Friday.
"We don’t want our union to cut across this opportunity with a shoddy deal to sabotage the international movement,"
declared international co-ordinator Terry Teague.
54 delegates from 5 continents, 17 countries, and 27 ports met for a week in the conference hosted by the Syndicat des Debardeurs (Dockers Union). Jimmy Nolan, Terry Teague, and Mike Carden represented Liverpool. Key figures from the international actions in January and the 1st International Conference held in Liverpool in February 1996 joined welcome new recruits like Marvin Mfundisi, 1st vice president of the South African TGWU, Vladimir Vasiliev, president of the Dockers Union of Russia, Yoshi Nakamura, General Secretary of the National Council of Dockworkers’ Unions of Japan, Ron Wiechels, Secretary General of the FNV labour pool in Amsterdam, and many others.
Syndicat des Debardeurs president Michel Murray stated at the start that
"employers seek the weak link of the chain, where they could benefit from casual, under-paid labour without protection... Our principle objective is to reinforce this chain, to plug all the breaks by which maritime employers could try to slip through to destroy the safety net of protection which the dockers have won in over 100 years of struggle. It must be timely to speak today more than ever of Liverpool!"
A rolling programme of industrial action aimed at winning the 21 month old dispute was agreed, beginning with a world-wide stoppage of up to 24 hours depending on local circumstances and moving immediately to
"a movement organised in series and relays, in accordance with the itineraries and destinations of the vessels of the shipping companies (Cast, ACL, Canmar...)"
which continue to call in Liverpool.
The International Transportworkers Federation (ITF) had been invited to Montreal but declined to attend although many delegates represented ITF-affiliated unions. On Monday, the ITF will begin its own dockers’ meeting in Miami.
The Montreal conference resolved to
"ask the ITF to join and take part in the action process" and "participate actively and concretely in the future thinking process relating to the Liverpool conflict".
A small number of delegates were mandated to take part in the debates of the Miami congress with the specific aims:
The Co-ordination Committee, with delegates from Asia, Europe, America, Africa, Oceania, and the Conference hosts, will co-ordinate the agreed plan of action and "all information and communications relating to the Liverpool struggle", conveying them to the conference members.
Back in Liverpool, Terry Teague described the many other potential and actual dockers’ disputes
"bubbling up around the world, in Amsterdam, Australia, Brazil, Los Angeles... Dockers everywhere are getting the message that it can happen to them. That’s why our victory is essential. The strong view in Montreal was that the international dockworkers’ movement is a movement for the future, and Liverpool dockworkers must be part of that future."
The Ken Loach documentary "The Flickering Flame" stunned the Montreal delegates into deathly silence, followed immediately by a resolve to take physical action. Longshoremen from I.L.A. Local 1341 in Halifax handle the transatlantic shipper ACL, a key to their own port as well as Liverpool. Seeing the film they came forward, ready to act. Delegates also caught "Port in a Storm" and "All for One", videos shot during the 1st International Conference in Liverpool and the world-wide actions in January this year.
The Liverpool stewards had to explain that Labour’s election victory guaranteed nothing for their dispute: "Only if we take the lead, they may follow," as Terry Teague put it. The Montreal conference wrote to Tony Blair, concluding "this disgraceful hostage situation absolutely must come to an end. We affirm that 1997 constitutes a repetition of the events of 1967. This time, however, the scale of these events is international!" Terry stressed the intervention by Julian Garcia, co-ordinator of the Barcelona Coordinadora, who told conference that Governments do not have the power to determine conditions in the ports. Half a dozen shipping consortiums control the industry and dictate to governments the policies they desire. Dockers must tackle this power at its source.
Delegates regretted the ITF decision not to attend, and the ITF view that this conference represented a counter-organisation. Delegates wished the ITF to take up the dockers’ cause, as they had done for seafarers with the Flag of Convenience campaign. Had the ITF agreed to work with and co-ordinate on behalf of the Liverpool dockworkers there would have been no need to set up the present international movement.
Terry Teague and Jimmy Nolan have flown to Miami this weekend, where their access to the ITF dockers’ meeting remains blocked following correspondence between TGWU General Secretary Bill Morris and ITF General Secretary David Cockroft.
Ron Wiechels (Amsterdam FNV) commented,
"we have to come immediately into action. We voted unanimously for the the resolutions in Montreal. So be it. But we can't take the chance that the rest of the world doesn't take us seriously. We said and decided: If one will be injured, we all are injured!!!!!!! One for all, all for one!!!"
LabourNet would be delighted to hear from other delegates to the Montreal conference, so that the full range of discussion can be shared.
