Merseyside Port Shop Stewards
It is with great interest that, on the second anniversary of their dismissal, 500 Liverpool dockers read the detailed appraisals of global actions by Kees Marges - the dockers' secretary of the ITF. He gave specifically an appraisal of the ITF's joint actions with the maritime Union of Australia (ITF circular No. 237).
Beyond any doubt, the decimation of organised labour carried out by the UK Conservative government in 1989 was the beginning of a process which in 1995 led to the replacement of Liverpool dockers by casual/contract labour. Now, this process of privatisation, de-registration and casualisation is clearly the common currency in many major ports throughout the world. This is no rhetorical analysis of those on the fringes of trade unionism, but the reality for dockers in Sri Lanka, Australia, Japan, Brazil, America, Portugal, Amsterdam etc.
Given that reality, it is a basic expectation of dockers globally that the ITF :
"Maximises, co-ordinates and targets a plan of action carefully and to continue to organise all kinds of action until we have won...establishing a permanent threat to terminal operators and shipowners to disrupt their businesses as long as they make use of ports where unionised workers are being made victims of port reforms...carried out to destroy trade unions."
Indeed, these words of Kees Marges inspire and sum up the fundamental principles of trade union internationalism.
Whilst similar assurances were given to the Liverpool dockers at a number of official ITF meetings, the practical expression of a developed co-ordinated response against the port employers in Liverpool has been non-existent.
Further, there is another failure of Kees which it is important to note. As former ITF inspector Jack Heyman has commented, that is his failure, in his recent declarations, to use the "L" word. In considering the global attacks on dockers without mentioning the historic struggle of the Liverpool dockers for the last two years and ignoring the support given by South African, American, Australian, Swedish, Danish, Canadian dockers etc., etc., is an amazing piece of selective amnesia - or is it perhaps something more cynical?
The chorus actively undermining the struggle of the Liverpool dockers is led by the TGWU General Secretary ..."it's illegal'..."it's unofficial". To support this cry of surrender is indefensible. Perhaps the 'embattled' bureaucracy of our great labour movements forgets the history of the organisations that now employ them.
The TGWU General Secretary and the leaders of the ITF owe their very existence to men and women who broke the unjust laws of their mother countries to establish the freedom of trade union organisation. They still go through the motions of saluting the Tolpuddle Martyrs, but they make sure they do not draw any lessons from their struggle. The very principles of trade unionism naturally oppose the forces of injustice, reaction and fascism.
After two years the unique and global solidarity with the Liverpool dockers and their families, is a result of the global nature of the problems of all working class people. We have inherited the right to reject this hypocrisy that combines with the port employers to destroy the hard-fought-for rights of recognition and dignity in the worlds' ports. The Merseyside Port Shop Stewards openly reject the evasions of the TGWU General Secretary, his failure to recognise the irrelevance of the UK labour laws to the Liverpool dockers' struggle.
Two years is two years too long. We demand of Kees that he stops playing mind-games - the struggle of ordinary men and women demands more respect. The inaction of the ITF and the TGWU towards the Liverpool dockers sends out a signal of defeatism and fear that will produce a green light for all employers to destroy organised labour in the world's ports. It is not too late to make the vital contribution that the ITF can now make for the community of dockers that is now under attack.
