Letter to "The Guardian"
It is a pity that the conclusion to the Liverpool dock dispute should provide an excuse for John Pilger to renew his vendetta against the Transport & General Workers' Union (Letters, January 29). Why does Mr Pilger always reserve his venom for workers' own organisations rather than bad employers or unjust laws? Indeed, it is John Pilger and others like him, with their message of false hope to the dockers and their families, who did more than anyone to prolong the agony.
For the record, the docks dispute on Merseyside has probably been the most expensive in the union's history. The union has, at all levels, spent over £1 million in relieving the hardship amongst the sacked dockers families and my senior colleagues and myself spent hundreds of hours in the search for a negotiated settlement.
That the dockers' solidarity and resilience did not succeed In securing their just demand for reinstatement is down to the most repressive anti union laws in the western world, not the T&G.
These are the facts. The view that victory could have been achieved if only the T&G had been prepared to ignore the law and put the entire union at risk is a fantasy, disproved by the history of the last 20 years.
Bill Morris.
General Secretary, T&G,
Transport House,
Palace Street,
London
SW16 5JD.
