DOCKERS 7
In my last report dated 7 May 1996, I told of the meeting to set up a
National Committee
to co-ordinate and extend the work of the various supporters groups around
the country.
The actual result of the meeting allegedly to set up such a body was
inconclusive. So far as I can tell no such body exists at the moment,
although it remains the
dockers stated intention to set one up. The hesitation and indecision
around this
issue illustrates a debate or argument going on within the committee and
the dockers
leadership. I cannot say, since I am not privy to their discussions as to
what their thinking
is, but perhaps it is a sign of the limits of their struggle and its form
of organisation
that they seem unable to confront, never mind resolve their dilemma.
Whilst my purpose in writing my reports is obviously to support the dockers
and their
struggle, I also wish to act as a catalyst for discussion of the wider
issues which
their struggle raises. I am also trying to develop my own ideas and
understanding
of their struggle. Much comment on the dispute, and some of it directed at
my reports,
is on the question of the trade unions and what is the relationship of
workers in
struggle to them. I have had cause to deal with this question before, but
it seems
that my views are being [deliberately ?] mis-represented or misunderstood.
I am not going
to name the organisations involved, they certainly know who they are, but
it is the
question itself that needs dealing with. Communists [for that is how I
would describe
myself] can have their own views and disagreements. For most of the time
these are quite
esoteric and confined to small groupings whose existence and importance is
marginal
at best. However there comes a time when the question assumes a practical
importance
as it has done in this dispute.
At this time it of no use communists going around denouncing this or that
policy or
strategy - this only serves to INCREASE the gulf of understanding that
already unfortunately
exists. Whilst I for one have made no secret of my views on this question,
I have been more concerned with the PROCESS through which a section of
workers comes to
grips with the reality around them. So essentially after 7 months of
struggle I see
the dockers position as follows:
The dockers by going directly international to dock and transport workers
all over
the world have managed to bring sufficient pressure onto the Mersey Docks
and Harbour
Company, so that they cannot be ignored. They are for the moment the only
section
of workers who have dared to challenge the prevailing offensive of the
employers and their
their constant demand for increased 'flexibility'. This is why the issue at
the centre
of the dispute - casualisation - is the one that they constantly emphasise.
And just as constantly the MDHC denies that is employing 'casual labour'.
However the reality
is that the dockers remain 'locked out'; and MDHC has a replacement
workforce whom
they have recruited and trained, and which is working alongside
approximately half
the original workforce.
As time goes on MDHC will be able to drive up productivity levels without
any or with
very little collective resistance from the workforce. This after all was
what the
dispute was always all about - as the recent 'negotiations' have revealed.
Liverpool
docks were unique in the respect that it was the only port in Britain
where, after the
national strike of 1989, a recognised [by the employers] collective workers
organisation
still existed. The view has been advanced that this dispute is the 'last
stand' of
a dinosaur workers movement, dominated by sectional trade union
organisation . . .
. and at the same time this is the beginning of a 'fight back', but that
same trade
union movement will 'betray' the workers.
As ever, elements of a real situation have been used to bolster an
ideological outlook,
instead of the actual situation being looked at in all its complexity.
Neither of
the above views, however much they may contain elements of reality, can offer us
a way forward. I am of the opinion that the existing trade union movement
in all its forms
represents a barrier to any new movement and that ultimately it will have
to be confronted
and destroyed. But as I also have pointed out, such an abstract
understanding is of no practical use in the concrete situation the dockers
find themselves in
Nobody who knows anything of the history of the dockers attempts at self
organisation
in Britain since the Second World War, can deny that dockers are rightly
suspicious
of the union that 'represents' them - the Transport and General Workers
Union. When
in the 1850s unions were first able to maintain their more or less
permanent existence
instead of disappearing with the business cycle as had, up to then, been
the case
and in accordance with bourgeois economic theory, this created a problem
for the
authorities. How should they deal with this new organisation ?
We are all aware of the history and the argument that initially at least,
only skilled
workers were able to keep their organisations in being, so they formed an
'aristocracy'
of labour. But in the 1890s and just before the First World War, millions
of workers in this country were unionised for the first time.
What was the response of the State ? - It was to attempt to draw all these
new organisations
into the management of the system, initially to keep the war going. But
later, in
the form of the Turner-Mond talks of 1928, this was formalised and by the
late 30s the unions were already assured of a place in the economy. Keynes
and his 'New Economics'
simply formalised and rationalised a process that was ALREADY UNDERWAY.
Thus the T&G was a more than willing participant in the National Dock
Labour Scheme
which was the result of the dockers long fight to get rid of casual working
in their
industry. This was an organisation set up by the State, following Keynesian
attempts
to 'plan' the class struggle and use it as a motor of development for
capitalism. When,
in common with similar schemes in Europe and North America this mechanism
began to
falter in the late 60s, the T&G was its biggest defender, hankering
after its role
in the MANAGEMENT of the labour process. This it secured with the Jones
Aldington agreement
on the docks. But this was never going to be a permanent solution to a
problem that
has its roots in the FUNDAMENTAL antagonism between Capital and Labour,
which more
than anything else the Keynesian system and its Labour Party backers at the
time, wished
to hide.
So in 1989 there was a last ditch attempt to preserve collective
organisation on the
docks in this country - which was defeated. Nationally the unions had no
answer to
the combination new technology [containerisation] and the demand for
'flexibility'
that dock work has always meant. In Liverpool, some dockers organisation
managed to exist
in a quasi independent manner from the union. The MDHC realising that the
union was
no longer serving any useful role in the management of the workforce,
decided that
a more confrontational style was needed and could be afforded. Hence the
mass sacking
of almost 500 who refused to accept the new 'realities' of the labour
market.
In getting this far, and maintaining their collective organisation, the
dockers have
successfully challenged the new form of work organisation with which we are
all becoming
familiar - casual working, short term contracts, flexibility in the form of
call
outs, minimum hours contracts and so on. But they have done it on the basis
of their
old organisation and with many of their existing views and conceptions
unaltered.
Thus we can say THAT THE DOCKERS THINKING IS WAY BEHIND THEIR PRACTICAL
MOVEMENT.
So far, for instance they have not been willing to challenge the right of
the T&G
to 'represent' them - being content to speak the language of procedure and
collective
agreements - even when their employer, the MDHC, has unilaterally torn them up. Even
when in the last set of negotiations the MDHC roundly abused them - calling
them workshy,
prone to unofficial strikes, unwilling to retrain and so on - they
indignantly denied
this, when in fact it is the truth
.
The truth is that by their actions they rejected wage labour, but they
remain unwilling
to recognise it - except perhaps in private and amongst people they know to
be sympathetic.
Now it is no good standing on the sidelines and berating the dockers, as
some have done, for not confronting the union [or even worse condemning
them and their
struggle out of hand as doomed from the start - a la RCP]. If you are going
to be
taken seriously in making this argument you must be able to show what can
and should
be done instead. When it comes to this practical test many of the critics
are found wanting.
What for instance should be the attitude when the union [as it has done]
gives a substantial
and regular 'donation' to the strikers hardship fund ? Or, concretely,
should the
dockers abandon their almost full time use of the T & G building in
Islington ?
Most importantly, when an official called Bowers, of the ILA on the East
Coast of
America, negotiates a deal with ACL who account for 40 per cent of the
turnover in
the Port of Liverpool, that says ACL will pull out of the Port unless the
dockers
demands are met - do you gratefully accept it or call him a liar and a
bureaucrat on the make
?
Even now, when it looks as if he will not or perhaps cannot deliver on what
he said
- do you denounce him, call him a traitor and a sell out ? Or do you
quietly learn
your lesson, send delegates out to the West Coast and attempt to do your
own work
? And who knows it might even bear fruit - the West Coast and East Coast
dockers organisations
are talking to one another for the first time since 1934, - is this all
nothing more
than bureaucratic manoeuvring ?
When it is looked at in this way - you soon realise, as the dockers have,
that it
makes no sense to antagonise the union - IF YOU ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO
OFFER A
CONCRETE ALTERNATIVE THAT REALISTICALLY CHALLENGES THE UNION. In any case,
all the
ritual condemnation from the ICP and others has done, is to get the dockers
backs up and force
the dockers back onto the ground they know- which we have already argued is
changing
all around them. The realisation of what the unions are and why they must
be confronted and destroyed HAS TO COME FROM THE DOCKERS THEMSELVES.
Nevertheless I am bound to ask the question of a movement that can organise
an international
rank and file conference, send pickets 6000 miles round the world and
provoke possibly
a new form of struggle among previously 'unorganised' and casualised lorry
drivers on the Californian Coast and act as a catalyst for struggles in
Europe - How
is it that it cannot find its way out of the impasse currently facing it ?
How is it that it cannot generalise its struggle on an issue that affects
millions
of workers in this country and is directly preventing their own dispute
from achieving
success ?
The old form of struggle that the dockers were used to - where because of
their sectional
power and collective organisation, they actually had NO NEED TO PICKET -
has gone.
In addition the things that went with the old struggle - 'rank and file'
meetings, caucuses of shop stewards, 'co-ordinating committees' on which
political deals could
be stitched up, etc. is paralysed by its reliance on the trade union
machine. Those
within the support groups in this country, who orientate themselves to this
trade
union base, can only pass resolutions, appeal for money, and worst of all
urge national
leaderships to make the dispute official.
Now I am not going to denounce anyone in this dispute who thinks that they
are proceeding
along the correct lines. Obviously you proceed on the basis of what you
understand
[and in the case of the Left in this country that does not appear to be overmuch],
but so much of what I have observed and heard in this dispute is simply a
reaction
to what is going on rather than the result of considered thought. This is
one of
the reasons why so much of the Left is quite unable to have anything
meaningful to
say - to the extent that the SWP is still trying to promote 'mass pickets'
- and this months
after the stewards have explained in some detail why this is neither
possible nor
desirable.
But certain realities must be faced. One of them is the daily and almost
routine crossing
of the dockers picket lines by lorry drivers, some of whom are known
personally to
the dockers. Transport is now one of the major cycles of capital. The
capitalists,
in the form of management gurus and 'human relations experts' openly boast
of their
'Just in Time' production schedules, and we marvel at how easily goods are
shipped
round the world, overcoming barriers of language and culture. But this
success also
shows a weakness.
Docks without inland communications, and principally road communications,
are simply
useless pieces of real estate. As the action of the truck drivers in the
greater
Los Angeles area has shown, disrupting this flow is one of the main weapons
workers
have. Many of those engaged in the anti-roads struggle have demonstrated
how easily road
transport communications are disrupted, and this point has not been lost on
some
dockers. If the docks dispute is to move forward at all, this is the major
question
that has to be addressed. A way has to be found of overcoming the present
atomised and fractured
nature of road transport. We have to realise that the industry is organised
in the
way it is as a RESPONSE to the class struggle that took place within it. It
does
not take a genius to realise that one of the driving forces behind the
'privatisation'
of the railways lies in the attempt to get round a very strong, sectionally
organised
group of workers, who have demonstrated their power and willingness to use
their
sectional strength.
To do all this a movement will have to break out of its sectional
limitations, will
have to overcome many of its ingrained habits and attitudes. I have tried
to be as
objective as I can in assessing how far and how much the dockers have done.
Perhaps
now after 7 months, we must realise that there is only so far such a
movement can go. Perhaps
given the point from where we started, much has already been achieved, but
also given
the point from where we started, perhaps this is as far as this movement
can go ?
More next time
DG
May 31 1996
Dave Graham
PO Box 37
Liverpool
L36 9FZ
UK
Back to the Docks Dispute Home Page