CONFERENCE REPORT
So the dockers have had their international conference - delegations came
from America,
Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, Greece,
Australia and
New Zealand all reflecting the trading pattern at the port. No delegates
came from
West or Southern Africa - this may reflect the current situation in Nigeria
but it
might have been expected that some may have come from South Africa.
For the most part they were rank and file activists reflecting a huge
variety of political
views and opinions. Officially the gathering was organised to further an
international
campaign to 'black' ships loaded by scab labour in Liverpool. To that end
the delegates were treated to a full page 10 000 advert in the
Liverpool Daily Post and the Echo
, telling the delegates not to listen to the stewards, and trying to blame
the resulting
job losses etc. on a group of political adventurers. The dockers invited
the MDHC
to come and address the delegates, but this was ignored.Various resolutions
about
the dispute were passed and the character of waterfront labour relations
internationally
was discussed. Some analysis was made of the changes within production
which have
lead to such things, as JIT, and so on.
So the many international changes in dockworkers conditions -
privatisation, the end
of the old kind of corporatism represented by the Devlin agreement in
Britain, -
was a result of the drive to make distribution [or the circulation of
capital for
those of you of a Marxist persuasion] much quicker and cheaper. This trend
and others such
as Globalisation, have been identified [but not analysed] in previous
articles on
this dispute. Unofficially, outside of the formal sessions, the main topic
of conversation
seemed to be about the nature and purpose of international organisation.
Some delegates
had a more bureaucratic conception than others, and all delegates had
stories to
relate of their experiences and how their struggles had been sabotaged by
the existing
union apparatuses.
It is not my purpose here to repeat these, if you are reading this at all
then it
means you are already critical to some extent of unions and trade unionism
as an
ideology. Concretely, a Steering Committee has been elected whose function
will be
to monitor and coordinate the campaign and to arrange a further conference
possibly in August
and probably in Canada. Those who wish to see the exact wording of the
resolutions
passed can contact the dockers directly.
What was the importance of the conference ?
Simply the fact that it took place at all. Attempts have been made in the
past to
organise port-workers internationally, but they have had 2 flaws:-
- they have always relied on the trade union base and took place against
the background
of the Cold War.
- they have always been after or outside of a dispute situation, so that
they had
an element of unreality.
For the moment we have a situation where this dispute is 'unofficial' that
is not
recognised by the trade union [but tolerated nevertheless], AND is being
waged internationally
- this is almost certainly without precedent perhaps since the days of the
First International. We shall have to wait and see if this international
organisation
can manage to navigate its way through the murky waters that lie ahead of
it, without
succumbing to the bureaucracy and control of the existing union apparatus.
So far as can be ascertained there were throughout the conference no full
time union
officials present and many delegates from overseas especially from Spain,
Italy and
Portugal were evidently perplexed to understand why the dockers remained
within the
T & G given its role. One of the Spanish delegates made an impassioned
plea for the construction
of a rank and file body from the bottom up, and for it to be a fighting
organisation
and nothing else, which was received with approval at the regular Friday
mass meeting. He alsospoke powerfully to the women involved in the
dispute, urging them
to find a bigger role for themselves and telling how this had been vital in
their
own struggle in the Canary Islands. [shouts from the back 'I'm going there
for me
'olidays, Paco !] Humour has been one of the major features of this
dispute, something all
the delegates commented on.
All in all the whole experience has been a profoundly moving one, and no
doubt many
international friendships have been cemented [certainly they were toasted]
over the
past week. Perhaps this was the most that could be hoped for. The delegates
have
gone home inspired, promising to work to maintain and extend the blockade
of Liverpool. Many
have also gone away with the determination not to allow the kinds of
attacks on their
own organisations which are such a feature of disputes in this country and
which
have up to now prevented any meaningful solidarity action either from other
dockers or
other sections of workers in Britain, a feature which many delegates noted.
It is to this area which I should now like to turn. Many in this country
will argue
that the dockers are a 'special case', only they could make their dispute
international.
Only they have a history of independent job organisation and so on. Now on
the face of it this is quite true. But there is no secret to how the
dockers have managed
to achieve this. In previous articles I may have given the impression that
much has
been done spontaneously, and I should like to correct or qualify this
impression.
At an analytical level, we know that 'nothing comes out of nothing'. It
would be utterly
misleading to suggest to workers in struggle today and faced with a similar
situation,
that they could simply 'copy the dockers'. But nevertheless a comparison is
worth making, for its shows just what must be done, if we are ever to
recover from the
defeats we have suffered. We have, for instance also ongoing in Liverpool a
firefighters
dispute, which has been unresolved for over seven months. At heart its
basis is the
local Labour controlled authority's need to curtail spending [something
which is going
to be extended to all the Council's employees soon, as the Council is
seriously 'overspent'.]
So to some extent the firefighters are a sign of things to come, and you
don't need to be a Marxist to work that out. The result has been that the
firefighters
union [FBU] has been locked in a series of fruitless negotiations to get
some kind
of deal acceptable to the workers. Locally there have been 24 hour
stoppages - meaning
that the Army must be called in to provide fire cover.
Because the FBU is locked in this ritualistic dance with the Authority, the
bosses
have been able to retain the initiative, many firefighters are becoming
demoralised
and disillusioned with the struggle [no doubt that is the FBU's intention].
Many
rank and file activists would prefer to pursue a policy of rolling 2 hour
stoppages which
would have 2 major advantages:-
- firefighters would not lose as much money. We have to remember, we are
dealing with
a young workforce many of whom are newly married, with mortgages and so on.
Tactics
must reflect this new class composition - remember that from previous
articles ?
- since the authorities would have no advance warning, and strikes would be
continuous
over a wide area, given the concentration of fire stations in urban areas,
they would
quickly exhaust the army's ability to cover, thus bringing the dispute to a
head.
Many firefighters [unlike the Left who seem to learn nothing form history]
have no
wish to repeat the experience of previous all out stoppages, where
firefighters meaninglessly
picketed their own fire stations for days on end.
But, it is quite clear that for the moment the firefighter's lack the
INDEPENDENT
means to do this. At an earlier mass meeting in Liverpool, massive amounts
of money
were raised for a 'hardship' and a 'fighting' fund' - to be held and
administered
by the union. Nobody at the meeting challenged the right of the union to do this nor insisted
on the sovereignty of the mass meeting. Without an independent source of
finance,
no movement can get very far. This can be contrasted with the dockers and
other sections of workers such as car workers, who voluntarily levy
themselves in preparation for
disputes, usually holding the money in social funds, administered by a
trusted workmate
[often a steward]. One of the reasons why the dockers have been able to act
independently of the union is because to some extent the stewards ARE
independent. They were
only 'recognised' on the docks in 1967, and have had an uneasy relationship
with
the T&G ever since. More importantly in Liverpool ever since 1989
[unlike in the
other ports, for example Tilbury] a MINORITY of stewards and other
activists, perhaps 50 in
number, have organised regular monthly meetings to discuss their situation
and their
organisation on the dock. [We can see why now this dispute was deliberately
created
by MDHC]. This kind of regular activity and attendance is certainly more
than most union
branches could maintain.
Not only have the dockers maintained an independent organisational
existence [and
I would be misleading readers if I did not mention that most of the
activists were
'political' in the sense of identifying for the most part with a number of
the numerous
different Trotskyist organisations which have always had a presence in
Liverpool,] but
they have always had an independent source of finance - from previous
disputes, levies
and so on. The importance of this cannot be overestimated - it is what has
given
the dockers the ability to plan and organise their conference, send
delegates overseas
and so on. It also accounts for the perplexity of some of the foreign
delegations
- who seeing dockers real independence almost, from the union ask why they
do not
go the whole way. I touched on the answer to this in my last article. I
mentioned in a previous
article that some of the dockers were on a steep learning curve, well this
is true
for your correspondent as well.
Having seen a workers' organisation in struggle close up, seen how it has
come into
existence, traced its roots and so on, only now am I in any position to
draw some
conclusion. Prior to this dispute, I had believed along with many others in
'spontaneous'
forms of organisation, that were somehow 'elementary' and therefore
'better' because
they came directly from a worker's position in the productive process. It
is quite
clear from this dispute that this is not the case or at least it must be
severely
modified. Although I would disagree at a formal level with much of the
ideology and perhaps
the outlook of the dockers, there is no doubt that their wish to maintain a
separate
organisation was quite correct. That this was essentially a political
decision, stemming from a fully worked out world outlook or ideology,
cannot be gainsaid. Ultimately
it seems to me if workers are ever going claim a world that is rightfully
theirs,
they must proceed along the same lines as the dockers.
I hope to be able to post future articles [yes this dispute is not going to
go away]
on the Internet - readers interested to know where, can contact the author
Dave Graham,
PO Box 37
Liverpool, L36 9FZ.
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