A great deal of cant has been spoken and written about the dockers’ “unofficial" strike which ended on November 5th, but with the threat that they will come out again if the negotiations now resumed do not give them satisfaction. The line taken by the daily Press and by the spokesmen of the Labour Government has been that there can be no recognition of “unofficial” action not endorsed by the central executives of the Transport and General Workers’ Union and the other unions involved. The pious attitude of the newspapers would be more convincing if there was the slightest reason to believe that they would have given their support if the strike had been official—but experience shows that if it had they would have opposed it just the same . . .
Those who fancy that employment by the State or by a public utility corporation is the solution of the workers’ problems should think over the action of the P.L.A. when its workers came out on strike. “A notice warning Port of London permanent labourers that they would be ‘deemed to have left the service of the Authority without notice' if they did not return to work . . . was posted outside the Royal Albert Dock yesterday.” —(Daily Herald, 13th October, 1945.)
Capitalism runs true to form even if a Labour Government chooses to pretend that it is different because it now runs under different colours!
[From editorial in Socialist Standard, December 1945]
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