A state of "armed truce" exists between the dockers and their employers with the Government concerned only with the smooth running of the system.
Waging a struggle against their masters, and faced with the undisguised hostility of the Labour Government, the misrepresentation and distortion of the press, and the general apathetic misunderstanding of the bulk of the working class, the dockers of Britain have exhibited a high measure of solidarity and determination.
From the first few days in October to the end of the dispute in the first week-end in November, with all the hardships and suffering necessarily involved in a prolonged strike, and without any official backing, guidance or organisation, a developed sense of discipline and organisation was shown by this section of the working class that bodes ill for the master class and their interests when reinforced by political understanding.
All strikes have their basis in the class struggle, and this dispute was the culmination of years of overwork under war conditions, working and living in bombed areas and the inevitable inadequacy of working class diet aggravated by the exigencies of war.
The normal nominal wages of dockers have increased from 14s. per day in October, 1940, to 16s. at the present time. And the cost of living has increased disproportionately, which reveals a reduction in real wages. In order to meet with this the men had to work long hours of overtime under the most harassing conditions imaginable, particularly in the "target" ports. Their efforts in this direction met with the applause of Government and Press. Coupled with this, on the insidious plea of assisting the war effort "to end Fascism," most of their hard-won trade union practices and restrictions were surrendered, and large scale mechanisation and speed-ups introduced. Now, on the equally anti-working class plea of "building up Britain's export trade," the Government and the employers are seeing to it that these speed-ups and mechanisations shall remain.
In the period 1939-1945, the dockers’ real wages having been reduced, what happened to their relative wages, i.e., what they received considered in relation to the profits of their employers?
All the large shipping companies increased their profits handsomely. Even in the worst years for shipping losses, the Cunard Line's profits improved on the previous year's.
In short, the wages of the dockers, considered as real, decreased; as relative, decreased.
For years, especially during the War, the official organisations of the Transport and General Workers' Union were out of touch with the rank and file of dockland, due primarily to the neglect of the members in looking after their Union affairs, rendered worse by overtime and Sunday work, precluding attendance at Union meetings.
Other factors have been the fusion of the Union organisation with the "war effort," and the acceptance by Union officials of administrative jobs in the large dock labour "schemes," and subsequent collision with the men; also the general structure of the official Unions which failed to expedite the claims of the men and to control the full-time officials.
With these facts as a domestic background, when shipping requirements slackened off after May, 1945, and the corresponding diminution in overtime was reflected in smaller pay packets, the dockers were faced with the problem now before the industrial workers of Britain and the other victors of the recent war, that of forcing their wages up to subsistence level.
The dock strike started in the last week of September on a local issue at Birkenhead involving some sixty men, and grew in proportion and changed in quality so that by the middle of October a large proportion of dockers in the country were involved on a national issue of a claim for 25s. a day and a forty-hour week. The full-time officials of the Dockers' Unions attacked the whole movement from the outset. Mr. Deakin, Mr. Donovan, of the Transport Union, and Mr. Barrett, of the Stevedores' Union, made themselves notable in this respect.
At monster meetings, sometimes of 17,000 men, unanimous votes of "no confidence" were passed in the officials of the Unions.
The reply to this, given by the officials, by the employers and the Government, was the gibe "unconstitutional" and a refusal to recognise the democratically elected strike committee.
A fierce barrage of spiteful, and in some cases, stupid propaganda was directed against the strikers. The Minister of Education brought even the derision of the Beaverbrook Press upon her head with her rash and unfounded speculations concerning bread rationing.
The Minister of Labour, forgetting years of Labour propaganda about the need for a "more equitable distribution of wealth," threw his weight in against the striking dockers.
The more sober capitalist press such as the Manchester Guardian, Observer, etc., while decrying the "unconstitutional" nature of the effort, nevertheless admitted on occasion the possibility of the reality of the men's grievances.
Mr. Emrys Hughes, of the Forward, indicated quite clearly his views during the dispute by the time-worn device of treating it as non-existent. One can only conclude that he didn't wish to embarrass the Labour Government. The Daily Worker was strangely reticent about the whole affair The Communist Party printed a small leaflet consisting of excerpts from a speech made by Harry Pollitt on October 13th entitled: "Danger if the Government does not make wage policy clear," in which Pollitt "stressed that economic conflict was not in workers' interests and they must use to the full the T.U. negotiating machinery." In short, don't strike. And to "carry forward the gains made during the war!" The working class should be informed at the earliest of .the nature of these gains, The dockers, at least, have another word for the changes in their position as a result of the war. The "New Leader,” the journal of the I.L.P., rallied to the defence of the strikers with the singularly inept slogans of “Sack the Dock Bosses" and "Nationalise the dock industry with Workers' Control."
The R.C.P. "Socialist Appeal" somewhat softly rebutted the silly stories of the Daily Mail regarding "Trotskyist agitation fomenting the strike.'' With their typically futile and romantic conceptions of "revolutionary upsurges," they urged the dockers to elect a "really revolutionary and militant leadership.”
On the whole, the dockers suffered as much from the attentions of their "friends” as they did from their open enemies.
The strike committees' spokesmen in Liverpool and London expressed finely on occasion the resolution of the men. and with a dignity that put their opponents to shame; but at other times indicated quite clearly their lack of knowledge of the forces arrayed in opposition.
They were, too, possessed of a naive confidence in the present Government.
It is a matter of little doubt, however, that the decision taken latterly by the Unofficial Committees to recommend a general resumption of work was prompted by the strategically sound desire to keep the men together with an unbroken organisation, and to indicate to all concerned that they retained the democratic support of the men.
Had the strike lasted any longer, there might have been the danger of a section of the strike movement weakening and resultant confusion. It is a truism that the working class learn as much from their defeats as from their victories. What, then, are the lessons to be gained from this strike, the first national dispute since the end of the war?
The first, that the dockers as a hitherto relatively backward section of the working class, are "growing up,'' and can display discipline and solidarity of a high order. Their unofficial organisation thrown up by the strike did in some respects match all that is best in working class industrial history. The second, that the employing class with their united hostility and the impudent counter proposal of an actual wage reduction in some ports, combined with the demand for a continuation of the war-time restrictions of Trade Union conditions, are determined to fight bitterly any attempted inroads into their profits. Well they know that a wage increase can only be granted at the expense of their profits.
The third, that the Labour Government does not, in fact can not, encourage workers to improve their status at the expense of their masters. And that the smooth running of the wages system comes first, as it must, in their calculations.
The fourth, the dockers must realise that a change in leadership is not the solution to their industrial and union problems. Given the same degree of apathy and rank and file inattention to their industrial problems, given the same naive confidence in a reformist Government attempting to run capitalism more efficiently than their masters, then the new officials will become like the old.
The fifth, the dockers must, like all other workers throughout the world, recognise and understand the class structure of society and the commodity character of their labour-power. That their wages are based, in the long run, on the cost of living and that the operation of the economic laws of Capitalism will defeat all their efforts to materially improve their lot.
And that the solution lies in an intelligent political movement to replace the private ownership of the means of life by common ownership and democratic control, and that in the Socialist Party there is to hand a fitting instrument for the task.
Tony Mulheron
[This article, received too late for our December issue, was written before the offer of an increase to 19/- a day. Ed. Comm.]
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Tony Mulheron wrote under the pen-name of 'Thomas Anthony'.
Mulheron was a Glasgow dock worker.
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