Still chasing the tanner (1989)

From the January 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1989 workers' backs are to the wall. Who will be the next for the chop in the ongoing economic terrorism known as rationalising the economy? Union bureacrats in posh offices are thinking up new cliches to put in their tired old speeches to those who pay their salaries To be sure without unions workers would be exploited even more — they are our best defence against the class who buy our labour power and milk us for profit. But all the militant rhetoric in the world will not disguise the fact that unions can only do what the capitalist system will let us get away with. And in 1989 the bosses will be getting away with murder.

What a difference a century makes. Back in 1889 the workers were on the move. For the first time unskilled unions were being formed, organised by working men and women with a growing political consciousness of their class position. The New Unionism, as it was called, was a major development in the thinking and activity of British workers

The gas workers showed the way to do it. Back in 1872 the gas stokers — unskilled workers who had not been welcome in the old skilled, craft unions — formed the Amalgamated Gasmen's Association. When union members were sacked and scabs brought in to do their work at lower rates in plants at Beckton, Stepney, Bow, Hackney, Bermondsey and Fulham, 2,000 workers came out on strike. More scabs were brought down from Yorkshire and Lancashire to fill their jobs. Five of the Beckton stokers, alleged by the bosses to be the strike organisers. were arrested and sent for trial at the Old Bailey for breach of the Masters and Servants Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act. They were sentenced to a year s hard labour. In 1884 and 1885 two further attempts to unionise were crushed by the parasites who owned the gas plants but never produced any gas, save for that emitted in defence of the great "freedoms'' of the profit system.

On 31 March 1889 the gas workers held a mass meeting in Canning Town to organise a union. Will Thorne, a member of the Social Democratic Federation and an employee of the Gas, Light and Coke Company at Beckton, addressed the meeting At the end eight hundred men voted to form a union. Two weeks later the union's membership stood at 3,000: its motto was “Love, Union and Fidelity". These workers did not know much about the class war, except that they were poor and the bosses were rich and the bosses were rich because the workers were poor. Thorne himself, an unskilled labourer with a wife and five kids, was taught to read and write by Karl Marx's daughter, Eleanor, who threw her full support behind the striking gas workers.

Under capitalism you don't always win even if you fight hard. The system is weighted in favour of the capitalists, and it takes a lot of hard struggle for workers to win battles in the class war. But the gas workers understood what the "new realists" of the modern trade union movement have yet to learn: if you don't fight hard you won't win. The gas workers fought for eight-hour shifts and double rates on Sundays. Within a month the bosses were on their knees. The strike was won. Unprecedentedly, these unskilled workers had shown the capitalists the power of labour united.

That was in the spring a hundred years ago. By the summer an even greater strike of unskilled workers took place, the only strike of the last century which, in Ben Tillett's words, "has the dignity of capital letters": The Great Dock Strike. On 14 August unskilled labourers in ten London docks formed the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and Labourers' Union of Great Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands. They started with 800 members and went on to recruit 150,000. Their demand was 6d. an hour (less than 3p. in modern money). It became known as the fight for the dockers' tanner. 30,000 workers marched through the streets. Not for them the "new realism" of sitting in smoke-filled rooms doing deals with the bosses. They went out and took their message to their fellow workers, not just in speeches, but in song. To the tune of "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching", the dockers sang

Strike boys, strike for better wages!

Strike boys, strike for better pay!

Go on fighting at the docks.

Stick it out like fighting cocks

Go on fighting till the bosses they give way!

Not a chorus to be heard that often around the table of the General Council of the 1980s' TUC. In Hyde Park on 1 September, 100,000 workers gathered to listen to speeches, many from socialists, in support of the striking dockers. There was no Norman Willis there to counsel caution; no Kinnock to condemn the dockers for getting the working class a bad name.

A significant feature of the Great Dock Strike was the solidarity shown within the working class. Workers seemed to feel, politically limited as their knowledge was, that an injury to one was an injury to all. So the money flooded in. Throughout London street collectors asked workers to contribute their pennies. The loafers in the gentlemen's clubs gave not a farthing, but the wage slaves collected a magnificent £11,732. The other trade unions sent donations amounting to £4,234. But solidarity was expressed not only by British workers. 1889, after all was the year of the formation of the Second International. Useless as that body subsequently proved to be, back in 1889 it rallied support from workers in France, Belgium, Germany and the USA, who managed to send over £100 to the strike fund. But most inspiring of all was the effort of the Australian trade unions who, quite unexpectedly, managed to send over £30,000 to the dockers. The capitalists may have been divided into competing national gangs, but the workers showed that they were not. No struggle under capitalism can be won by a movement which is broke, but the dockers did not stand alone and the strike ended with the employers conceding enough for the union to return to work as victors in the battle. (In fact, the dockers' tanner was not won, although 5d. an hour was granted. Other demands were met and, perhaps above all, the capitalists knew just how mighty a force the workers they exploited could be).

There is nothing like victory to give workers confidence. Without doubt, the Great Dock Strike showed what could be achieved by united class action. As Engels observed at the time.

That these poor famished broken down creatures who bodily fight amongst each other for admission to work, should organise for resistance, turn out 40-50,000 strong, draw after them into the strike all and every trade of the East End in any way concerned with shipping, hold out above a week, and terrify the wealthy and powerful dock companies that is a revival I am proud to have lived to see.

Socialists like Engels were not alone in seeing the dockers' struggle as an awakening of our class. On 24 September 1889 these lines from a working-class poet were published in the East End News:

O, this is the turn of the night and the tide.

And the sea's coming in, and the sunrise spreads wide.

Who said that these men were too weak to unite?

Who said that wrong should always triumph o'er right?

Who said that the devil should always hold sway?

What matters who said it. They're answered today! 

Who said that we slept, and would never awake?

To see how those suffer who live for our sake 

Such lives that we mean soon that no man shall live?

Are we waking, oh brothers, we cheer you and give 

Our gold, our good word. Now that this fight is won 

The whole world is with you. Take heart and press on.

For the past century the workers have been pressing on. And the capitalists have been pushing back. With their police scab-herders and their anti-union laws and their puppet Judges and their parties of Left and Right who seek to run the wages system, our class enemies have pushed and pushed. The tragedy is that in 1989 workers are still chasing the tanner — still fighting, when we can muster the confidence to fight, for the crumbs from the cake we ourselves bake. We should learn from the events of the last hundred years that it is not enough perpetually to be chasing the tanner. It is the wages system itself which is our enemy; only its abolition will mark the true victory of the working class.

Steve Coleman

Editorial: What the Strike Fever Points To. (1920)

Editorial from the September 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

The anxieties and troubles of “peace” seem to be only less wearing than those of war. But a couple of decades ago the biggest of strikes was chiefly the concern of those directly connected with the struggle, and had little effect outside their small circle. The greatest of them – the Great London Dock strike – bitter and prolonged as it was, hardly affected the everyday life of the mass of the people even of London – much less of the country – at all.

In this respect, however, things are changing very rapidly. A year or so ago the Railway strike threatened to plunge the country into the agony of acute industrial warfare; to-day the threatened coal strike menaces our very lives – for there can be no doubt that many workers’ lives must pay the penalty of a stoppage of mining operations of even a few days’ duration.

As the field and extent of these ghastly, even if necessary, operations, develops, and their disastrous consequences take a wider and more deadly embrace, it surely should be borne in upon all workers how futile it all really is, and force them to consider the solution proffered by the Socialists. The private ownership of the means of production threatens society, in “peace” and in war, with disruption so violent as to overwhelm it in chaos.

Surely it must be apparent that the task which inexorably faces the working class is the overthrow of private ownership and the establishment of common ownership of the means of living.

50 Years Ago: What the Strike fever points to (1970)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

The anxieties and troubles of "peace" seem to be only less wearing than those of war. But a couple of decades ago the biggest strike was chiefly the concern of those directly connected with the struggle, and had little effect outside their small circle. The greatest of them — the Great London Dock Strike — bitter and prolonged as it was, hardly affected the everyday life of the mass of the people even of London — much less of the country — at all.

In this respect, however, things are changing very rapidly. A year or so ago the Railway strike threatened to plunge the country into the agony of acute industrial warfare; to-day the threatened coal strike menaces our very lives — for there can be no doubt that many workers’ lives must pay the penalty of a stoppage of mine operations of even a few days’ duration.

As the field and the extent of these ghastly, even if necessary operations, develop. and their disastrous consequences take a wide and more deadly embrace, it surely should be borne upon all workers how futile it all really is, and force them to consider their solution proffered them by the Socialists. The private ownership of the means of production threatens society in "peace" and in war. with disruption so violent as to overwhelm it in chaos.

[An unsigned Editorial in the Socialist Standard, September 1920].

What future for the unions? (1985)

From the August 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

The unions, here and in many other countries, have had a hard time during the depression. They have suffered some spectacular defeats, for example, the American Flight Traffic Controllers and the British coal miners have seen some wages reduced, and have lost members.

In this country trade union membership, after reaching its highest-ever level of over thirteen million in 1979, had fallen to
11,338,000 in 1983 and is now probably under ten million. Typical of many unions, the General. Municipal and Boilermakers Union has dropped from a million to 750.000. Many unions have lost far more members than can be accounted for by unemployment. Members in work have dropped out of their unions because they think that organisation is useless, and that the unions are forever a spent force.

They are wrong on both counts. Drastic falls of membership have happened before and for the same reasons, but the unions have always recovered and will do so again. What is more, the unions have been very effective in their efforts to maintain wages under adverse conditions. In this respect, experience in the present depression is similar to that of the past. In the Great Depression of the last quarter of the nineteenth century membership of those unions that were affiliated to the TUC dropped from 1,192,000  in 1874 to 464.000 in 1881. but by 1890 it was up to 1,470,000.

In the depression between the wars total union membership fell from 8,337,000 in 1920 to 4,387,000 in 1933. but it then steadily increased and reached 8,714,000 in 1946.

In both periods some unions were heavily defeated in strikes, like the engineers in 1897 and the so-called general strike and the seven-month coal miners' strike in 1926. A brief summary of the Great Depression is given in the official Handbook on Industrial Relations, published in 1961 by the Ministry of Labour:

   A period of trade depression followed the year 1875 and lasted almost twenty years. During this period trade unionism lost some of its strength. Strikes were common and were almost invariably unsuccessful.

Much the same could have been said of trade union experience between the wars, but in both instances the picture of unrelieved failure is misleading. In both periods the level of prices (the cost of living) was falling. Between 1874 and 1895 prices fell by 30 per cent, such a fall being normal in depressions. Between the wars there was a fall of 40 per cent from 1920 to 1934, due partly to depression and partly to the government's policy of reversing inflation by reducing the amount of currency in circulation.

In face of the fall of the cost of living in both periods, the statement that "strikes were almost invariably unsuccessful" needs to be corrected. If, say, in 1875 or 1927, a union came out on strike for higher wages and got no increase at all the strike would have been recorded as having failed. But if the result was that the money wage remained at or near the original level the outcome would have been that real wages had increased. Cole and Postgate in The Common People (1956, p.444) said:

   With prices falling at such a rate, the employed workers had only to avoid wage-reductions in order to secure a steady improvement in their real standards of living. Actually between 1873 and 1896 . . . average money-wages over all trades rose a little — perhaps by 5 per cent. This meant, in view of the fall in retail prices, a rise in real wage-rates of 35 to 40 per cent.

During the Great Depression trade unionism spread to occupations hitherto neglected by the existing unions which were mainly of skilled workers. It was greatly encouraged by the successful strike of dockers in 1889. Among the new unions Cole and Postgate list gasworkers, land workers, lower grade railwaymen, and merchant seamen. It was at that time too, that trade unionism developed among post office workers in spite of the defeat of the postmen's strike in 1890.

The rise of average real wages in the Great Depression was repeated, though to a smaller extent, between the wars. In the early part, when prices were falling fast wages fell even more rapidly and real wages declined. But between 1929 and 1937, when prices continued to fall but more slowly, average real wages rose to a level 10 per cent above that of 1920.

The depression which began in 1979 has differed from the two earlier ones. Instead of the cost of living falling it has continued to rise because of the inflation policy of the government. The rise under the Thatcher government has been 70 per cent since 1979. Instead of having to maintain money wages against falling prices the unions since 1979 have had to struggle to increase money wages beyond the rise of prices, and have had some success. Official figures for the average weekly earnings of all workers show that, after some fall in 1979-1981, average real earnings after allowing for price rises have now risen to 10 per cent above the 1979 level.

To understand why this result has been achieved (and similar developments in the Great Depression and between the wars) it is enlightening to look back to what Karl Marx wrote in Wage-Labour and Capital in 1849:

   The more the division of labour and the employment of machinery extend, so much the more does competition increase among the labourers, and so much the more do their average wages dwindle.

Marx said the same in 1865 in Value, Price and Profit, with particular reference to the inevitability of wages falling in depressions.

He was writing at a time when unions were few, small and weak and it was true then that the unemployed competed for jobs by offering to work for lower wages. But as the unions grew in size and effectiveness they have, in greater or less degree, countered it. The members of a well organised union are able to offer resistance to wage reductions and their unemployed members do not offer to work for wages below the trade union rate. If Marx had lived until 1892 he would have appreciated the change of conditions brought about by the spread of trade unionism and would have agreed with the statement made in that year by Friedrich Engels about the "remarkable improvement" in the conditions of the workers in "the great trades unions".

But how effective can trade unions be? There is a belief among trade union enthusiasts that if all workers were in unions instead of less than half of them, all problems of wages, conditions of work, and unemployment could be solved. They are quite mistaken.

In addition to their own problem of recruiting members the unions are circumscribed by the powers of the government, by the economic laws of capitalism, and by the particular state of trade union law at any time.

Two centuries of trade union history show that the last of these three is the least important. Trade union law has been alternately relaxed and tightened up and the unions have survived all the changes. They were first formed when they were entirely illegal and throughout the nineteenth century trade union law was for the most part more restrictive than it is now under the Thatcher government. It was under these latest restrictions of the law that the coal miners' strike was defeated in 1984-5, but it was in a period of relaxed trade union law in 1926 that the so-called general strike and the seven-month miners' strike were similarly defeated, despite the fact that in 1926 coal was almost the only source of energy. It was after those strikes that the law was again tightened against the unions by the Trade Disputes and Trades Unions Act of 1927.

Irrespective of the particular state of trade union law, if a government, having effective control of the machinery of government, the police, and behind them the armed forces, is determined to defeat a strike no matter what the cost, it will defeat it.

It is interesting to note an aspect of the successful dockers' strike in 1889. The strike received wide-spread support from other unions and from the churches. And it was the Lord Mayor of London who presided over a committee which pressed the employers to give way. The organisers of the strike and of protest marches were in effect able to count on a tolerant attitude by the Metropolitan Police. Cole and Postgate, in The Common People (p. 429) had this comment:

   The companies for the first time became uneasy. They issued a furious attack on the police. They had been hoping for a struggle between the police and the strikers in which batons would break down the labourers' enthusiasm: and they were foolish enough to let their disappointment be seen.

Here was a strike which the government, for whatever reason, had decided not to crush.

Trade unions need to take into account the limits on their actions imposed by capitalism's dependence on profit and by its periodical depressions. Failure to do this often leads unions into embarking on long strikes which they cannot hope to win.

Unions can sometimes delay the introduction of labour-saving machinery which puts some of their members out of work, but in the long run they cannot prevent it. This is because employers who fail to adopt new machinery which reduces their costs of production lose their markets to competitors who do adopt it.

About the mass unemployment in depressions there is absolutely nothing that the unions (or the government) can do. The total number of jobs available to the workers and the total number of unemployed depend at any time on what quantity of the products of industry can be sold at a profit. This quantity increases in booms and falls in the periodic, inevitable depressions.

A
bout wages, well organised unions can do something but it is strictly limited by the profit factor. Marx was only pointing to the obvious when he said that wages can rise, but not, for any length of time, beyond the point at which the wage rise wipes out all profit.

When profits are falling the unions' efforts to raise wages therefore come up against increased resistance by the employers. Measured against the total of wages and salaries, company profits fell sharply in 1979-82 but have since then risen again equally sharply; which helps to explain why average real earnings have been rising again.

Total production, which fell at the beginning of the depression, has risen again to the level of 1979. There is no immediate prospect of trade union membership quickly recovering its losses. With increased output per worker, fewer workers are now needed for this output than were employed in 1979. It will require a further increase of production and sales before unemployment begins to fall. But already, though slowly, trade unionism is making headway in the newer industries — nuclear energy, electronics, and high technology -— and is attracting more of the non-manual, technical and managerial workers.

In due course the unions will increase their membership again and get back their lost confidence. This trend will continue until the next deep and prolonged depression, when the downward cycle will start all over again.

There is nothing the unions can do to escape this vicious circle until such time as the working class recognises the need to get rid of capitalism and establish socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Intoxicating spirit (1997)

Book Review from the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Price of a Cigar by Peter Wood,  Anchor Books, £9.95.

Books written from film scripts and from the texts of plays are comparatively rare, but here is one. Based on the play The Strike of 1889, which ran for 26 sell-out performances in 1994, The Price of a Cigar, tells the story of the London dockers' strike of 1889.

I didn’t see the play but the book makes easy, often compelling. reading. The author claims that the events took place much as they are described and this seems credible.

The story traces the life of one docker and his family, describing in touching detail the squalid, crushing poverty of life in the East End of London. We follow the beginnings of the strike, and its subsequent development, through the actions of the strike committee, the rapacious behaviour of the London Dock Employers, and an American reporter employed by the Times. If the dialogue is sometimes less than convincing, with common language of the late twentieth century occasionally intruding into nineteenth century speech patterns, this seems not to matter very much. Wood tells the story with drive and gusto, and manages to capture something of the intoxicating spirit which drove the strikers on.and which finally led the employers to climb down and accept the strike committee’s demands.

But it was a pyrrhic victory. Nothing really had been changed. Over a hundred years later, in 1994, the remnants of the once vast army of Liverpool dockers were sacked as they protested against the return of precisely the conditions which had led the London dockers to strike in 1889. Their union seemingly powerless to intervene— hamstrung by the anti-trade union legislation of the 1980s.

Writing about the book John Monks, the present chairman of the Trades Union Congress. describes it as "A moving and truly memorable account of ordinary lives that changed history.’’Moving and memorable"? Well yes. But "an account of ordinary lives that changed the course of history"? Not really. The capitalist class remains in power; workers continue to be exploited; the essential social relations which obtained before the 1889 strike remain in place.

Workers understandably fight to improve their conditions under capitalism, but the burden of their efforts, strategically, must be to change history by replacing capitalism, not by reforming it or concentrating on defensive struggles alone. Nothing less will do.

Michael Gill

Author’s note: 

As he has no wish to needlessly swell the coffers of W.H. Smith, Dillons, etc., the author intends to forward the profit from all books sold as a result of this review to the fund for the families of the Liverpool Dockers The price of the book is £9.95. Any reader requiring a copy should send two cheques, one for £5.55 payable to Anchor Books to cover the cost of the book plus packing and delivery, and one for £4.40 payable to the Merseyside Dockers Family Hardship Fund. Post both cheques with order to: Anchor Books, Anchor House, 54 Whiteadder Way, London El4 9UR. Copies will be signed by the author if requested.