21.03.1996

World-wide solidarity

The dockers’ dispute in Liverpool has been exemplary in forging international solidarity

After almost six months on the picket line the 500 dockers sacked by the Mersey Dock and Harbour Company in Liverpool are preparing to up the stakes.

A resolution has been put to the International Transport Federation urging physical support for the Liverpool dockers. It looks set to be passed.

Much support has already been gained from dock workers throughout the world and this was consolidated in an international conference at the end of February.  The Maritime Union of Australia has been organising boycotts and go-slows whenever a ship from Liverpool is brought into dock. The International Longshoremen’s Association of the East Coast of America has been supporting the dispute, as have unions in Canada and throughout Europe.

The MDHC actually sought an injunction in the American courts on March 1. This was against the Liverpool dockers who had sent flying pickets to America. Under the Labour laws in America solidarity strike action is illegal, but the individual’s right not to cross a picket line is enshrined. In December no one crossed a picket line thrown up by the dockers, who were therefore able to stop work on the container line to the East Coast - 60% of Liverpool’s throughput.

Funnily enough, MDHC withdrew the injunction on March 13, as the president of the International Longshoremen’s Association for the East Coast, John Bowers, addressed a mass meeting in support of the Liverpool dockers.

The national and international financial support has enabled the dockers to mount a slick and impressive campaign, with £880,000 from donations already spent on sending dockers around the world to picket and gain support.

The dockers began negotiating directly with the MDHC this month, replacing previous intermediaries. But negotiations were adjourned and will not restart until the company is willing to discuss reinstatement.

The Atlantic Container Line, one of the main companies to work out of Liverpool, is losing a number of contracts. Due to international pressure from workers, it has committed itself to leaving the port if negotiations fail. It is now being asked to honour that commitment.

On March 30 shop stewards throughout Europe are meeting to coordinate action. The main weapon will be flying pickets, with dockers from Liverpool travelling around the world to picket docks in countries where solidarity action is illegal. Other ports will coordinate 24-hour stoppages.

Bobby Morton, from the Merseyside port shop stewards committee, is clear that “It is the international aspect that will win. The dockers are still solid and looking forward to victory. We are on the picket line every day.”

Although the dispute remains unofficial, the Transport and General Workers Union is giving support, with Bill Morris saying that the dockers were on a “straight road to victory” at a mass meeting last Wednesday. Official support has been fairly muted up until this meeting, given the leadership’s terror of the anti-trade union laws.

The only weakness of the strike then is this inability to win solidarity action at home. When mass pickets are mounted, TGWU drivers are turned away from the port, but the working class as a whole in Britain has not been mobilised behind this isolated dispute, as it was to an extent around Timex.

The dispute happens at a very low ebb in the class struggle, but it holds vital lessons for the movement as a whole. During the conference season the dockers hope to address as many trade unions as possible to seek support. But rank and file workers must take up the cause of the dockers in their workplaces and through political organisation learn the lessons for the future.

International solidarity will certainly have to play a larger and larger role in all our struggles. International coordination is still at an all too low level, given the integration of transnational companies and the coming together of heads of state in the European Union and the other trade blocs.

The links made by the dockers in Liverpool must be maintained and extended. As a very minimum we need to build European-wide industrial unions. But more and more, as workers throughout Europe and the world are attacked on all fronts, workers need international political organisation. That is why, as the bosses come together in Europe, we must put a workers’ Europe on the agenda.

Helen Ellis