26.09.1996

Dockers need solidarity at home

International solidarity has been the cutting edge of the Liverpool dockers dispute. But, as we demonstrate a year on from the sackings, the task must be to win the whole of the class in Britain to the struggle against attacks on our future

A year ago on September 28 the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC) sacked 500 workers. In their year-long fight the dockers in Liverpool have raised a standard against the reintroduction of casualisation, but also against the employers offensive against the working class in general.

A year on is an important time to take stock of a bitter and imaginative struggle, which has taken its case to workers around the world. It has won the support, verbal and financial, of workers in Britain. But in this period of demoralisation and atomisation it has failed to rally the physical solidarity of a conscious working class fighting in common for its rights. The capitalist system is beating back those rights daily in all sections of the class and in society as a whole.

The dockers’ union, the Transport and General Workers Union, has given the union behind-the-scenes support but, because it has allowed itself to be hamstrung by the anti-trade union laws, the dispute remains unofficial. Support groups have been set up, raising the much needed organisational and financial support, but knowing full well that much more is needed. Up until recently, the TGWU general purposes committee was trying to lock the dockers into negotiations with the company without preconditions. However, this month the dockers have won the right from the union to decide their own terms. This is an important victory, since negotiations without reinstatement on the agenda would be a total concession to the employers.

This weekend dockers will be joined in three days of action by dockers’ representatives from around the world as well as support groups in Britain. Also present will be campaigners from Reclaim The Future, which combines different environmental groups, rave groups and anti-road protesters. This will be a massive show of strength against the MDHC, the economic system itself - which is more and more determined to wreak havoc on all sections of society and the environment - and a government equally determined to stamp out all protest against this process.

However, there is a notable change in atmosphere even from the Timex dispute in 1993 to the dockers’ dispute today. Though the Timex workers too remained isolated, their struggle, following on the heels of the anti-pit closure campaign, captured the imagination of workers throughout the country.

The international action which the dockers have built has been an inspiration to militants. But, whereas the class willed the miners and the Timex women to win, the dockers’ struggle takes place in their aftermath when defeat has become entrenched in consciousness.

International pressure is undoubtedly putting strains on the MDHC, which has lost a lot of business. Liverpool dockers were visiting Belgium this week to win more support which would have serious consequences for ACL (one of the main companies to operate through Liverpool). Other workers are still being urged to join the action. These include longshoremen in Canada, from where the shipping company Cask (whose parent company is ACL) operates. Workers in Sweden have been carrying out continuous pressure against ACL.

On Monday September 30 a mass action at the dock in Liverpool will be supported by go slows in Canada, the west coast of the US and in Europe.

The strengthening of international solidarity has been a huge step forward for the workers’ movement, which must be a general part of future struggles. The dockers have started to set up permanent links. In the context of the European-wide bosses’ offensive, it is clear that workers in Europe must be organised together to put our class back on the attack.

Nevertheless the dockers are ready for a protracted struggle yet. Anger against the attacks on work and living standards is bubbling beneath the surface but in taking a stand against it the dockers remain isolated, in what is still viewed as a sectional struggle in this country. International links must be combined with political organisation of our class, here and internationally, if a victory for the dockers is going to be a victory for our class.

Linda Addison