06.02.1997

Morris backs dockers’ co-op

The latest proposal to end the 17-month Merseyside dockers’ dispute has been rejected by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company.

The Transport and General Workers Union, with the backing of dockers’ shop steward Jimmy Nolan, has put forward a plan for the 500 sacked workers to set up a cooperative to supply unionised labour for the docks. SLP member Jimmy Nolan said it was a “serious proposal”, a “genuine initiative to end the dispute”. But the company described it as “totally unacceptable”. Such a plan would “undermine” what they called “the port’s excellent performance” since scab company Drake International had been contracted to supply blackleg labour.

However, the MDHC said it could support a cooperative “in principle”, so long as it was willing to tender for future contracts on a “commercial basis”. This inevitably means that, despite the best of intentions, workers in such schemes end up policing their own wages and conditions in order to be able to compete.

But one of the sacked dockers, Davie Byrne, told me that the workers had considered the idea carefully:

“We are in the business of keeping wages up and we are certainly not going to lower our standards. We would control the hire of dockers in Seaforth under the proposals. But the company say they are quite happy with the scab workforce there.”

Referring to the scabs, Davie said: “We’re capable of doing better work than them. We were voted the best in Europe.” For that reason he thought that a cooperative would receive the backing of local businesses, as well as supporters and fraternal organisations such as US longshoremen: “There are businesses and businesses. They are not all greedy like the MDHC.”

Unfortunately, the ruthlessness of capitalism has very little to do with the subjective character or personality of individual operators. In the present highly competitive period of tight profit margins any company that wants to stay in business is obliged to lower its costs - and that means attacking its workforce. Workers’ cooperatives are not immune from such pressures.

There have been many examples of co-ops receiving the backing and financial support of workers, only to end in disaster despite every effort to save them. The latest was Tower Colliery which followed the example of Monktonhall colliery, where the cooperative, along with the miners’ hard earned investment, seems certain to go under.

In fact, in order for the dockers to remain members of the company’s pension fund, the proposal was for the MDHC to hold a controlling 55% share in the cooperative. The dockers would have to raise £500,000 from their supporters and buy shares for the remaining 45%.

The enthusiasm for the scheme displayed by the TGWU general secretary should act as a warning light to the dockers’ genuine supporters. Davie commented:

“Some might say Bill Morris’s backing would be the kiss of death. The lack of support for our fight from the TGWU has been despicable. We’ve done the job against the grain of the union.”

Morris is keen to wind up the dispute - highly embarrassing for Tony Blair - through the acceptance of a compromise deal in a postal ballot before the general election.

The company’s latest “final” offer of around £28,000 for each of the 500, with the chance to compete for 40 new jobs, was overwhelmingly rejected at a mass meeting.

Peter Manson