BEFORE DEVLIN
The acceptance by the docks unions of the implementation of the second stage of the recommendations of the Devlin Commission into the docks will change the entire face of dockland. This present article deals with the problems of dockers as they existed before the [implementation] of the Devlin Report. In a future issue we hope to deal with the problems of trade union organisation in the docks following the introduction of Devlin Stage two.
THE HIRING
When you think of the traditional militancy of the dockworker, it seems surprising that the Port employers have reduced the Dock labour force nationally from 63,000 in 1966 to the present 52,000. To understand the dockers' fairly passive acceptance of the first phase of Devlin, it is necessary to examine the day to day life and insecurity under the 1947 Dockworker Regulation of Employment Scheme (now known as the "Old Scheme").
The daily lot of the docker was humiliating, degrading and insecure. A good example of what regularly occurred throughout the country is Sector 5, the West India Docks and Millwall. Employed in these enclosed docks were some 2,000 men, of which 1,200 were permanently employed by the Port of London Authority. The remaining 800 were employed by the National Dock Labour Board, on the "Pool".
The Pool men would attend the employers' call-stand each morning at 7.45. In a busy period most of them would find work at wages at least as good as the national average. In slack periods, the situation would be that 800 men lined [up] in front of the call-stand, pushing and shoving each other, jockeying for a position in order to attract the attention of the call[er]-on, and gain the coveted work-ticket.
Slack periods could last two, three, four or even eight weeks, and the unemployed men would compete even more fiercely, to the point of physical violence. On a number of occasions the pushing and shoving from the back of the crowd has resulted in the iron barriers being broken down. Whilst not common, neither was it uncommon for the scuffle [for] work to end in some of the men sustaining injuries such as broken arms and legs.
Should the employer only require 300 of the 800 men, the remaining 500 men would then report to the NDLB for allocation to work in other sectors: if work happened to be available there. If not, they would be credited with 9/- a turn, or 18/- a day unemployment pay; and should they have been unemployed for any full week, they would enjoy the princely sum of £9, less deductions for normal unemployment and tax.
Anyone reading this might be justified in thinking that the description of the call took place in the bad old days of the 19th century. But these animal-like scenes occurred on many call-stands every day of the week as recently as 1966. Places such as Sector 4 (Royal Group) would have a number of call-stands for the 8,000-strong labour force. Thus these scenes were multiplied many times over.
The unemployment pay which the men received from the NDLB was in fact deducted from their wages whenever they were at work in addition to their normal unemployment contributions. Even though the NDLB acted as a private Labour Exchange, these men had paid twice for that unemployment pay and yet received several pounds less than they'd drawn if they came from any other industry and drawn State benefits.
WHAT BOSS-WORKER RELATIONS WERE LIKE
The conditions which prevailed were excellent from the point of view of the Port employer. He had at his disposal a highly skilled labour force which could be readily transferred on a short-term basis between sectors. And for this privilege, he had to pay proportionately less in times of unemployment than other comparable employers in outside industry.
The competition for work brought sharp divisions and bitterness among the men and this was to the employer's benefit, as was the favoured treatment of a minority of perms.
The disadvantage to the employer was that the Pool system produced solidarity [among] the men. Those left unemployed in the "pen" after the call would often discuss their common plight. But besides this, the Pool men went from employer to employer never having a regular relationship with any one of them. Thus it was impossible for the myth of employer loyalty (prevalent in only too many industries) to condition the dockers' minds.
Another factor which rankled many a Port employer was that if a man was too militant or committed a misdemeanour, he could not be directly disciplined by the boss. Instead, the employer would have to report him to the NDLB who in turn would receive the Docker's excuse in writing, and if they saw fit, they would summon the man to appear before a [joint] Employer-Trade Union disciplinary committee of the NDLB.
Another peculiarity was that although the employer in a slack period would instruct his caller-on not to engage a difficult man, in a busy period where the employer had to indent to the local board, he could not refuse the man allocated, even though the men may have had a militant record.
This relationship between boss and worker is most unusual.
Under the present social system of capitalism, the boss has a range of arbitrary powers. In particular, he has the "right" of hiring workers when they are profitable to him, and firing them when they are no longer useful to his ends. The NDLB system limits this dictatorial power somewhat, and provided a basis for the confidence that workers need to be militant.
THE ATTRACTION OF DEVLIN
How could a traditionally militant group of workers like dockers be divided and in some sectors demoralised by the Devlin rationalisation? The answer is to be found in the minimum security that Phase 1 offered. A guaranteed [minim]um basic unemployment pay of £17 was the main carrot that the employer dangled, in addition to permanent status.
Something which sapped dockers' strength and solidarity was the obvious inequalities that took place daily in their working lives.
Some of the labour force were permanently employed before the Devlin scheme. The rest ("Pool men") suffered week after week of unemployment on a take-home pay of £8, and saw some of his fellow dockers in his own Union enjoying a regular income in some cases four or five times as great as his own.
Of course, the employers would aggravate this situation. Where it was necessary to the smooth running of the Dock to employ three gangs of men in striking cargoes from lorries or railway trucks, or in delivery to road and rail transport, the boss would only engage one well-paid gang, and thus add to the overall unemployment position. Devlin seemed to offer the man a better basis for meeting his domestic commitments.
THE STAND OF THE UNIONS
The underlying idea of a system of joint control should be that all the labour force receive equal opportunity. For the unions to allow a minorit[y] [illegible] and under the control of private Stevedoring Companies must surely weaken and eventually destroy the joint control. Despite many claims that joint control was a step towards workers' control over their industry and their lives, the so-called "Left" T.U. leaders who paid lip-service to the principle of workers' control never even took advantage of periods of full employment and traditional militancy to prevent the employers damaging the old scheme.
Strangled by yards of red tape of their own making, the bureaucracy conveniently f[orgot] that 'Rule 2a' commits them to the opposite of what they allowed to take place. This rule [has] been gathering dust in the rule book for 50 years; surely long enough even for the slo[w] Officialdom. It has been the practice of all the major unions and the TUC to play about [with] pious proposals on paper. But such resolutions remain paper tigers without the determined leadership and rank-and-file commitment. (A close parallel is the Equal Pay for Women [reso]lution of the TUC now 50 years old; and only resurrected by the strike action of the Ford women workers).
Besides the paper rule, the demand of nationalisation has come from below. Instead of mounting a campaign on this issue, they chose to collaborate with the employers' rationalisation programme, as contained in Devlin.
It was the union leaders who accepted that dockers must bargain for a decent minimum security level, by selling their hard-won practices in exchange for what should in any case [be] automatic rights. These misbegotten people never before nor at any stage during the Devlin negotiations advanced alternative proposals on behalf of the rank and file.
For two years the union branches had voiced objections and raised alternatives to the new scheme: only to be told that the negotiations had gone too far already. Yet when the Royal and West India Docks Unofficial Liaison Committee had successfully fought for an enquiry on Devlin itself, the T&G was forced to voice 189 separate objections to the scheme—more than those of the Liaison Committee. These objections had not suddenly arrived from the branches, but had been held up in the bureaucratic channels.
Although in theory it is lay committees like the Docks Divisional and the Docks Trade Group that have the final say, in practice it rests with the full-time, appointed, paid T.U. officials. Seeing their role as guardians of the National Interest, they set out to help solve the ever-present Problems of the Economy by spending hours convincing the lay membership [to] subordinate their interests to those of the employers.
How often are these officials, paid from contributions, going to use their time to kid and con us rather than representing us and initiating improvements? There is a saying that it's easier to get an audience with the Queen than to find a union official when a dispute occurs.
Some dockers having been on many delegations to Transport House think that Mr. Tim O'Leary O.B.E., National Docks Secretary of the T&G, is a figment of somebody's imagination since he's never in. If he's out negotiating on our behalf, perhaps he'd find out what the rank and file want if he made time to meet us.
Why does Mr. O'Leary find it difficult to meet us? It is because he has no need to, since he is not under our control. He is not elected and not subject to recall.
Dockers need to have control of their union as much as they need control of their lives.
THE HONEYMAN ENQUIRY
In April 1966 the threat of unofficial militant action forced Mr. Gunter (the then Minister of Labour) to promptly set up another enquiry into all the clauses of Devlin, and its effect[s]. T.U. officials had for a year been touring the branches trying to sell Devlin, and counter[ing] their members' objections by saying that negotiations had gone too far for them to change the course of events. But they and the Government found out that one of these events was the resistance of the rank and file.
In May 1966 one of the main propagators of productivity and rationalisation bargaining, Tim O'Leary, was put in the invidious position of voicing the objections to the scheme. Since there have been more High Court Judges employed on Docks enquiries than there are dockers employed during slack periods in the dock, very few gave any credence to the new enquiry. However, many militants used the enquiry to publicly voice their grievances. Many politicos have bemoaned the fact that workers [don't] consciously relate their industrial actions with political questions. But during Honeyman, the whole theme of the rank and file's objections focussed on the issue of control. Every rank-and-file spokesman who [addressed] dock gate meetings at London, Liverpool, Hull and some [other ports were] emphatically against any extension of the power of the private employers. [The att]ack on the scheme was also directed against the precedent of denationalisation, which could jeopardise any industry in which there was a limited measure of joint control.
Furthermore, any extension of the power of private employers condones the major restrictive practice in the Docks, i.e. the very existence of those employers. Not only do they use and control labour, but they do this in their own interest of private profit, instead of in the interest of the community and common good. The 1947 scheme and even Devlin despite its conclusions are indictments of the employers on moral, economic and humane grounds. Of course social responsibility comes nowhere, when your only concern is to get a casual job done as quickly as possible, with as little commitment to the men who do the work as possible, for as much profit as possible.
Without being politically conscious, nevertheless dockers saw what infringements to their freedom total employers' control would mean. The issue of control is highly political; but dockers must become aware of the political nature of their actions. Pointing this out is central to the role of the revolutionary agitator.
THE ROLE OF ENQUIRIES
Whenever T.U. officials can no longer hold back the rank and file with delaying tactics, vague promises and constitutional buck-passing, then the employers ask the State to intervene. In a capitalist economy (i.e. where production takes place for profit) the State always and inevitably takes the side of the employers. In the atmosphere created by the State's intervention other agents of the bosses—the monopoly press—embark on a programme of discrediting the militants and distorting the root causes of the dispute.
On examination of Government Enquiries, one finds the same pattern emerges in all cases. The Devlin Enquiry on the Docks saw the militants as Luddite-type wreckers, while also saying, tongue in cheek, that the employers had some responsibility. The Cameron Enquiry on the Barbican strike took exactly this stance. The pattern continues with Geddes on Shipbuilding; Pearson on Seamen; Devlin on Printworkers; Roberts on the Port Talbot Steelworkers, etc.
The role of the Enquiry is to appear as a neutral, unbiased referee. Yet the result is always the same. A return to work is required. Production must not be held up further, in the name of the "National Interest". The most powerful right of the workers, their collective refusal to work, is itself threatened nowadays, again in the "National Interest".
We reject this high-sounding phrase as being part of the propaganda smokescreen that surrounds every dispute and enquiry. The society we live in is split into those who have only their labour to sell in the form of wages or salaries; and those who own property in the form of firms, stocks and shares, land, housing, etc., from which they get profits, rents, dividends and interest. The minority in the second group are unnecessary in the process of production, being parasitical upon the labour of the great majority of society. Through their economic power (Inland Revenue figures for 1967 show that 10% of the population owns 75% of the total wealth, leaving 50 million people to share the remaining 25%), this class rules politically. Between the forces of Labour and Capital, there is no community of interest: in a class-divided society, appeals to anything "National" obscure these divisions and thereby help the rich and the powerful to become richer and more powerful.
Terry Barrett