The Devlin Report's main theme is the "abnormality" of employer-employee relations in the docks, To this theme it returns again and again, its principal thesis being that, to eliminate "indiscipline", “irresponsibility”, and inefficiency, "normal" industrial relations must somehow be created, The intrusion of the Dock Labour Board as the "holding employer" prevents the development of normal ties between worker and employer, which would produce a sense of discipline, a feeling of security, and sentiments of trust. This is the Devlin picture of "normal" industrial relations in 1965! The docker is awkward because he has never experienced the full sense of the wage-worker status. In other words he is not subservient, not disciplined. Traces of a pre-industrial sense of independence cling to him. (Mr. Brow, of Glacier Metal, in his book "Piece-work Abandoned" found that piece-work also conferred on the worker an undesirable sense of independence.) Devlin argues that if the docker is placed in the circumstances of normal employment relations, he will respond to that conditioning by losing his specific and difficult characteristics, The docker has (some) freedom without responsibility, says Devlin, and the solution is to deprive him of his freedom, (The term "freedom" here is used obviously in a strictly relative sense.) Shorn of his freedom, his "irresponsibility" will be transformed, (The term "responsibility" means here, disciplined, subservient ~ in fact the very opposite of "responsible" in any meaningful, socialist sense, )
Whilst recognising therefore the specific character of dock labour, Devlin is led by his wholly orthodox view of normalcy, into a series of recommendations which work against the dockers! traditions, and seek to force him into the conventional mould, (This is not fdealise the present situations the dockers! "freedoms" are of a strictly limited and negative kind, unaccompanied by any kind of authority or responsibility in our socialist sense,) Assuming that structural changes do occur in the industry, so that every docker is placed in the employment of a specific boss, would we see the development of that cosy, trustful relationship which Devlin envisages? Is twentieth century capitalist industry such a haven of harmonious, paternalistic innocence? At certain points, Devlin recognises that this is not so, for he switches about between faith in the personal worker-employer relation, and reliance on the "new science of management and persuasion"! These he argues, can only be practiced in a rationalised, modernised structure of port employer companies, With a "Devlin" looming up for the car industry we might wonder whether industrial harmony, discipline, etc., will be found to result from the "skills" of large-scale management in that context. Devlin's"solutions" begin to look more and more like reactionary utopianism, a woolly liberalistic idealism - though dressed . up in forceful language to appear hard-headed and practical, But it is even worse than that. For Devlin's own recommendations concede that in the context of dock labour's history, the ideal is unattainable, The Dock Labour Board, that intrusive and spedal feature, cannot just be eliminated, (Except, of course, under conditions of nationalisation with workers' control, which Devlin rejects, and to which we shall return later.) For if the pattern of multiple, private employers is retained, (however modified by mergers and rationalisation as Devlin proposes) an agency to hamile the equitable and efficient transfer of temporary surpluses and jeficiencies of labour between the separate employers must remain. Moreover, the "spirit" of the NDLB system is one which Devlin recognises could not be eliminated without total opposition from unions and dockers. Hence he is forced to retain the Board, and contradictory-wise (for Devlin's position is nothing if not contradictory) actually to extend its
Devlin...continued/
disciplinary function from the present scope of the "pool" men, to the whole of
the “regular" employees, He dare not in other words, carry through the logic
of his position by proposing that the individual employer should have the
normal powers over his employees, The solution is a bastard form in every way.
Further, the prospects of a successfully functioning disciplinary machine after
the change, when a docker is supposed to be the employee of a firm, are much
less bright even than under the present system - the"pool" man has at least
some kind of relationship with the Board, It is likely that under the Devlin
solution, the worker representatives on the Board will feel that they are being
asked to do the dirty work of discipline for the employers, in a much sharper
and clearer way than at present.
Devlin gets into this dilemma because of his unshakeable belief that the
docker must go through the historical phase (or in his philosophy, be fixed in
the timeless ideal status) of being a fully subservient wage-worker, In fact,
the specific character of dock labour as it has developed here, places the
docker in a very special way poised for a transition which by=-passes this phase.
For a genuine (rather than a mechanical and superficial) solution to the
contradiction of the dock workers! status, leads straight in the direction of
self-management - which in its turn is inconceivable without social ownershipe
The contradiction "freedom without responsibility" can be resolved in a progre=
ssive sense and fully, only by granting the power without which "responsibility"
means its opposite, This natural transition is resisted by Devlin because of
the anti-socialist bias which is built into the report, The artifidality of
Devlin comes out many times, For instance, he is clear that there are too
many employers, In the case of Hull he recommends a reduction from ninety to
ten. As one docker expressed it to mes “If it can come down from ninety to ten,
why stop there? One concern is the answer," Precisely. The arbitrary solution
is necessary to Devlin in order to construct the longed-for norm of a few
big, managerial-style, private firms, Moreover, if the logic of one employer =
a publicly-owmed concern = is granted, what becomes of the holding employer,
the NDLB? The original purpose of joint control over labour having been
eliminated, could the public authority take over NDLB functions? By no means,
for this would destroy that essential "spirit" of the Dock Labour Board, That
spirit, in other words, in a cc text of social ownership, would lead straight
in the direction of workers! control.
The value of the Devlin Report lies precisely here: in pursuing the destin«
ation of decasualisation the contradictions have been exposed with startling
claritye No doubt enormous pressures - including the threat of Government
legislation - will seek to force the industry into the narrow cul-de-sac which
Devlin has sign-posted, but the rubble which has obscured the alternative
strategic route can now be cleared away. The lessons will not be confined to
the port transport industry.