The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.7           February 17, 1997 
 
 
UK Dockers Win International Solidarity  

BY DEBBIE DELANGE
MANCHESTER, England - Several hundred workers turned out early January 20 at the Liverpool docks to picket Seaforth Container Terminal. This was part of an international day of action, backed by the International Transportworkers Federation. Merseyside Port Shop Stewards, members of the Transport and General Workers Union, have campaigned for global solidarity action since early on in their dispute with Mersey Docks and Harbour Co. (MDHC). The bosses sacked the entire workforce in a bid to smash the union and bring in casual labor conditions in September 1995. Despite daily picketing, the docks are kept open with a replacement labor force.

Dockers' representatives have met workers in 62 ports around the world and their delegates go to international conferences seeking support. They plan to attend the Indian Ocean Trades Union Congress in Calcutta February 17-22, where they hope to meet with Korean workers and leaders of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, according to international coordinator Terry Teague.

At a dockers' mass meeting January 24, Teague summarized action taken by dock workers in 27 countries, ranging from messages of greeting, workplace meetings and demonstrations to work boycotts and port shutdowns.

"We've received 200 fax messages from around the world," Teague told the meeting. He singled out three for special mention: Los Angeles, Montreal and Brazil.

Los Angeles has the world's third largest port. Over 100 gantry cranes there stood idle on January 20, affecting 48 ships. More than 3,000 dockers met to discuss "Liverpool and the threats to all dockers worldwide." Other actions on the West Coast shut the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Long Beach, California ports. All Oregon ports stopped for 24 hours.

In Canada, the International Longshoremen's Association struck the port of St. John in New Brunswick for 11 hours. In Montreal, the offices of CAST and CanMar were occupied; dockers took action against the container terminals for two days. On January 19, Liverpool shop steward Mike Carden addressed the first ever joint meeting of Longshoremen, checkers, and railway workers in the Port of Montreal by telephone link.

Mersey dockers were told that the three Brazilian docker organizations representing over 70,000 members are considering boycotting all cargo to or from Liverpool.

Dockers in Rotterdam, Holland, are facing 200 layoffs and short hours for another 300, while the bosses seek to use agency labor. Rotterdam and Van Ommeren Tank Terminal workers held up two vessels in solidarity with Liverpool dockers. There were also solidarity actions in Australia, Belgium, France, Greece, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, and elsewhere.

In Liverpool, eight dockers and seven members of Reclaim the Streets, a campaign that takes direct action to halt the building of major roadways, occupied three gantry cranes January 20, as strikers and supporters looked on. As docker Billy Jenkins later explained, "With all the international action taking place we had to do something ourselves." Workers halted the unloading of the grain carrier Lake Erie for 35 hours.

During the dispute, the Mersey Docks have offered selective employment to the sacked workforce. Harry Hunter said, "I was one of the 200 offered jobs. I wouldn't take it because the people I worked with were on the gate."

Val Bibby and Maureen Dunwoody were among a group of Women of the Waterfront, wives and other family members who organize with the dockers.

Bibby spoke of Ford's recent decision to cut 1,300 jobs in its nearby Halewood car plant. "I'm more determined now," she said, "Liverpool's going to be a graveyard."

"It's about getting jobs back, it's not the money," said Dunwoody.

This view was echoed at a January 24 press conference where shop stewards' chair Jimmy Nolan unveiled a plan to set up a labor supply cooperative. "The real issue is dock workers' jobs," he said. The cooperative would provide the workforce to the docks on permanent contract, in place of union-busting Drake International, which supplies the scab workers. The union would raise money among dockers in the UK and abroad. They insist on a majority holding by the MDHC. "If they don't wish to do that, our campaign will continue for reinstatement," Mike Carden emphasized.

Debbie Delange is a member of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union in Manchester, United Kingdom.  
 
 
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