Solidarity with the seafarers!: Behind the P&O dispute
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The right wing leadership of the NUS are unlikely people to defy the law, having spent weeks trying to end the Dover strike on any terms available.
But they had little option.
The strike was spread after P&O management announced measures which would mean the end of the NUS as an effective trade union in the shipping industry.
P&O sacked all those on strike, ended all agreements established over many years, decrecognised the NUS as a negotiating union, and said they would begin employing scab crews to operate the strikebound ships.
The courts were quickly involved when nearly all ferries around Britain in 19 ports were strikebound within three days. The other major ferry operator, Sea Link, obtained an injunction instructing strikes on their ships to return to work immediately.
The NUS Executive responded by calling out all NUS members, including those on deep-sea ships. Telegrammes were sent calling on all crews to join the strike at the next port.
The NUS was consequently fined £150,000 and the whole of its money and assets were sequestrated.
McCluskie announced that the strike would go on. The union would continue to defy the court and, if necessary, he was prepared to "run the strike from a tent on Clapham Common". The NUS, he said, was not buildings, desks and typewriters but the membership — the opposite position to that usually taken by top trade union officials!
The sequestration strengthened the resolve of the NUS rank and file. Five thousand of the 5,200 members working for various companies on ferries all around Britain were on strike the following day. In addition, French unions too the decision not to handle scab ships in French ports.
A situation of such confrontation cannot remain unchanged for long. The dispute must be expanded beyond the seafaring industry by the trade union movement as a whole, or it will be gradually isolated and battered by the employers.
P&O made the first moves — the scabbing operation sailing from Dover to Belgium; followed by the police eviction of striking crews from oil rig supply ships in Aberdeen, and their replacement by scab crews.
At the time of writing, however, there are major dangers for the dispute. Sam McCluskie has stood against the sequestration, but that is mainly on the matter of the recognition of the union. He has not shown the same concern for wages and working conditions, or over victimisation.
It is this attitude which has opened the door to a deal with Sea Link.
As a strike-breaking move it has some remarkable features. The NUS is not in dispute with Sea Link, yet McCluskie is negotiating with them and proposing that they form a "united front" against P&O. Sea Link would put on extra services on the prime routes, in competition with P&O, and would take on some of the sacked P&O strikers to work them!
This is agreed in principle, but as we go to press Sea Link are offering 450 jobs and the NUS are demanding 750. The Dover Port committee has rejected an offer of 450.
A deal along these lines, however, remains a serious threat to the dispute. Accepting it would lead to a major victory for the shipping employers and the full-scale introduction of the new conditions they want in every fleet — including Sea Link.