Defeat of the dockers; a step forward on wages: industrial action lives again!
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The recent industrial struggles have been seen as a breakthrough on the wages front.
They have put industrial struggle back on the agenda and shown that the Tories wrote off the organised working class too soon.
The new wave of militancy was shown first in a remarkable series of strike votes, and then in a high level of militancy in the strikes themselves.
The rail workers were 100% solid; the unprecedented strike of 500,000 NALGO members was 90% solid and involved more women in strike action than ever before in this country.
TUC leaders presided over a conference at the beginning of September which lined the unions up for Kinnock's Policy Review — despite some ambigious resolutions on the repeal of Tory anti-union laws and defence.
But even these leaders talked enthusiastically about the recent wave of struggles and described the unions as "on the up and up".
This new mood of confidence is there and it is very important. But these positive developments go along side a crushing defeat of an important section of the British trade union movement — the registered dockers.
They were targetted as part of a long term Tory strategy aimed at traditional sectors of the trade union movement in key sectors of the economy. They follow the miners, the printers and the seafarers.
The dockers were defeated by the Tory anti-union laws and the determination of the leadership of the TGWU to work within them.
Their confidence was undermined by three months of vaccilation in the courts, intimidation by the employers, and the manipulation of redundancy payments.
They were forced to fight with both hands tied behind their backs and defeated when the government defused the industrial upsurge which coincided with their strike with an extra 1% on current wage offers.
The Tories took a major gamble with their decision to abolish the National Dock Labour Scheme — an important achievement of the post war trade union movement and greatly valued by a dock labour force with a history of struggle going back to the great strike of 1889.
The dockers have faced challenges of this scale before, under the Labour government of Harold Wilson and the Tory government of Edward Heath — and has fought off the attack.
In 1973 they dealt a decisive blow to Heath's Industral Relations Act in the struggle against the proliferation of unregistered ports which culminated with the arrest and release of the Pentonville Five.
So why were they defeated this time?
Liverpool
The militancy and determination of the majority of registered dockers was not lacking. They voted over 70% for all-out strike action in two ballots. Most of the main ports struck twice unofficially before being ordered back to work by TGWU leaders.
Their strength was shown in Liverpool, where dockers stayed out until the end, and it took a visit by Ron Todd to get them back to work on a two to one majority.
Nor was the strike ineffective. Scheme ports handle 75% of cargo and much of it could not be easily diverted. A prolonged strike of the Scheme ports would have had a damaging effect on the economy.
During the strike the Port Employers, the government and the media played down the impact of the strike. Three weeks after it ended they were blaming it for the one of the worst ever set of trade figures.
Ron Todd's line did not only make the strike ineffective — although by allowing the movement of scab cargo it hampered the strike's effectiveness.
Worse, Todd's line seriously undermined the solidarity of the dockers and their confidence that they could win.
The dockers were thus split wide open from the outset, with the non-Scheme ports not only working normally but handling scab cargo diverted from striking Scheme ports. The strikers could do nothing about it within the law.
Alternative
This was compounded by a weakness at the unofficial level in several key ports, in particular Southampton and Hull, where the employers' pressure drove the dockers back to work at the crucial point.
Ron Todd's line was not challenged politically on the Executive Council: nor was there an organised alternative put to the TGWU conference.
The expected mass picket failed to materialise, and Ron Todd was able to do what Brenda Dean did at the SOGAT conference during the print strike. He pledged full support to the dockers, providing this was within the law.
In contrast, the Government knew exactly what they wanted and what their priorities were.
When the industrial upsurge escalated with docks, rail, London tubes, and NALGO all taking action, they took half a step backwards on the wages issue in order contain the situation and deal with the dockers.
Employers in rail and local government were give clear instructions to make improved offers and to seek settlements — "at any price".
In the middle of all this the dockers were ordered back to work by 18-12 votes at the T&G National Executive, on Todd's recommendation.
The sell-out came soon afterwards, with the sacking of 150 dockers at Tilbury (including all 16 shop stewards) and the derecognition of the trade union movement in the port of London.
Todd had told the T&G conference a month earlier that if the port employers resort to sackings "there will be no return to work whilst a singe dockers remains sacked."
The dockers, as one section of the T&G, were never the Tories' sole target in this. It was the T&G as a whole, seen as one of the more militant and left wing unions, and even Ron Todd himself, as the leader of this union.
The political nature of Todd and the T&G is, of course, more complicated than that. Nevertheless, after the setback of the dockers' defeat, the leadership is likely to "sober up", and return to the New Realists' ranks.
The defeat in the docks and the de-escalation of the industrial upsurge put confidence back into the employers generally.
Confident
Victimisations were threatened on London Transport. Striking British Airways cabin crews were threatened with the sack.
British Coal felt confident enough to tear up the pit review procedures which had survived the Miners' Strike and closed Betteshanger in Kent and two South Wales pits with three days notice.
On the docks themselves, the betrayal of the strike is having devastating effects. Now there is no Scheme and no national agreement it will be illegal in future for one port to strike in support of another.
The port employers are putting in the expected boot, with further attacks on shop stewards and redundancies in a number of ports. The dockers have had difficult conditions in which to attempt to negotiate local agreements.
The Tories paid a price and beat the dockers. They conceded pay increases of 1% more than they wanted and 0.5% above the official inflation figures (which are well below the true inflation rate).
The effect of these increases on the economy, particularly the inflation rate, will be seen in the coming months. They will also influence the new wage round in the autumn.
Unlike the dock strike, the pay strikes were not defeated.
• The result of the six national rail strikes was a shabby compromise, winning an 8.8% increase, but with the matter of national negotiating rights still ambiguous.
• The NALGO settlement was much more of a victory, with a shift by the employers from 7% to 8.8% and the dropping of all strings.
Others were less successful.
• BBC management managed to get through a deal which sold the workforce short.
• On the London Underground, management dropped the strings to their existing offer, which was then accepted over the heads of the membership.
None of these settlements has done much to tackle low pay in the industries concerned and they were below what could have been achieved. They have, however, been perceived as an advance for the trade unions.
Is the industrial upsurge over?
No, it isn't: not while all the factors which created the summer's strike wave are still present: rising inflation, the pressure of higher interest rates being felt on mortages, and a general swing of opinion aganst the Tories, with particular individual Tory measures highly unpopular.
The "summer of discontent" demonstrated that industrial struggle is back on the agenda, and must still be taken into account.
For the many wage claims now in the pipe-line, 8% is now the bottom line for most negotiations.
The Engineering Confed claim for a "substantial increase" on the basic rate and a reduction of hours to 35 could be a key struggle in the autumn. Claims are coming up in the mortor industry and from local government manual workers.
Any new round of struggle will take place under conditions where New Realism is still in control of the bulk of the trade union movement.
Some of the New Realists have been prepared to concede to pressure from below and allow a certain amount of challenge to the employers, but only as long as it does not go too far.
For the working class, New Realism remains the barrier to realising our aspirations. It is up to the left to work out a strategy for leading the working class over that barrier.