New Dockers’ Charter Would Unite Portworkers

A LITTLE over ten years after the introduction of the Dock Labour Scheme most dockers have regular work only as an exception.

The employers want what they call ‘normal employeremployee relationships’. This means they want the docker to be less independent, to be bound by a more vicious “discipline’.

It seems that the employers are hoping to create this ‘normal cmployer-employee relationship’ by ihe way they are using permanent gangs—weekly workers under regular contract to one firm.

The amalgamation of Smith Coggins and other smaller stevedoring firms in Liverpool has meant that when there has been a shortage of work in one area weekly workers have been sent to another sector where a firm in the amalgamation had a ship.

Dockers in that sector, who were ‘daily’ or ‘casual’ workers, have thus been left to sign on. On Merseyside deckhands are particular victims of this way of using weekly workers.

Like sea-gulls, grabbing crumbs At present, Liverpool’s dock labour force is approximately 15,000. It was the boast of a Liverpool employer that, given 5,000 to 6,000 weekly workers and mechanization, he would run the port more efficiently.

He was not, of course, concerned with the problem that would confront the ‘casual’ workers. These pool men would be like sea-gulls, grabbing a crumb here and there.

The solidarity we have hitherto known in dockland would be threatened. Weekly workers, having committed themselves by contract, would be forced to do any type of job for which they were required.

The casual worker seeking to become a weekly worker, plus the out-of-work fringe produced by redundancy, would be a constant threat which the employers would use against the permanent men.

Obviously the militant trade unionists would be isolated and made victims of economic strangulation.

Here let mo ask a question. How many members of the ‘blue union’, ; the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers, and how many militant Transport and General Workers’ Union members, would ever be offered permanency?

‘Perms’ and pool men together The answer is obvious. It is obvious also that the position of the old men would become hopeless and the Prospect of pensions for them would recede right into the background.

Of course most dockers would not oppose permanency if everyone on the register were made a weekly worker. But in the meantime militant dockers will fight to end those agreements which allow the employer to use his weekly workers at the expense of pool men’s jobs.

Permanent and pool men must fight together against the employers’ attempts to undermine the conditions of all.

In 1945 a national delegate conference of docks unions adopted the ‘Dockers Charter’, which demanded a_ higher This is the third and concluding article by Peter Kerrigan, Liverpool portworker and member of the editorial board of The Newsletter, in his series on the problems of the docks industry. Previous articles appeared on March 29 (pp. 96-7) and April 5 (pp. 103-4).

INNIS ININININININININSNINININININININININININININININSNINININI IIIS daily rate, the forty-hour week and pensions for the aged and infirm.

Arihur Deakin later denounced this charter as ‘impracticable’. Yet in struggles since then these demands have been raised by dockers, together with the demand for one call a day. ~ Tn ae es We are still fighting for pensions to enable the old docker to retire. One call a day is a greater need- than ever.

Miles from the docks Today thousands of portworkers live in the new housing estates miles away from the docks. There is an expensive burden of fates on men who have to sign on twice a day.

Modern planning facilities could quite easily be used by the employers to place hiring requisitions on a daily basis.

An average of over 10,000 dockers are ‘proving attendance’ every week. With the shortage of jobs it is all the more necessary for us to fight for an increase in our fall-back guarantee, which is totally inadequate in view of today’s living costs.

We need an increase in attendance money. At present 2 docker failing to get hired for a full week—thus signing on eleven times—will receive £6 1s. fall-back guarantee.

Favourite topic of discussion Yet a man can work three and a half days, sign for the other four turns and still only draw a few shillings more than He only gets 6s. attendance money for the turns he signed on.

This anomaly is a favourite, though bitter, topic of discussion among dockers.

Now that ‘bomping’, or signing, is increasing there is general agreement that the ‘attendance money’ should be equal to the fall-back guarantee, so that dockers are not penalized for working.

A shorter working week with higher wages; an increase in fall-back guarantee; an increase in attendance money; one call a day; pensions for the aged and infirm: these are some of the demands for a new Dockers’ Charter around which portworkers all over Britain could unite.