Devlin Report: Dockers' hard-won rights under heaviest attack

THE Devlin report is the latest, strongest and most calculated of the attempts to break up everything that the militancy of Britain's docker has won.

In 15 years, productivity on the waterfront has doubled. But this is not enough for the port employers or for the big businesses which use the docks. The National Ports Council reported last week that new berths and new dock systems are to be built. The employers are determined to operate all the newly invested equipment to the full to obtain the last ounce out of the labour force.

But to do that, they have to break up traditional ways of working and smash defensive agreements. They have to crush the dockers' well-known solidarity which was forged in the struggle of the dock labourers to climb out of the abyss at the beginning of the century.

What is at stake is presented quite clearly at the beginning of the Devlin report.

Conditions

Present conditions on the docks, it declares, leads to a man treating his time as his own'. And, crime of crimes, the docker 'has no sense that his working hours belong in any way to a particular employer'.

The employers and Devlin are saying-and Wilson and Gunter will agree-'while you are on the dock, every minute of your time must belong unconditionally to the employer to work you as he wills'.

The propositions that the Devlin report puts forward could mean the end of the Dock Labour Scheme. The employers could have even in form almost complete control of labour and discipline.

In fact, they would have complete control.

The docker would be changed into a voiceless, industrial serf under contract to an employer. If he was sacked by the employer, he could be sacked from the Dock Labour Scheme. The continuity rule (attacked by Devlin) and present manning scales also

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Chained by economic necessity to the wish of his employer, if the docker did complain, he would come up against compulsory arbitration. That is presented as one of the report's eventual aims, once the stage is set.

Gleeful comment No wonder the 'Daily Express', on the day the report was published, gleefully commented in its editorial:

movements A concise history of the growth of trade union bureaucracy and the struggles against it. The shop stewards' movement of 191521, the Minority Movement and the Third Period experiences are analysed thoroughly. Price 1/186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, LONDON, S.W.4 'Not a tear will be shed for the troublemakers among the men who will have to be dismissed'.

The Devlin committee criticises the way the employers went about their aims in the past. Their mistake, the report indicates, was that they tried to press ahead too fast.

They should have listened to the unions. Obviously in sympathy with the employers, the unions told them, according to the report, that 'what the employers want is just not attainable by the stroke of the

pen and they must be to take it in stages.' Now, the Devlin report says, let us start again. The attack, which could end with the employers rampant on the docks, is to be carefully planned. First, the forces are to be lined up. .

To carry through the plan a National Negotiating Committee is to be set up by the National Joint Council.

On this will sit the trade union leaders, the employers and an 'independent element' which will report back to the government. Behind the Negotiating Committee will be the Government ready to impose a settlement if any plan is being 'wrecked by a minority'.

Reduced

The employers will prepare a scheme for the reduction of companies in the port and then offer 100 per cent permanency with the dockers entering into weekly contract with one employer.

The Devlin Committee tells the employers to be content at this stage with making it clear that they are expecting 'regular work in return for a regular wage' and with removing 'abuses of the continuity rule'. Once they get this type of 100 per cent permanency established, they can then proceed to screw the dockers down.

Of course, this permanency will mean a smaller labour force. The average age of men on the docks is 45. Forty-one per cent are over 50 and 15 per cent over 60. Does anyone believe this meets with the employers' plans?

Young force

They certainly want a younger labour force for the type of speed-up they envisage. The older dockers will be driven off the dock by a steady increase of medical standards. They will go off with their ten bob a week as the employers devour younger men.

While the employers prepare their scheme, the Transport and General Workers' Union is called upon to put its house in order.

What is the Devlin Committee after? A militant union to represent the demands of the dockers? Certainly not.

Their main criticism is that the T. & G. has failed to bring home to its members the need to collaborate with the employers.

Representation The report says the 'Blue Union' (the National Amalgamated Stevedores' and Dockers' Union) should be given a representative on the National Negotiating Committee.

It would be a dangerous illusion for any member of the 'Blue Union' to think that this is something of benefit. What are the conditions laid down?

The union can only be represented if it is prepared to negotiate 'in conformity' with the offer by individual employers of 100 per cent permanency. It cannot negotiate on its own schemes.

• The 'confidence of the negotiating table' must be 'respected.

• There must be 'no repetition of the methods which killed negotiations over the tally clerks' scheme'.

London tally clerks will

mark well the last condition. This is a reference to events when the rank-and-file Transport & General Workers' Union tally clerks in London would not accept a decasualisation scheme because their brothers in the 'Blue Union' were opposed to it.

The Devlin report proposes, incidentally, that the government should now force through this scheme at an appropriate time.

The second condition is a sharp warning to members of the 'Blue Union'. The Devlin report criticises the leader of the 'Blue Union' — Mr. R. Barrett - because he is only a 'voice' of the union. This is in line with a number of reports of inquiries into the docks, going back to the Ammon report of 1945.

All these reports have complained that 'Blue Union' officials had to report back to their members in the course of negotiations.

No report back the second condition means that if a 'Blue Union' leader enters this Negotiating Committee' he does not report back to his rank and file üntil he makes an agreement.

Thus, it is not representation for the 'Blue Union' that the Devlin inquiry is proposing. In reality, Blue Union' leaders are asked to become representatives among the dockers of negotiating committee carrying out the decasualisation plan of the employers.

The dockers must resist the Devlin plans.

The immediate reaction of the employers' press to the Devlin report shows that the dockers are being taken on first among the whole of the British working class.

The Labour government, and particularly Frank Cousins, instead of fighting for the nationalization of the port industry, is now assisting in carving up the dockers among separate employers. If the Labour government had really wanted to find out about the docks, then it would have inquired among the dockers. Clear position No industry shows more clearly the superfluity of employers than the docks.

No industry shows more clearly the possibilities of workers' control.

It would be simplicity itself to nationalize the docks. Today, from chief planners to control officers and superintendents, ex-trade union leaders and ex-'unofficial leaders' are in charge of administration for the employers.

Real workers' representatives could very easily take over. The nature of the industry is such that there are many traditions of dockers themselves organising the work, picking out and stowing cargo.

Nationalization now is not just a propaganda slogan for the dockers.

Either a smaller labour force of industrial serfs, tightly disciplined and at the beck and call of an employer, or the industry is nationalized. That is the simple and straightforward choice.

Defence against the employers' plans now means an offensive against them. It is not this or that individual issue which is posed.

Certainly not this or that amendment to the Devlin report.

There cannot be a real increase in wages, there cannot be a real betterment of conditions, there cannot even be a defence of the old docker, let alone a better life for him; there cannot be anything but sweat and speed-up for the young docker; there cannot be any real advance for dockers, except through taking ownership and control of the docks out of the hands of the employers.

Organise

The 'Newsletter' and the Socialist Labour League proudly state they stand for that fight. They stand for the emancipation of the docker together with the whole of the working class.

The dockers must organise. They must set up representative committees to resist the plans of the Devlin report to hand the dockworkers over to the direct control of a few monopolists.

They must link with workers in other industries and the rank and file of the labour movement in a struggle for the nationalization of the port transport industry.