Liverpool Dockers: A History of Rebellion and Betrayal 173965630X, 9781739656300

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LIVERPOOL DOCKERS A History of Rebellion and Betrayal

Mike Carden

First published in 2022 by Carden Press Ltd, UK. Paperback edition. Copyright© Mike Carden, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying1 recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. While the information contained within this book is believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the author nor the editor nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

ISBN: 978-1-7396563-0-0 Edited by John Carden Cover Design and Layout by John Carden

CP Carden Press [email protected]

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to the memory of MIKE CARDEN 20.02.1953 - 9.12.2021

'Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human existence. " William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Contents

Contents

vii

Editor's note

xi

Foreword by Len McCluskey

xiii

Acknowledgements

xv

Author's Preface

xvii

PART ONE: Introduction

1

1 Liverpool and the 'Liverpool Way' 2 Historical Overview of the Dispute

3 13

PART TWO: The Origins of Betrayal

29

3 Life on the Docks 4 The Formation of the TGWU 5 Internal Conflict and 'Breakaways' 6 Incorporation and the Struggle for Control 7 The Liverpool Dockers' Fightback! Support the Miners! 8 The End of the Dock Labour Board Scheme 9 The Dockers and the TGWU's Broad Left 10 Foundations of Chaos 11 De-recognising Shop Stewards on the Docks 12 Unemployment- a Liverpool Inheritance 13 The Local TGWU Alliance with the MDHC 14 The Acquisition of Medway Ports 15 The 'Far-Left Militant Tendency' and the General Secretary Share a Platform! 16 The Seaforth Container Berth Contract (Fire and Re-hire) 17 The Bullying and Intimidation Continues 18 Torside Ltd and the March of the Yellow Cranes

PART THREE: The 1995 Dispute 19 20 21 22 23 24

31 41 45 55 65 69 75 83 97 103 109 117 121 129 139 145

151

Monday 25 th September 1995: The Dispute Begins Tuesday 26 th September 199 5: Day Two Wednesday 27 th September 1995: Day Three Thursday 28 th September 1995: Day Four The 'Official Record' of the First Four Days In for the Long Haul

vii

153 159 163 167 173 177

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

The 'Scabs' Women of the Waterfront! The International Campaign The TGWU Condemns MDHC (for the First and Last Time) Out on the Picket Lines ('Who's this ILWU fuck?') The First Ballot - a 90.3% Rejection of MDHC's First and Final Offer The First International Conference of Port Workers; the Dispute Goes Digital Bill Morris Makes That Speech Economic Distortions May Day 1996 Casual Labour and Negotiations Begin Again The Cunard Line and the Leaving of Liverpool? The Dispute Rolls on Splits and Sectarian Interests Atlantic Container Line Returns and the death of Mickey Fenn Reclaim the Streets The Second International Conference of Port Workers and the ITF The Dispute Continues (Without the TUC) The First Anniversary of the Dispute The TGWU Condemns Solidarity as the ITF and ILWU Clash Negotiations Begin Again The Paris Conference and the creation of the IDC Negotiations Re-open More Negotiations The Human Cost of the Docks' Dispute John Pilger Writes and Bill Morris Responds The December 1996 General Executive Council Negotiations Resume The 20th December Mass Meeting and the Third Offer A Day of World Action Nolan Meets Morris The Dockers Call for Support from All Workers A Proposal to Supply Dock Labour in the Port of Liverpool Support for the Conflict All Docks and Dockers Are the Same - Nearing A Conclusion? Robbie Fowler and the Liverpool Dockers A March for Social Justice - Respect to the Chartists! The Liverpool Dockers Fail to Call for UK Solidarity Action? Rock the Dock: An Occupation? The Death of Billy Dunne Internationalism and the Second IDC General Executive Council Meeting,June 1997 The Interview That Established the Dockers as a 'Political Movement' LabourNet's Exclusive Report into Casual Labour on Liverpool Docks

V111

185 195 207 217 223 233 239 251 263 273 277 287 291 297 303 309 317 321 327 333 339 345 353 357 363 373 381 389 393 401 407 411 417 423 429 435 445 451 457 463 467 473 477 485

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

The ITF Preamble to the 1997 Biennial Delegates Conference The 1997 Biennial Delegates Conference International Solidarity The Dockers Call for Support amidst the fall-out from the BDC Tension and Pressure Continue to Mount The Third Official Ballot Another Official Ballot -Another Rejection! The Neptune Jade Picket The TGWU's new London Office And in the End The End of the Llverpool Dock Dispute

491 497 507 521 529 537 545 551 563 567 573 579

PART FOUR: The aftermath of the dispute and legacy of the Liverpool Dockers 591 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

593 599 605 619 623 633 639

Settling Old Scores Part of the Union? Scab Labour? The Initiative Factory and the CASA The CASA A Return to Organised Labour The Dismantling of Democracy Conclusion

References

651

Abbreviations

721

ix

Editor's note

T

hroughout his life, Mike Carden kept meticulous records in the form of personal diaries, meeting notes, correspondence, and official minutes and documents, and he would catalogue pamphlets, flyers, posters, or anything else he felt held historical significance. This book is the culmination of over twelve years' work and draws upon the author's records, along with the personal archives of his contemporaries, official records, documentary films, and media coverage of the events from the time. The original manuscript was close to one million words long. Following an initial edit by Matthew McKeown, Mike spent the next two years rewriting the book, and it was significantly consolidated and condensed. As part of this process, Mike read the entire book aloud to his wife Mary over the course of six weeks, making notes and changes as they went along. Mary said: 'it was very powerful to hear Mike reading the book aloud because he was speaking his own words. It brought back memories of the dispute and that time in our lives, and I feel privileged to have shared this experience with him. ' This extensive reworking means that the final product is well written and remarkably readable (in spite of its length), and Mike was rightly very proud of this achievement. In February 2021, Mike was diagnosed with lung cancer. Whilst initially he responded relatively well to treatment, he had less energy to write and found it especially hard to maintain the concentration required for the complex task of editing a book. Having drafted the final section, Mike needed some support with restructuring and asked me to help. We sat together on the sofa in our Llverpool home and spent the best part of four days working for as long as his energy levels would allow. I am immensely grateful to have had the chance to work with Mike in this way, and to understand a little better his writing process, and to see another side of my father. The confidence with which Mike approached writing brings to mind a talented painter making big, sweeping brush strokes onto an empty canvas: Just let me get it down roughfy first, John, and then I can see what we need to do next.' Mike spoke regularly about the book with his lifelong friend, and fellow shop steward, Tony Nelson. In one such conversation he explained to Tony that 'the book is all inclusive; it includes the voices of everyone who was a part of the dispute from all sides', however Tony disagreed: That's not true, Mike, because there is one person missing... you. ' Please bear in mind, therefore, that the author has underplayed his own significance in this history, as was always his way. I note this because Mike's personal experience is central to the fact that this history could be written at all. As a young man who left school with no qualifications, it was with the

xi

educational support of his trade union that Mike went on to gain a BA, an MA, and an MPhil. He decided early on to put his academic training to the service of his class, and not the betterment of his own standing; I doubt he would have considered doing anything else. He was fiercely intelligent, a critical thinker, and a wonderful writer - these were his gifts and his contribution. To say that a work published posthumously is the author's "life's work" is cliche, however to some extent it is accurate in this case. The central theme of this book is related to the oligarchic tendencies of organisations as identified by Robert Michels in Politcal Parties (1911) and how this played out on the Liverpool docks. Mike wrote about this idea in his Masters degree, and it was the focus of his PhD Thesis. Liverpool Dockers: A History of Rebellion and Betrayal is the culmination of a lifetime of thought and reflection on this idea into a form with which Mike was truly happy. Mike wanted his book to be as up-to-date as possible, and decided to include relevant contemporary events from 2021. By this time Mike had gone into hospital, but we discussed the points he wished to make, and I drafted the relevant paragraphs in keeping with the work we had done together. We reviewed these final additions in hospital, eventually finalising the manuscript together shortly before Mike died on 9 December 2021, aged 68.

Technical Notes In completing the final edit of the book, I have made a number of changes to the manuscript which I believe wholeheartedly would be in line with the author's wishes and that I hope gives the work greater coherence. Firstly, I have added two additional 'parts' so that the overall structure is clearer, bringing together the contextual chapters into the Introduction and moving the chapters concerning events after the end of the dispute into a separate Aftermath and Legary part. The final chapter was originally much longer and featured a series of subsections, which I have separated into shorter chapters that are more in keeping with the rest of the book. I edited chapter titles to improve clarity and to shorten the more extravagant ones. In proofing, I have done my best to remove the vast majority of typos and errors (or at least make them consistent) and I am grateful for the help I received from family and friends in completing this mammoth task. Mike's family are extremely grateful to Kathy Lewark for a kind donation in honour of her late husband, the civil rights activist and socialist, Jim Lewark. We are touched by the generosity of our dear friends Jack Heyman and Carol Canter, and their determination to see this important history published. We would like to thank Co-Director Mike Morris and the team at Writing on the Wall for their support in making this book possible. We would also like to thank Dave Sinclair and Andrew Testa for permission to use some of their wonderful photographs of the dispute. John Carden April 2022

X11

Foreword by Len McCluskey

M

y lifelong friend and comrade, Mike Carden, has succeeded in producing a unique and detailed history of the Liverpool dockers and the origins of an industrial dispute that began on the waterfront in Liverpool in September 1995 and concluded in the bleak winter of January 1998. He has attempted to allow the record of personal diaries, union minutes, official documents and individual statements of the time to speak for themselves. This approach to labour history has allowed the facts and reality of this bitter dispute to drive a powerful and philosophical narrative that evokes the story of an unofficial working-class struggle that won support from Australia to Japan, from West Coast and East Coast longshoremen in the USA to their Irish comrades in Dublin and Belfast and throughout Europe; but failed to generate support from their own union, and so many other official organisations that claimed to represent the interests of their class. I had the pleasure to have worked alongside and known so many of the comrades mentioned in this book and in the late 1960s to the 1970s these men and women provided me with a set of trade union principles, a sense of working-class solidarity, that have set the compass and direction of my trade union values. The legacy and struggles of the Liverpool dockers, the numerous unofficial and official strikes I took part in have forged in me an unrelenting belief in supporting workers in struggle along with the fundamental axiom of never crossing a picket line. 'The trade union movement took a long time to gather itself after the defeats inflicted by the Thatcher government. Stripped of their confidence, unions became accommodationist - always looking to compromise rather than fight for the interests of their members - both in the industrial and political arenas. It was no coincidence that the period when this approach was most in vogue coincided with the rise of New Labour. But it was no coincidence, either, that the experience of workers being sold-out while Labour refused to lift a finger triggered a backlash. The historic shift to the left in the trade union movement was a direct result and laid the foundations for the political developments that followed.' (McCluskey:2021 pp.75-76) Carden exposes the level of betrayal that the Liverpool dockers had to experience whilst they struggled to organise an un