We are now in a period where the conflict between the rank and file of the trade unions and the bureaucratic union leaders is becoming sharper every day. This has led to a big increase in "unofficial" activity and to threats to form break-away unions. In the case of Pilkingtons this threat has been put into practice. This type of movement can only become more frequent as the 1970s progress. It is worth considering the lessons of the greatest unson breakaway since 1946 -the attempt of 16,000 dockers to leave the TGWU and to join the National Association of Stevedores and Dockers (NASD).
Stress and Strain Inside the TGWU The Transport and General Workers Union has a long tradition of conflict between its leadership and rank and file. Nowhere has this conflict been greater than in the docks. in 1923, only a year after the creation of the union, some 20.000 dockers left the T& G to join the Stevedores" Protection Society and in 1932 dockers in Glasgow and Cambletown left the T&G to found the Scottish Transport and General Workers Union. This type of conflict however took on its most extreme form after 1945.
In 1945 a Labour government was elected which succeeded in carrying out the reconstruc tion of capitalism after the Second World War at the expense of the working class. This reac tionary government was fully supported by the leadership of the T&G which was at that time in the hands of extreme right-wingers led by Arthur Desk in. Deakin was a real *Reds under the Beds" man who in 1949 had introduced a resolution into the T&G banning members of the Communist Party from holding office. This was the infamous "Black Circular" . Conflict between this leadership and the dockers was inevitable and it followed as soon as the war ended in 1945, The 1945 Strike and Its Effects In 1945 a spontaneous strike broke out for an increase in basic pay. It affected almost all the ports during its six weeks' duration and shook the Labour government just as much as it did Deakin. The union eventually succeeded in getting the movement under control again by making a set of promises about pay, conditions, pensions, etc, none of which it intended to fulfil of course. Although the eventual increase in pay won by the dockers was far less than the original demand, the strike had two crucial effects; it established methods of organising which became standard for the next twenty years and it temporarily broke the power of the Communist Party in the docks.
Shortly after the war the C.P. was still pursuing the policies of class collaboration it had adopted between 1941 and 1945. The Party therefore opposed the 1945 strike. The C.P. members on the National Portworkers Com mittee walked out. This piece of strike breaking led to the resignation from the Party of several militant leaders, including Bert Aylward. This resulted in a marked decline of C.P. influence on the docks and therefore aided the pursuing of more militant policies in subsequent years.
a workable shop stewards system was impossible. Instead rank and file committees were elected by mass meetings which were often attended by 90% of the men engaged in a dock. Between strikes these committees often only consisted of five or six but during strikes they were expanded to include men who proved themserves in the running or the spare so upor tant feature of these committees was that they were subject to instant recall.
The committees naturally came into constant conflict with the union bureaucrats. For example of dockers the NASD had two great attractions, in 1952 three of the most sctive leaders, Constable, Dickens and Saunders, were expelled from the T&G. The employers then tried to ock Constable because he did not have a union card. This provoked a mass walkout. The power of the committee was great and they were linked in a national committee with Aylward acting as organiser.
Under the leadership of these rank and file organisations a whole series of strikes were waged in the years immodiately after the war.
For example in 1948 a coordinated strike was carried on in London and Liverpool over the rate for moving zinc oxide. The crunch however came in February-August 1951 in a direct confrontation between the dockers and the Labour Government.
Order No. 1305 Under the Emergency Powers Act, Order No.
1305, passed in 1940, the government could declare any strike illegal. This faw had been passed by a "National" government led by the arch-reactionary Charchill, but it was not reversed by the 1945 Labour government.
Instead they kept the powers in reserve in order to deal with the working class. The clash that led them to use 1305 began on February 2nd 1961 when Liverpool dockers struck against a manning and mechanisation agreement signed by the T&G, The strike spread rapidly to Birkenhead and Manchester, The Government used Order No. 1305 to arrest seven of the dockers' leadors. The man who imposed the arder was Nye Bevan, now a patron saint of left social democracy.
The seven dockers were charged at Bow Street Magistrates Court and on the same day almost 7,000 London dockers joined the strike. By February 23rd, 16,000 men were out. Solidarity strikes were held on 16th March, 9th April, 16th April and 18th April until the Government were forced to order the men s release. The only part that the T&G played in this campaign was that shortly afterwards it expelled Dickens and Constable, two of the arrested dockers, from the union. A situation like this could not continue indefinitely; at some point the dockers would attempt to break with the T&G, either to rely entirely on rank and file organisation or to attempt to form thair own union. They in fact did the latter but in an unexpected form.
The National Association of Stevedores and Dockers In August 1854 Hull dockers struck work against the dangerous method of unloadin main known as 'hand scuttling". The T&C naturally opposed the strike. The men elected a rank and file committee consisting of four men. All this was perfectly normal. What was however totally abnormal was the recommendation which the committee gave to the men. They suggested that in the light of the T&G's attitude all the men should leave the Union and join the NASD. This was accepted with acclaim by the men.
The principle of leaving one union to join another is completely contrary to the principles of bureaucratic unionism. There is a very simple reason for this, namely that if members were free to leave one union to join another then men would naturally join those unions which win the best pay and conditions, ie, the most militant unions. if switching unions were allowed, right-wing unions such as the ETU and the GWU could lose much of their membership overnight. The right of workers to choose which union to belong to is therefore a union bureaucrat's nightmare. In order to prevent it happening, unions convicted of accepting other unions" members may be expelled from the TUC and thus from the "respectable"" union "club".
In the case of the dockers, the implications were even more far-reaching. As always the dockers were one of the most militant sections of workers. The only aim of their joining another union would be in order to turn it into a vehicle for pursuing their aims of improwing wages and conditions, If they were allowed to join the NASD, the prospect would be opened up of there existing a union which served fully the interests of its members and not that of the union bureaucrats. This would set an example for workers in other unions and was a right-wing union leader's nightmare. Normally an estab lished union such as the NASD would not have contemplated taking the risk of admitting the With the syster of casual labour in the docks Hull dockers, but in 1954 the NASD desperataly needed members. This led to the opening which the Hull men exploited.
The forerunner of the NASD was the Steve dores" Protection Society to which we have already referred. In 1954 the NASD was confined to the London docks and had a membership of about 4,500 stevedores and 2,500 dockers. Its leaders naturally wanted to extend their influence outside London. It was this that led them initially to take the risk of admitting the northern dockers. For the mass one positive and one negative. On the positive side the union was not affiliated to the Labour Party, and for men sickened by years of clashes with "their" political party, this was a real attraction, More important, however, was the negative aspect which was simply that after years of being messed about by the T&G leadership, the dockers felt that any change could only be a change for the better.
As a result of these factors, the action of the Hull men met a quick sympathy in other northern ports. This was particularly the case at Birkenhead.
Birkenheed had one of the strongest cornmittees in the country and produced a monthly paper, The Portworkers" Clarion, which sold to almost 75% of the port's 2,200 workers. Furthermore the leaders of the committee were highly conscious politically and were sympathetic to the group which was later to become the SLL. The Birkenhead committee rapidly contacted the Hull dockers and arranged far a delegation from Hull to speak at Birkenhead A NASD recruiting office was rapidly established and within two woeks 2,000 of the Birkenhead men had transfarred to the NASD.
While this was going on, a struggle over overtime led by the NASD in London came to a hesd and the union members in London Hull and Birkenhead struck. They were supported by executive then backen nut and begen to put 85% of the T&G members in London, Hull, Birkenhead, Manchester and Liverpool. The T&G leadership of course was solidly against the strike and this caused its prestige to fall still further.
The NASD pow enjoyed tremendous prestige with the northern ports. It appeared that whereas the T&G leaders were solidly against their members, the NASD would fight for pay and conditions for its members. As a result by May 1955 approximately 16,000 man in Hull, Birkenhead, Liverpool and Manchester had joined the "Blues" (the NASD were so called after the colour of their membership cards; the T&G were known as the "Whites" for the same reason).
It is important to note however that there was no comparable move to leave the T&G in London, This was not due to the fact that London dockers had any faith in the T&G, on the contrary thay were if anything even more opposed to it than the northern workers, but simply because in London the dockers had first hand experience of the NASD leaders and had come to realise that they differed in no fundamental way from the T&G leaders. They knew at first hand that the NASD bureaucrats were no more inclined to militancy and solidarity action than were the T&rG leaders, The Dilemma The situation as it developed in 1954 and early 1955 posed almost impossible problems for the leaderships of the norther dockers. To join a breakaway union is an extreme step which goes against the traditional union goal of maximum solidarity. Such an action therefore is only generally successful in periods of extreme social crisis and 1954 was obviously not that. Such a step also leads to a head-on confrontation with the bureaucracy of the union which the men are attempting to leave. Thus in the case of the T&G the union leaders made no secret of their aim to smash the NASD. For example P. J. O'Hare, Merseyside area secretary of the T&G, boested that only 1&G members would be allowed to work in the docks and the NASD members would be excluded from the job.
For all these reasons breakaways from unions are not normally supported, but on the other hand in 1954 the tensions inside the T&G had reached breaking point-as revealed by the readiness with which the northern men broke from the Union. The policy of telling these met. to stay inside the T&G and fight might appear neat on paper but in practice the dockers knew they stood no chance of changing the T&G machine by themselves. A call to stay in the Union would only have produced disillusion ment and apathy. In retrospect it 1s easy to say that this was nothing compared to the harm done to the union structure by the split in the men in the northern ports caused by the breakaway, but this is to be wise after the event as it presupposes that the attempt to gain recog nition would fail. Anyway in the light of the circumstances described above, the dockers leaders and the SLL group decided to support the breakaway. Head-on conflict with the T&G was now inevitable.
The Struggle for Recognition The first clash came in April 1955 when at the T&G's prompting the Dock Labour Board tried to deny men who had left the T&G the right to work, This move was defeated by a tivo-day strike, but it was obvious that the position of the NASD members would not be secure until the union had gained official recognition in the northern ports, Therefore on May 28th the "blue" union began an official strike for recog nition.
However as soon as the strike began, sil the contradictions inside the NASD were revealed. The men who had left the T&G had done so because they were sick to the teeth of "respectable" unionism. They wanted a union which defended their interests and not one which was trapped in the stifling bureaucracy of the trade unions. They desired to have a union responsive to them and were prepared to openly fight the T&G in order to get it. The NASD leaders on the other hand were part of the same "respectable" union set-up as Deakin &i Co. They wanted more members in order to increase their own status inside the trade union movement but they were top worried about their respectability to confront the T& G. Therefore as soon as they came into a situation where they were confronted head on with the T&G apparatus, they began to cave in.
The collapse of the Blues leadership beyan within hours of the dispute beginning. Outside the Surrey Dock, Ron Pollard, a mamber of the Steve dores' executive, made an appeal to the men to return to work. The NASD Secretary Barrett rapidly developed an "illness" and diseppeared for the duration of the strike. The weak position of the strikers was worsened still further when the C.P.-controlled Lieison Committee and executive of the Lightermen's Union refused to support the strike. The NASD forward "back to work" motions. In every port, however, they were overwheimingly defeated.
Soon it became apparent that the wavering of the NASD executive was having fatal results. Initially in the northern ports the majority of T&G members had come out in support of the "blues". However, once it became apparent that the executive of that union was wavering, than the support began to dwindie. This was particularly crucial in London where, for the reasons we have already explained, the men were less Inclined to support the NASD anyway. When the London men saw the Stevedores axecutive wavering, they were confirmed in their suspicion that the NASD had only taken the northern men into the Union in order to defend and exterid their own bureaucracy, and that it had nothing to de with constructing a militant port workers' union.
The recognition strike lasted seven weeks The northern dockers, denied strike pay, repeatedly stabbed in the back by their official leadership, unsupported by the London TGWU members, and rapidly losing the support of the "white" union men in the northern ports, were compelled to return to work. The actual decision was foisted on them by a combined vote of the London Stevedores and Dockers' executive. At this meeting, the representatives from the northern ports were even denied the right to vote.
The Outcome The executive of the NASD was terrified out of its life by the events of the recognition dispute. It was obvious that the men in the northern ports, if they had won, would have tuned the NASD from a conservative "respectable" union controlled by a buresucracy into a union which expressed the interests of the working dockers. This would have destroyed the bureaucracy of the union and brought the NASD into prolonged and bitter conflict with the rest of the bureau cratised trade union movement. This course of events was of course unthinkable for any union: Teadership, Including that of the Stevedores Rather than allow that to happen, they ensured that the strike itself failed. From then on the union became more and more right wing. Thus for example in 1957 and "58 it refused to support the two major strikes which occurred in these years. In January 1958 It even refused to support its own members who were striking because a control officer in Liverpool docks was refusing to hire NASD members. The whole activity of the NASD now centred around winning back its place on the National Joint Industrial Council which it had lost when it first recruited the northem men. To get this place back it attempted to prove to the em plovers that it was a more "responsible" union than the T&G. The NASD Ieadership showed conclusively that if a union bureaucracy is forced to choose between respectability and the needs of its members, it will always choose against its members.
The Lessons The attempt of dockers to leave the T&G shows clearly what the penalties for unsuccessful breakaways are. The failure in the northern ports led to the demoralisation of many militant dockers and to a tragic splitting of the unofficial movement. It appeared to show all the lessons which the events at Pilkington may yet confirm. Yet the problems that faced the dockers in 1954 still remain and still no satisfactory way of tackling them has been found. The recent case of the power workers shows only too clearly how even the most powerful group of workers can be defeated as long as their union leaders are able to make deals above their heads.
Workers today are facing an attack on their living standards by the employers and their government. Obviously the rank and file trade unionists are going to demand of their leaders that they fight these attacks and this is going to mean a fight for more democracy inside the unions and a much more critical attitude towards the union officials. Many of these leaders are going to resist such a movement from their members and will quite correctly see them as an attack, on their privileges. This inevitably will lead to fierce disputes between the membership and the union bureaucracy and in some cases a majority of the members are going to want to Join another union which is fighting the bosses and the Tories. As revolutionary socialists it is our duty to put the interests of the working class first, and although we always point out the difficultles and problems "break ways" can lead to and certainly orgue against them in the present period, nevertheless if a majority of workers took such action we would be duty bound to aid them and not to condemn the movement from the sidelines.
Alan Jones The Red Mole 1-15 Jan. 1971 Page 5