INTRODUCTION This interview emerged from a conversation with several militants in an East London branch of the National Unian of Seamen INUS). The individuals concerned do not wish to have their names revealed in print because they fear reprisa/s from both the NUS and the Shipping Federation. This is the first res/ report published in a socialist newspaper on the situation of militants in the NUS after the famous strike of 1966 It shows very clearly the tensions that exist in the union and the way the union bursaucracy collaborates with the bosses and the capitalise governments. The NUS is the sort of union that Robert Carr and the Tories want for every sector of industry, and this interview should therefore be studied in detail by militants in other industries in printing it, The Red Mole declares /tself in solidarity with the moles on shore and aboard ships who are fighting -Perhaps you can start off by telling us something about the pay and conditions under which Pay and conditions for British seamen are among the worst in the world. They are little better than those enctured by Spanish and Greek seamen, even though there are fascist dictatorships in those countries. We have been fighting the shipowners and the leaders of our own union for years over a number of issues. Low pay, of course, is a misjor problem: German seamen, for example, can earn over four times as much as we do. But we've been fighting since the war for the most elementary rights-shop stewards on ships, the repeal of the penal and disciplinary clauses in the Merchant Shipping Acts, redundancy compensation, better safety -regulations and so on. I think it's true to say that the tremendous militancy the rank and file have developed in the last ten years or so, has been over issues which other trade unionists either don't face-although they're going to be facing them when Carr gets his anti-union Bill through-or over which they've made much more progness because they've not had to face the same degree of obstruction and class collaboration from their union leadership. As trade unionists we face problems which are quite unique for British workers and at the same time we have probably the most degenerate union leadership in the country.
We can take some of these cuestions in more detail later on, but let me tell you about the wages first of all, Back in 1960, after an unofficial strike by the rank and file, the union execu tive settled for just over 40 a month for a 56hour week. That's E10 a week! If you wanted to survive then you had to work a lot of overtime. In all the figures I'm going to give you now, you should keep in mind the fact that being paid monthly means you are paid for 28 days' work -if a particular month happens to have 31 days in it, then that's tough luck because you work those 3 days for nothing. Anyway ... when the men heard the terms of this agreement in 1960, they immediately came out on unofficial strike again. Although this achieved only a very small increase, it was a big breakthrough for rank and file militancy, and as a result of this, the demand the master gives a report on your conduct" for a 44 hour week without loss of pay became a slogan. This was conceded in 1961 after we threatened to take action again. By 1965, after small annual rises, we gained a rise to E59 12s 6d a month, but the executive conceded to the emplayers the 56-hour week again in return! The employers worked everybody flat out.
By 1966 the seamen had really had enough and they came out for a 40-hour week and a round E50 a month... and remember that's still only E15 a week, which left many seamen's families living below National Assistance levels. That was a really bitter strike-the first really political strike in this country for many years because the Labour Party were putting their prices and incomes policy into effect and we were fighting to get a survival wage. After six weeks of strike on a strike pay of 63 a week, But again, the executive without any reservations endorsed this Inquiry which allowed the owners to cut the navigation watch -saving the shipowners lots of overtime money and killing lots of seamen in the process shipowners have their insurance so well sewn up that they don't give a fuck if a few of their older vessels go to the bottom). Since then, there have been small rises, but usually under agreements where the executive give away concessions that enable the owners to cut overtime. Feeling has been running so high since 1966 that, combined with the effects of inflation, the executive negotiating committee put in for a "substantial" claim which was quickly converted into a claim for a parity with shore workers by pressure from the rank and file. The ship owners replied with horror that this would amount to 50%-well, they said it, so we put in for 50% July 1970 gave us 20%, and we put in immediately for another 20%, but it looks as if Carr will try very hard to bring it into line with postmen, power So you see, even in 1971 we are still caming money which is way below E20 a week. Most seamen have to do a great deal of overtimewhen it's available-to support their families. The composition of the labour force reflects this-most seamen are either very young, in which case they do a few years at sea before they marry and settle on shore, or else they are in their fifties, single and acclimatised to the life. This has been erected into a justification for low wages by the shipowners in the past. With continental seamen the opposite principle has been made to apply-seamen are paid at rates above the shore worker average to compensate for the breakup of family life and the enforced leisure on board ship. Such a principle has never been accepted in Britain either by the shipowners or by the union leadership. -Perhaps you can tell us something about the Merchant Shipping Act? What changes did the Labour Party introduce with their Merchant Yes. This is a rather unique piece of legislation which British seamen have been living under for over 70 years-1894 to be precise. The Act gives the masters on the ships very wide ranging powers. It enables the master, while at sea or in port, to "log" his men for disciplinary offences. For drunkenness, or-and it states this-what the master considers to be drunkenness, you forfeit a day's pay and are fined another day's pay. For missing work-for any reason which the master chooses not to accept-you could be fined in a similar way. What is more, you are Taxed on your forfeits Now there is no power of appeal against the master. His word is absolute. For other offences disobeying an order, refusing to do a certain job, and what is more serious, "combining" with somebody else to refuse to do this job -you can be tried by a paramilitary court and imprisoned on board. Every seaman can give you examples of the use of this Act, after which a man has returned home from voyages having worked scores of hours of overtime but with only a few pounds in his pocket to show for it. But that isn't the end of the master. At the and of every voyage.
which is stamped indelibly into your papers. Basically there are two categories-V.G. and D.R. If the master hasn't noticed you during the voyage, vou get a "Very Good". But if he considers that you've been guilty of some small "indiscipline", then you get a "Declina to Report", This can be fatal for seamen. It makes it almost impossible to get work from the Ship. ping Federation that handles ail jobs in British Shipping, In addition to this, you can be demoted, as it were, to being an "unestablished seaman"-that is, reduced to the status of a "floater" or a casual labourer. Under this arrangement, you lose all right to the benefit you collect when you are in the Pool or unem played under the Established Service Scheme. Equally, you can have all previous survice neutralised as far as calculating any redundancy Now, the Merchant Shipping Act stipulated that all seamen are under individual contracts to the Shipping Federation, and these contracts are formalised in the Established Service Scheme as an Established Service Contract. Now, it is quite impossible to strike under this arrangement. If you go on strike, you "terminate your contract", Under the Merchant Shipping Act you can be prosecuted for that. Now, any is a strike there is no difference in the employer's eyes. During the 1960 strike, two strike leaders in Liverpool were served with injunctions under the Act preventing them, and I quate, from " inciting or persuading and from conspiring with one another to beeak their contracts of employment"-and one man went to prison for disobeying it, and another received a gaol sentence though it was later quashed.
Now, you asked me about the new Merchant Shipping Bill which Labour brought in in 1970. They sneaked this through just before they left office after the NUS had pressurised the TUC and the Labour Party for years. Under this new Bill, the penal and disciplinary clauses were retained. Not only were they retained, they were ratified and extended. The new Bill allows bigger fines and loggings for the same offences. Fines, on summary conviction, of up to E100 for drunkenness; disobeying an order with one or more shipmates becomes criminal conspiracy for which vou can be prosecuted in a criminal court, and being "absent without leave" makes a seaman liable to the shipowners for damages of up to E100. What the Bill has done has taken the arbitrariness out of the proceedings and laid down guidelines within which the masters can go about their everyday business of putting money back into the pockets of the shipowners and the state. The new Bill admits that seamen have the right to strike, but only if they give 48 hours notice, otherwise it is a breach of legal contract, and this was won as a right in '66 anyway. It should always be remembered that the 1966 strike was in fact a "termination of agreements" and a termination which the NUS gave the owners plenty of notice of! The new Bill also removes loopholes which could be pre viously exploited for instance, it was technically possible to legalise a desertion if the ship could be proved unsafe. The new Bill also waives certain safety regulations. So you see, we seamen don't have many illusions as to who it is that the Labour Party really represent. What's more, our own union's record over this Act is The executive have blocked strike action against the Act for years. We were tactically in a position to demand its repeal during the '66 strike. But the executive council continued to pressurise the Labour government for its ropes! on the one hand and negotiated with the Shipping Federation for shipboard disciplinary committees on the other. Although they are not in practice they are useless anyway: two officers, two ratings, and the captain with the casting vote! Hogarth tells us that this was "a great step forward for democracy" and Spruhan (Assist. Gen. Sec.) said that the Labour Bill -If and when the Tory anti-union Bill gets onto the statute book, it's going to make it very much harder to destroy this Act, im't it? Yes, of course, The Tory Bill will reinforce the Merchant Shipping Act and generalise some of its features to workers across the country as a whole. This is why it is so fucking important that the NUS apparatus, not to mention the TUC, should conduct an enormous propaganda campaign to illustrate to workers in Britain the state of affairs that the Tories wish to see the unions reduced to. Because, my God, you can see a precisa model of what the Tories have in mind if you examine the merchant navy and the state of the NUS. The Tory Bill is designed to smash the power of the shop floor-we, in the NUS, don't even have shop stewards on ships! It's designed to back up emplovers with ture and our rule book are what the Tories wan to see in practice in all unions—no union democracy, the branches having no power over the executive, and the union bureaucracy reduced to a tool of class collaboration. Let nobody be under any illusions that the employers don't make use of the right to fine and imprison workers who are under legally enforceable contracts - we know, because we've suffered this and continue to suffer it. We can be prosecuted now for conspiracy if we even talk of strike let alone actually walk off. We live under the constant threat of this and the shipowners, use their "rights" all the time to throw people out of the merchant navy for disobedience, bad character, 'or any other unsuitability, by terminating their contract with the individual seaman, quite openly and The provision for this is stated in black and white in the Established Service Scheme. Dur Executive is a model of what the Tories want - they conclude agreements all the time with the Shipping Federation above the heads of the membership and they are under no obligation to report back to the membership on the course of the negotiatio Our union also takes the opportunity to expel people who criticize the union in print or advocate strike action. Again, the proposal that unions have to give notice of termination of contracts should mystify nobody - in 1966 the NUS gave the shipowners plenty of notice of strike, and they used it. Tankers were diverted in time and this enormously reduced the effectiveness of the strike, other owners transferred cargoes to foreign ships. This brings up another point of course -in the merchant navy we know from experience how important international co-operation is The Tory Bill would seek to make this illegal by placing requests for international co-operation from other unions under the category of conspiracy The NUS leadership in 1966 were terrified of the shipowners and actually asked the Internationa Transport Workers Federation not to black British ships in foreign ports We are aware, perhaps more than others, that internationalization of capital gives the employers greatly increased powers to defeat workers- and the Tary proposals have an eye to the Common Market, make no mistake. We know only too well, the pressures that can be brought to bear on individual militants- the Shipping Foderation in co-operation with the NUS find it the easiest thing in the world to freeze militants out of the industry and to intimidate them with all kinds of legal threats in order to demoralize them. Of course, the long term aim of the proposals, which is to destroy shop floor power and make the union leadership an instrument of class collaboration, takes time. But if you want to see what it looks like when it's been achieved What kind of performance have the NUS put up during the campaign against the Tory proposals?
Absolutely hopeless. The NUS executive have done nothing no strike action, no banners on demonstrations, no propaganda. The rank and file have taken action where they could, including walk offs on January 12th. But these The one and only action that the union executive have taken over the Bill is very significant. As you know, the Bill will outlaw the pre-entry closed shop. Now the shipowners are so fond of the NUS that they recently went to see Carr to ask him if he wouldn't be so kind as to drop this as far as NUS were concermed. At the same time, Hogarth want to see Carr too. You see, the entire rank and file membership of the NUS, which conducts a closed shop with the Shipping Federation, want one thing froin the NUS: to get out. We want to destroy the NUS and merge into the T&G. Now Hogarth has said he will fight this to his last breath-and he means it, because he has interests to protect. He has his position (elected for life), his pension, his gratuities and so forth, and he doesn't want to give this up. He is not interested in the membership at all; if he were, then he would au OK Int'e morna with the TAG Voi saw tha
upt -the main cause of this is that the officials took a large rise recently, and for a membership of under 40,000 who have one official to every 300 men, that's a lot of money [most unions have one official for every 3,000 menl. The leadership is going to be facing a revolt later on this year when they'll be forced to raise the wekly contribution to about 10/- a week, If they lose the closed shop, they lose the E5 entry fee levied on new members-and in the merchant navy that's a lot of money because new workers are always coming and going in the industry. If they lose the closed shop, then they lose us, and that's the long and the short of it. The result of these negotiations emerged list week- the NUS has been exempted from the clause abolishing the closed shop. We can only speculate what Hogarth has sold in return for this-probably our wage claim. -Can you give us some other examples of the way in which the leadership of the NUS has Yes They've a long history of sell-outs to their credit: cowardice during the '66 strike and over the Merchant Shipping Acts, allowing Cunard to create redundancies in 1967, concuding demanning without compensation, giving away paid leave for Sundays spent at sea, and so on.
But let's look at some of the agreements they 've concluded on issues over which we've fought for many years I've already mentioned that they were prepared to accept reductions in the navigational watch. They've constantly pandered to the owners' criminal mentality in the excuses they've given in the past for not taking action against the Act. They accept the safety argument, you see. The argument long ceased to apply that you had to discipline sea men, otherwise they get so drunk that they drown all the passengers and the cargo. The only people who get drowned these days are the seamen -and not through our own fault but through that of the owners. The bulk of ships sailing nowadays are cargo ships. This Bitt to freight has been accompanied by the most criminal reduction in crews. Most British ships, passenger or cargo, sail with skeleton crews. The NUS says nothing about this. It covers it up by repeating the same old argument about drunkenness. There are dozens of a case recently on a ship in the Atlantic. When an empty crate stowed on deck came loose, six Related to safety is the problem of redundancy. The labout force has been cut enormously since the war. The redundancy compensation scheme negotiated in 1968 after the withdrawal of the Queens requires a little more explanation.
You see, there is constant insecurity ot employment in the merchant navy. All seamen are registered with the Shipping Federation under articles or legaily binding contracts. This might appear to give us security but it operates to the advantage of the shipowners. The Shipping a union structure which overcame these physical Federation acts as an employment agency, but selects from a controlled body of skilled men. This Schame was agreed in 1947 and it has given the Shiping Fod. complete power in return for a few benefits. The Pool (the Shipping bined with the powers that the master and Federation, where men have to report every day for work and hang around until a ship tums up! can break their contract with an individual seaman if he is guilty of misconduct "prejudicial to good order or discipline", if you're inefficient or medically unfit. Now, these things are decided by the masters and ships doctors, with no affective redress available to the men. The Merchant Shipping Act maintains discipline on board ship, and the Established Service Scheme, which interlocks with it, enables the shipowners. seamens union cont.
to cut and shape the labour force as they wish. Individual militants can be, and are, thrown out of the service, and the NUS, which doesn't like militants anyway, isn't keen to take up individual cases on appeal and perhaps risk treading on the owners' toes. It states quite openly in the Scheme that its function is to give the owners a "reliable" labour force and one whose size they can adjust according to the state of the trade (seasonal variations as well as long term contraction). The contract doesn't give you the prescriptive right to employment. but it does give the companies the right to employ you when and where they please, even in a lower grade, on pain of suspension, loss of payments, etc. This whole arrangement facili tates "invisible" redundancy. If a ship takes on two dazen men out of the Pool on ong voyage, when the voyage is over, the owners make necessary alterations, containerisation for instance, or automatic navigation, and then take 18 different men back on the next voyage. Technically, no redundancy has taken place. Those six men mightn't be able to find work, so they "voluntarily" leave the service. In addi tion to this, there are two categories of seamen: established and unestablished. This, as they openly state, enables them to take on casuals at peak period. It also provides a sort of pool into which you are demoted, carrying with it all sorts of loss of benefits, job opportunities, etc. It acts as a kind of dump in which old Established seamen can be dropped just when they're coming up to pension age--any medical excuse As for this redundancy payments scheme that's boon negotiated, this really isn't worth the paper it's written on. In fact it saves the owners money. Since 1958 only E1,400 has been paid out in redundancy; before 1968 the owners had to pay upwards of E140,000 to the state levy. Now they're exempt. The way it operates is that you get a lump sum calculated on "continunus service". Now, this is something few seamen have-either they have suspensions, they leave the service temporarily for a period of months or years because of bad pay, and so on. Now the terms for qualification are really vicious. All service over 25 years before redundancy doesn't count. Older men lose out straight away, of course. Again, if you have gaps of more than 26 weeks in service, even if due to ¡liness, this disqualifies all previous service in the calculation and there are many men who have been off sick for more than six months owing to accidents at sea. Any gap of more than 12 weeks, before or after 1968, disqualifies for service. If you fail to repart at the Pool every day, your service can be broken. In other industries a terminal payment is made, some times of a couple of thousand pounds, but here you're lucky if you get a couple of hun -Apart from the backwardness of trade union bureaucrats in general, what specific historical reasons are there, do you think, for the degen eration of the NUS leadership?
Well, a great deal has been said both by the NUS and by writers outside the industry about the difficulty of affective trade unionism when most of your membership is scattered across the world. But when you look into the history of the union, you can sae that the rank and file have conducted a fight for many years to build difficulties. Take the issue of ship board repre sentation for instance. This has been fought for since before the war. You see, there have never been shop stewards on ships This fact, com owners have, means that life on board shop hell -it is dangerous, the hours are long, and the master can cut your pay by all kinds of penalties. The point is that there is no representation on the ship itself, and therefore by the time the union takes up the case, the jastur and his ship have sailed, the witnessas are on the other side of the world, and so on. Men know from experience that there is no point in pressing a case and so when they come ashore they just want to get away from the ship and drown their sorrows. Of course people go on being killed as a result of NUS impotence. Now, the shipowners have never had to oppose shipboard representation, because the union exec.tive has done it for them. if you flick back over the AGMs, you will see that nearly every year since the war, the branches have put up motions for representation which have been noosed by the executive. The reasons the executive give for. opposing it are very interesting: One argument they used was that shop stewards could easily be victimised -but this is just an apology for the cowardice of the executive before the shipowners. The second argument is political. Yates, gen, sec. from 1947 to 1960, used the argument time and time again that ship's committees or delegates were rothing more than attempts by Communists in the union to undermine the work of the union! that these committees would mislead the crew! and that the troublemakers would be bringing about situations which the executive couldn't control!
in other words, the NUS were saying that effective trade unions would damage the NUS! In fact, the degeneration of the NUS has nothing to do with physical conditions, labour turnover, etc. It is the result of political and economic pressures exercised on the union by the shipowners and by the state who always back this section of employers whether Labour are in power or Toryl. We are strategically vital to British capitalism. The state has always backed them to the hilt. It is obvious when you con sider the potential power we have. To walk off in a foreign port, or a withdrawal of labour at sea, can cripple whole sections of industry. Again, the seamen could defeat any anti-union Bill that the Tories wanted to pass simply by striking lor a few days. So you see it is very Important for the capitalist class as a whole to have the clauses in the Merchant Shipping Act which enable them to fine and jail strikers, and it is vital for them that no shipboard representation comes about. Now all union bureaucracy can be turned against the interests of the workers. This is done all the time by the employers. But in shipping, the state and the amployers together exercise more than normal When the NUS was set up by Havelock Wilson before the First World War, it was a militant union. But during the war, Wilson was patted on the back by the government and told that if the boys made great socrifices at sea, they would all share in a better world afterwards, etc. Of course, after the war the government backed the shipowners, and things became worse, not better. The same thing happened in the Second World War. The leadership of the NUS scabbed on the General Strike of 1926, they backed strike-breaking unions financially, and at one point |1922) were aven expelled from the TUC. The British economy more than any other capitalist economy depends on the sea that's why our pay and conditions are similar to that of the Greek and Spanish seamen. It's no accident that we have the most reactionary rule book of all British trade unions, nor that were unable to contral the executive council. Only the general secretary and several see going memburs of the axecutive are elected- the rest are officials appointed by the general secretary. It's not accidental that many of these officials have worked for the Shipping Federation before and after being in the NUS, nor that some have worked for tHIS industrial Research and Information Services/ whose main job is seeking out communists in industry and building files for the employers. The NUS has finally allowed convenors on board ship, but they are car Fully selected by the officials and have no por son board ship anyway, acting as information links only with the bureaucracy on shore. Red baiting hes been rife-Hogarth got his post from Jim Slater in the 1962 elections hy creating a huge red scare and using the official union magazine to do it with. Yates reckoned that the 1960 strike was the work of Communists even though decisions were taken unanimously by all the men in the ports at the time. Wilson used it of course during the "66 strike and got sections of the capitalist press to cooperate with him on The union has alveys sabotaged from the start any hope of progress. The negotiating committee set up to look into the redundancy scheme was selected by the executive and consisted of British Rail men who weren't affected by it. The state has always loaded any Inquiries into shipping. The Rochdale Inquiry.
which favoured general purpose manning, is an excellent example of how the state always backs. the owners the men nominated by the Government to represent the trade union side had nothing whatever to do with shipping: Frank Chapple and Les Cannon, two of the most right-wing trade unionists in the business. -What action do the rank and file intend to The rank and file must find ways by forming organisations in che ports to control the decisions taken by branches in order to pressurise the NUS executive. This alone will not be enough though, because the make up of the executive allows it to be controlled by Hogarth and his friends, and they rarely heed the decisjons of branches anyway. Our only real answer is to pile on the pressure by militant activity to bring about a merger with the T& GWU. This will give us new rules to work under and allow us to channel the militancy that exists on every ship into a cohesive shape to fight the shipowners. Believe me, seamen don't suffer from many political illusions They understand the role the NUS has played, and hatred of it is universal. They would willingly burn down the branches, many of them, but this of course leads nowhere. We have to channel this aggres sion into a fighting weapon with a thought-out strategy. At the moment we are building a rank and file organisation around a paper called The Seeman's Charter, and I would urga any seamen who reads this interview to read it and support it. We built a similar movement ance before known as the National Seamen's Reform Movement. This did valuable wark during the period of militancy in the sixties, but its indivi dual leaders became victimised, frozen out of the industry, and sp on. Some good militants went into the executive where they still fight, but where they are isolated. We have to organise around this objective of getting into the T&G Not because we blindly trust the T&G leader ship or imagine it can fight all our battles for us, but because it gives us a new framework. This will be a hard fight--against the Shipping Foderation, the Tories and the NUS itself. Remember that in 1962 500 Glasgow tugmen had to strike for five weeks before they could get into the T&G. It has done good work for those seamen lucky enough to gat into it-7,000 members in deap-sea fishing vessels, for instance, have gained exemption from the Merchant Shipping Act. Another example is the coastal dredgers. A few years ago, the pay and conditions on this jab were abominable. Under the T&G, the men have gained one-weck on one week-off and £60 a week, Getting into the T&G would mean we would have the backing of a large organisation able to coordinate strike support, able to find funds, and able to do necessary research (we have two researchers in NUS, one an ex-IRIS man!. The T&G would have to fight the employers to get us out, but this is not beyond its ability -although we have to reach the rank and file in that union too. There is no other real ontion. Breaceway unions haven't succeeded in the past-the Pilkington example is fresh in everybody's mind where militants left the resources. The leading militants have already organised to fight in the branches and take ships on short runs that enable them to be in the right place at the right time. The militancy that has built up in the sixties is scill very high. We have learnt a lot from our mistakes. A lot of younger members have entered the industry during the last ten vears and have quickly become militants. This makes it easier to fight the constant tendency to demoralisation in our ranks and it also means that men acquire a political persoactive more easily in the merchant navy than probably any other industry. GWU to form a new Glassvorkers Union and
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We have seen recently one of the mose hysterical
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decision by a man to disobey an order is a breach of contract, and any breach of contract
examples i could give of the mentality of the owners and the masters For example, there was
men were sent out to relash it, In the heavy sea these men were washed overboard and killed. The master didn't bother to go back and look for them because "it was a heavy sea". Their families received no compensation even after an "independent" inquiry had looked into the