6 APRIL 1989 - the end of the NATIONAL DOCK LABOUR SCHEME is announced

Taken from my booklet GREAT YARMOUTH DOCKERS  

https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/great-yarmouth-dockers.pdf

Chapter 6 National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS) begins

In 1947, the Labour Government introduced the "Dock Workers’ (Regulation of Employment) Scheme". The scheme, financed by  a levy on the employers, was administered by the National Dock Labour Board, and local boards, made up of equal numbers of "persons representing dock workers in the port and of persons representing the employers of such dockworkers".  The system was to be jointly administered by the union and bosses and this gave the former some control over hiring and firing. It was a giant leap up from starving men fighting each other for a few hours badly paid, dangerous work.

Each local board was responsible for keeping a register of employers and workers, paying wages and attendance money, controlling the hiring of labour, and responsibility for discipline.

The scheme registered all portworkers and guaranteed dockers, provided they turned up twice a day to have their books stamped to prove their availability,  a basic minimum fallback wage, whether there was work for them or not.

Under the scheme, dock work was considered a "job for life", with any registered docker laid off by any of the 150 firms associated with the scheme either being guaranteed employment elsewhere or, by 1989, a £25,000 pay off.

The introduction of the NDLS did not though bring to an end industrial disputes on the docks. With the TGWU refusing to make any of them official, dockers were often forced to rely on their own industrial muscle. In 1955, 16,000 dockers in Manchester, Liverpool and Hull left the TGWU and joined a small London-based union, the National Association of Stevedores and Dockers. A long recognition strike was defeated.

 Dockers’ militancy did though not drop and it proved highly effective in the 60s and 70s. Dockers still had the power to shut down the country.

 But in the 1960s a technological revolution changed things dramatically. Containerisation, where cargoes were packed into giant containers in factories or special depots, meant dockers, who had previously humped cargoes on their backs, could now roll the giant containers on and off specially designed ships. Unloading a ship could take one tenth of the time compared to old style practices. Containerisation presented the employers with a strong incentive to reorganise the ports.

In 1964 the Labour government appointed a Royal Commission under Lord Devlin to investigate strikes on the docks, and then implemented the Commission report to 'decasualise' the docks.

Dockers were to be taken into permanent employment with a particular employer, instead of being hired out for some many half-days by the Dock Labour Board. They therefore lost a big part of the control the union had over hiring and firing through the Dock Labour Board, which would only be the fallback employer for a pool of unattached dockers who did not have a regular employer.

It meant the dock labour force could be more easily cut down over the years as modernisation took place.

Looking back, it could be argued that the dockers' answer should have been obvious: increase workers' control and modernise on that basis, using the advantages of modernisation to benefit the workers. A large minority of dockers wanted the nationalisation of the ports and most wanted to expand workers' control rather than give full control back to the bosses.

 

1970 National Dock Strike

On 16 July 1970 all of the Yarmouth NDLS registered dockers joined the national dock strike, which had been called following a TGWU national delegate conference the previous day.  As tankers were not worked by dock labour staff at Yarmouth they were not affected.

Average earnings

Yarmouth dockers, including overtime, in the first three months of 1970, earned on average £38 17 shillings and 7d a week. The national average was around £3 a week less and the highest earnings were at Ipswich where the average weekly pay was £45 5 and 10d.

The national strike, the first in the industry for nearly half a century, lasted nearly 3 weeks, led to the declaration of a State of Emergency and was only concluded after a government-sponsored inquiry.

From the outside it appeared that it had been provoked by the national employers’ association and the TGWU over basic weekly pay bargaining. Behind the scenes, however, the dispute was also about the relationship between the membership and the officialdom of the union, which had been antagonistic for many years, plus the revolutionary changes taking place in the handing of cargo.

Dockers took strike action for a pay rise of £11 a week. Around 47,000 dockers nationally were involved. The strike hurt imports and exports and the British Army were placed on standby to handle food supplies but most dockers were content to handle perishable goods and the strike was largely peaceful.

Lord Pearson was charged with ordering a court of inquiry and awarded an average 7% pay rise, which was at first rejected by the dockers but ultimately accepted.

The Yarmouth Mercury of Friday, July 24, 1970 reported that a long stoppage could cause ‘real trouble’ and that since the strike then ‘except for a few tankers, and some vessels bound for Norwich with grain cargoes, no ships have entered the harbour.’ The strike had resulted in the Port and Haven Commission, whose income came from tolls and charges, losing about £1800.

No shipments of vegetables or general cargo had been landed at the Norfolk Line’s roll on roll off.

The paper reported that Yarmouth dockers had agreed that ‘if supplies of food needed replenishing arrangements would be made for this. They will also work supply ships in the event of an emergency involving danger to life and limb.’

The following Friday the Yarmouth Mercury reported that news had come through that the dockers’ national delegate conference had accepted the proposals of the Pearson report. The paper believed that the changes would not be of great benefit to Yarmouth dockers except for the fact that overtime rates would be increased.

The paper also reported that in the previous week ‘six ships from various continental ports with wheat for Norwich had been discharged by the port of Norwich non-union dockers.’

 

Chapter 8 1972 National Dock Strike

On 28 July 1972 an official national dock strike began to safeguard jobs. No cargo was to be handled by the country’s 42,000 NDLS registered dockers. Roll-on roll-off ferries were still though set to pass through railway ports like Dover and Folkestone.

Dockers were striking at plans for compulsory redundancies as well as threats to their jobs from container firms using cheaper, casual labour.

TGWU National Docks Delegates voted 38 to 28 in favour of action and by doing so rejected a special joint committee report that had been established by the industry and headed by Lord Adlington, chairman of the Port of London authority, and Jack Jones, TGWU general secretary. Committee members had approved a payment scheme to pay off 2,500 unfit dockers or over 55-year-old dockers. Dockers’ delegates from the larger ports were particularly opposed to the proposals. Despite the existence of NDLS, between 1966 and 1972, 20,000 dockers’ jobs had been lost.

Earlier in 1972 a one-day unofficial strike, organised by the unofficial National Port Shop Stewards Committee, was supported by 25,000 dockers and on 7 March 14,000 London dockers walked out. The Industrial Relations Act had been passed by the Heath government with the intention of controlling wages. A key part of this was the National Industrial Relations Act (NIRC) which had the power to fine workers and unions. The strike action by its members’ saw the TGWU fined.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) policy was for non-registration with the NIRC but the TUC, fearing for its own funds, abandoned the TGWU whose members expected the union leadership to launch a national strike. There were strikes against fines by Southampton, Preston and Merseyside dockers.

Action in Hull led to a court case against Walter Cunningham, chair of Hull stewards, who refused to attend and pay a fine, risking jail.

The national unofficial campaign then saw London dock stewards’ picket both Dagenham and UK Cold Storage but with most drivers refusing to honour the picket line the stewards moved to picketing depots directly. This was much more successful with lorries turned away at places such as Chobham Farm in Stratford.

There then followed a series of court cases that on 4 July 1972 saw Midland Cold Storage apply to the NIRC for an order to stop picketing. Seven summoned dockers did not appear at court and they then defied a court order to stop picketing or encouraging others to do so. On Friday 21 July arrest warrants were issued for five dockers for contempt of court.

Four of the five were arrested the following day and sent to Pentonville Prison. Vic Turner, the fifth, was on the picket line the following day. Picketing was shifted to the prison and widespread dock strikes broke out with an estimated 40,000 dockers out.

Delegates were sent to Fleet Street, the then home of the national press and the papers were brought to halt. A prison demonstration attracted 30,000 people.

Faced with this potentially revolutionary situation the TUC, which was previously opposed to solidarity action, was forced to call a one-day national stoppage the following Monday. (31 July) This would have been only the second ever general strike called by the TUC, the first having taken place in 1926.

Fearing a general strike, the government too was forced to concede. On 26 July 1972 a Law Lords ruling saw the case against the five dockers collapse. Amidst jubilant scenes the Pentonville 5 were released the following day. 24 hours later the official national dock strike began. On 4 August the government was forced to call a state of emergency.

 

 

All Great Yarmouth dockers who were not on holiday or sick supported the jailed London dockers by taking strike action at the start of the week beginning Monday 24 July. 30 Lowestoft dockers also joined the national strike.

Mr Len Chapman, the TGWU district official said that in both ports the union “had built up a reasonable relationship with the port employers and I regret that the Industrial Relations Act has brought about the one thing we have managed to avoid for years.”

The official National Strike, which did not affect ships supplying gas rigs and oil tankers bringing fuel to power stations, was supported by all 130 Yarmouth and Lowestoft dockers and close to 30 of the former managed to persuade seven Norwich stevedores to join the strike. The strike caused fruit to be in very short supply locally and this led to prices doubling.

 

On Thursday 17 August, Yarmouth dockers voted in line with the decision of the TGWU delegate conference the same day, to return to normal working from midnight on Sunday. However, M John Smith, branch secretary, told the Yarmouth Messenger that “in the event of any unofficial strike action in other ports, Yarmouth men would not handle any diverted cargo.” Smith told reporters his branch felt a great deal had been achieved and he calculated that the backlog of ships could be cleared in about for days if employers agreed to overtime working.

Shop stewards from eight ports had decided to maintain an unofficial stoppage which ultimately collapsed leaving the dockers to accept an amended Jones-Adlington agreement. This included ending the temporary unofficial register that allowed unregistered dockers to work on the docks.

The successful strike in 1972 did not though prevent the long-term decline of the dock industry and the number of jobs in it, especially NDLS jobs. By 1989 just under 9,000 dockers were covered under the NDLS and having successful taken on and defeated, amongst others, the steel workers, miners and printers then Margaret Thatcher, enjoying her third term in office was happy enough to destroy another group of organised workers in the dockers.

It is a story covered in a 2016 blog article by Iain Dale, a radio presenter these days with LBC.

From 1987 onwards, Dale worked for the National Association of Port Employers (NAPE) and, with Nicholas Finney, his boss, whom Dale describes as the ‘mastermind behind the lobbying campaign to get rid of this iniquitous piece of employment legislation’, by which he means the NDLS.

He goes on to state “it remains the greatest achievement of my life” and claims it “led to previously moribund ports having the ability to thrive.”

On 6 April 1989, the Employment Secretary, Norman Fowler, told MPs the scheme had become 'a total anachronism' that stood in the way of a modern and efficient ports industry. The 60 British ports who were in the NDLS argued constantly that the ports were at an economic disadvantage and that unregistered ports and European docks were taking their business.

In announcing plans to bring forward legislation to scrap the NDLS, Fowler offered assurances that any docker laid off as a result of the scheme being abolished would be compensated up to the value of £35,000. Fowler stated that port employers would not return to using mass casual labour. This proved not to be the case.

 

Strike action was held up for three months due to legal wrangles as NAPE used the courts to try and block any fightback. The port employers’ actions led to unofficial action in May 1989 at Tilbury, Liverpool, Lowestoft and Bristol. Other ports however remained at work and TGWU officials eventually persuaded strikers to return to work until all the legal restrictions that were obstructing the right to strike had been defeated in court. By the time strike action did take place the NDLS had been abolished.

A second national ballot produced a majority of 6,200 against 2,100 in favour of strike action and on 11 July 1989 many ports stood still as dockers mounted pickets at the gates. However, during the first couple of weeks of action a number of small ports began to return to work and at others a number of dockers took voluntary redundancy of up to £35,000.

Nevertheless, many dockers remained on strike but, hampered by the anti-union laws, when they were then unable to picket out ports that had previously been covered under the NDLS such as Felixstowe and Dover the strike ultimately collapsed with a number of key militants, especially at Tilbury, finding themselves victimised and out of work.

From then on – as covered in the reminiscences section that follows – all those who had previously been covered by the NDLS found their hard-won wages and conditions being quickly and permanently destroyed.

Six years after the NDLS was scrapped, 500 Liverpool dockers, the most militant in the UK, were to be locked out of their workplace and after a heroic two-year struggle (1995-97) in which they looked mainly overseas for support they were defeated.