All of the Workers are Under Attack

The present strike by the dockers in Liverpool is almost six months old. They have ended up isolated and still outside the gates of the docks because the fight has been confined mainly to getting support from trade union leaders, Bishops, MPs, etc. Besides the continuing picketing, the only honourable part of the strike has been the attempts to forge links with dockers in other ports – and honourable support has been given. Solidarity of actions amongst workers has always been a sign of real class organisation. Appeals to other capitalist bodies to convince the dock bosses to change their minds and accept the old workforce back has come unsurprisingly to nothing.

The uneasy peace with T & G union leaders has produced nothing, except tying the hands of the strikers. The T & G boss, Bill Morris (the favoured candidate of leftist groups), has moved heaven and earth to prevent support for the strikers. All the time goods have been moved in and out of the docks by lorry by members of the same union, the T & G has done nothing at all to even hint at real support for the dockers. Union leaders may condemn the Tory anti-union laws, the offences of secondary picketing, etc – they had no intention of going that far anyway.

But in a very real sense the dockers are not alone. Other workers across the country are about to face some of the same treatment – speed-ups at work, victimisation, redundancies, wage cutting. The Liverpool City Council (part share holders in the docks) has proclaimed support for the dockers and gave the use of the Council Chamber for a Dockers Conference. This same Council is now planning to do on a smaller scale exactly what the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board did to the Liverpool Dockers. „No saviours from on high deliver“! Council workers, throughout Merseyside and especially Liverpool, face wage-cutting (as a permanent cut in salaries) and those who will remain in work will be expected to also do the jobs that will disappear, whether real redundancies or getting rid of ’frozen’ posts.

The usual refrain is repeated – if only we can balance the budget this year; the enterprise must be made solvent otherwise jobs are at risk. Once the bosses get the taste for such measures, they are invariably back for more. But no matter how many times this is done the crisis of capitalism runs on apace, and the whole sorry cycle begins again. The overwhelming majority of those who have spoken from the platform at the dockers marchers have participated in some way or other in attacks being made upon the working class. They have participated in productivity deals, called for making their own industry competitive, especially against foreign competition, and so have participated in dividing worker against worker.

The bosses, both private and public, are demanding an even greater burden be placed upon the backs of the working class. As different sections of workers, it will be near impossible to fight these attacks on our own. It is the strategy of the bosses to divide and rule, to take one section on at a time, and use that as a lesson to intimidate others.

The situation is increasing posing two questions:
1) As unionised strikes are increasingly running up against a brick wall, not the least because of the union leaders are determined not to do anything to assist the strikers, matters need to be taken into the hands of the workers themselves. In the case of the dockers strike, the suspicion is there that perhaps the T & G would be only too happy to give the strike-breakers union cards – and so re-establish the closed shop?
2) As increasingly workers are facing the same problems from the attacks of the bosses, whether private or public, real solidarity needs to be established between different sections of workers.

Every step that is taken to break down the divisions (imposed by the bosses) upon the workers in struggle is to be welcomed and be built upon. This will become the beginning of real class action and class organisation – and so become a class for itself (Marx).

March 1996.