Port of Liverpool strike: “From essential workers to militant dockers”
Alex Smith, Liverpool Socialist Party
Senior Unite shop steward at the Port of Liverpool, John Lynch, sums up the bosses’ attitude towards his striking members in one sentence: “We are key essential workers one minute, the next we are militant dockers.”
The current Liverpool dockers strike – the first since the long-running 1995-98 dispute – follows a ballot turnout of over 90% and a vote for strike action close to 100%. As a result, dockers and crane safety engineers at the Port of Liverpool will be out on strike until 3 October – with other sections of workers at the docks also looking to issue strike ballots, according to John Lynch.
A 7% pay offer made by the company was rejected because it amounted to a considerable pay cut when inflation is taken into account. After enduring years of exploitation and working through a deadly pandemic, Lynch said his members “are living hand to mouth” and “feel undervalued and underpaid” – especially while the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, which owns the Port of Liverpool, is making tens of millions in profit on the backs of the workers.
This sentiment was echoed by Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham when she visited the dockers’ picket on 21 September. “We are not going to sit back while employers make millions and millions of pounds and cut your pay – how dare they?” she declared to the assembled pickets.
In contrast, Labour leader Kier Starmer does virtually nothing to support the striking dockers. This has not gone unnoticed by senior shop steward Lynch, who describes the Labour Party as a “mess” and says that if this does not change in the coming period he would be open in future to the idea of “scrapping Labour and starting a new party”.
Doreen McNally, wife of a docker sacked in the 1995-98 dispute, and chair of the Women of the Waterfront group set up to generate international solidarity around that dispute, said: “I don’t think the working class has any political representation. I think we need people from the rank and file to step forward. We need representation by our peers, not career politicians.”
But while the leadership of the Labour Party may have no time for the striking dockers, the organised working class internationally is another matter. Building upon the international links made during the 1995-98 dispute, Lynch reports that he has met with Danish, Swedish, French, and Spanish dockers – with a view to ensuring that any vessels diverted from Liverpool are not worked in those countries.
Dockers at both Liverpool and Felixstowe being on strike simultaneously could cause a massive headache for the capitalist class.
Felixstowe workers generate the profits yet get a pay cut
Dave Murray, Eastern region Socialist Party
Felixstowe dockers are returning to the picket line from 27 September till 5 October. They are pushing back against their employer’s refusal to meet their claim for a 10% pay rise. The 2,000 Felixstowe dockers process roughly half of all containerised freight coming into the UK. The Felixstowe Dock and Railway company is, therefore, very profitable – as is parent company CK Hutchison, which has fingers in many pies from the high street to transport and utilities infrastructure.
To signal his intransigence, the port’s chief executive, Clemence Cheng, is accusing the union of attempting to intimidate strike breakers. He wrote to the local newspaper about it on 22 September.
Of course, the company is unable to substantiate these allegations – as you would expect with the union reporting 82% support for continued action, even as the company attempts to implement the rejected deal, of 7% with an unconsolidated £500. It looks like a desperate attempt to distract from the weakness of his position.
In the financial year 2020, the company showed its more generous side: paying out £99 million in dividends, but only to its shareholders. The workers who generated those dividends are being offered a real-terms pay cut – and they aren’t having it.
The employers are trying to pretend to be indifferent to the effects of the strike. However, local press reports reveal that shippers and hauliers are not so chill. One haulier reports £70,000 in losses during the last strike (Ipswich Star 5/9/22). A victory for these key workers will strengthen all workers resisting the general attack on our living standards.
- The National Shop Stewards Network pre-TUC congress Action Summit on Sunday 16 October in Brighton – a hybrid event – couldn’t be at a more important time. Socialist Party members will be there alongside other workers, strikers and young people, to keep the pressure up on the TUC to act. All strike together! If the Tories attempt to implement their new anti-trade union plans, they should be met with a 24-hour general strike.
We say:
- All strike together for a real pay rise! The Trades Union Congress (TUC) must step up and organise to coordinate action
- If the Tories try to implement their new anti-trade union plans, they must be met with a 24-hour general strike
- The TUC should launch an appeal to build a massive strike fund to assist those unions on the front line
- Kick out the Tories
- Starmer’s New Labour doesn’t speak for us: fight for a new working-class party
- Nationalise rail, mail, energy and utilities under democratic working-class control and management, with compensation only on the basis of proven need Take the wealth off the super-rich. For a socialist alternative to capitalism’s poverty and crisis
