Liverpool Dockers: Still Sticking Together

When the dispute ended, that was a terrible experience, and it wasn't so clear cut as the 4 to 1 vote - it was an awful lot closer. Then we had outside groups criticising us - like the SWP was always saying that we ought to be occupying the port, but it's five miles long, and anyway, when we put it to a mass meeting there was very little support. Still, that decision to end the dispute, it haunted me for weeks afterwards.

It was important to us to get as many people as possible back to work. Of course any potential employers would look at it - two and a half years on strike - and just say 'Goodbye'. We went back to the idea of organising our own co-operative Labour Supply Agency, providing skilled labour to the port industry. It may seem strange, but the Dock Board were interested...

We're multi-skilled, even, and with 30 or 40 years experience.

Drakes at the container terminal are on £6 per hour, but in the general cargo terminal they're still only paying agency labour £3 per hour.

The council in Liverpool and Sefton have been really helpful and so have John Moore's University. The government gives us £75 a week for the first year, for each job we create, then there' s a lot of European money too. You see companies paying over £3000 to have people trained up on the fork lift trucks - and that's just for a one week course - so now we've got 9 men on a course to be instructors. They're on week 4 of the 6 weeks training - then that'll be another arm to the co-op.

Last week the first 20 men got a start, and it was great. You had men - 50 years of age - coming up to you and saying 'This is great - for the first time in my life no bosses'. But the 20 men, they've really got to pull their weight, because a lot depends on the impression they make.

There'll be a standard 32 hour week - no overtime - and they get paid £7 per hour, even if no ships come in. We've been fighting against casual labour all our lives so we're not having that in our co-op. The co-ordination needed to keep things running - National Insurance even- all that's down to the stewards, and we'll be working unpaid until there's enough money coming in. We run things day-to-day, then we report back to a mass meeting once a month.

About 200, because some of the men took their pensions, or they're on sickness benefit, and some of the younger men got pushed into taking low-paid jobs by the JSA ... but obviously they're welcome to come back in as the co-op expands.

No - we won't work in the container terminal alongside the scabs, so we work in the timber terminal, and they stay out of it. They got very brave once the dispute ended, but you still hear stories every week where some scab walks into a pub and one of the customers - not even a docker - has thrown a pint in his face.

There's another side to it too: the increase in injuries at work has been terrible. Even the company can see that, though the damage to cargo is what really worries them. Jaguar have started using the port again now, but they're having to send their own drivers down to take the cars on. That was traditionally dockers' work, so we might get to do that again.

We'll just give them a wave. No, we'll keep the windows up, so there's no contact -- but just let them know that we're back and they haven't got long.

We're keeping up the links: I was over in Australia with the dispute that's on there, and I'm going to Japan next week. The faxes never stop coming, so we help anyone we can. And the women's group is still active with the people who have been disappeared in Turkey, or Hillsborough... Tameside workers - which is really impressive cos these women are in a caring profession, but now they're industrial militants as well.

They've created a monster! The thing is that all through the dispute, we consulted the men. Sometimes the stewards had to make a snap decision, but we always went back to the men and said 'Is that okay?' And this co-op - we're all in it together, so even when we get a new building - we'll pay the bar staff £7 an hour as well, everyone at the same rate of pay. That'll cause ructions throughout the whole catering industry!

Well, we want to move out of Transport House as soon as possible and get our own building. We'd have one floor for the offices, one for a museum of the dock industry going right up to our dispute then, on the ground floor, a bar and restaurant. Anyone who's ever been to Liverpool will know there's a need for a bar.

The sooner we get away the better - maybe even start building our own union.

I think the rank and file in-the whole movement is looking for something completely different. We're paying massive wages to these officials who sign agreements then come back to the members and say 'Sorry, that's the best we can do for you' - but the members haven't even discussed the offer. If we do need paid officials they should be on the same pay as the members, and if they're not doing their job properly we should be able to get them out. Certainly, we want people elected - not appointed from the top.