Within the Labour movement, dockers were considered a special breed. The tough conditions in which they worked created a natural solidarity and class-consciousness. The dockers had a militant tradition that constantly came into conflict with the national bureaucracy of the TGWU. Due to the heavy hand of the Deakin leadership unofficial action became widespread on the docks. Between 1945 and 1955, there were thirty-seven unofficial strikes in the industry. As neither employers nor union bureaucrats permitted a shop steward system within the docks, an unofficial Port Workers’ Committee was set up in 1945 that led a whole series of unofficial strikes. During the witch-hunt against the Communist Party, 77 dockworkers had been disciplined and three expelled from the union. More often than not, unofficial strikes were attacked by Deakin as “communist inspired” events. Under these circumstances, the policing role of the full-time officials was bitterly detested by the rank and file. This was especially the case when these officials colluded with the employers on the Dock Labour Boards.
The TGWU dominated the docks with its 83,000 members. The National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers Union (NASD), known as the “Blue Union” by the colour of its membership card, had some 7,000 stevedores and dockers confined to the London docks. In comparison with the TGWU, the NASD clearly had a more democratic and militant structure and tradition – which, under the circumstances, was not too difficult. Given the growing dissatisfaction amongst TGWU members with Deakin, unofficial strikes in Hull in August 1954 resulted in members voting to break away from the T&G and join the “Blue Union” instead. This breakaway movement quickly spread to Birkenhead, Liverpool, and Manchester. By the end of the year an estimated 10,000 dockers had left the T&G for the “Blue”.
As expected, the T&G bureaucracy came down on the breakaway like a ton of bricks. It used the authority of the TUC and the Bridlington Agreement, which prohibited the poaching of members from affiliated unions, to attack the NASD. In 1955, the “Blue” was compelled to wage a strike on Merseyside to prevent members losing their jobs. Following this strike, which was successful, the NASD demanded its recognition by the northern ports employers. The employers, however, refused even to negotiate over the issue, and a strike for NASD recognition was subsequently defeated. The “Blue Union” was later suspended and eventually expelled from the TUC in 1959 for refusing to hand back former T&G members.
As with all similar attempts to split the unions, this experience proved disastrous. They failed to learn the lesson from an earlier attempt involving the T&G in 1938, when busworkers set up the National Passenger Workers’ Union, which later collapsed. Of course, the responsibility for these splits lies with the heavy-handed bureaucracy of the unions and their police methods, and this split in the T&G was no different. However, in such cases, the advice of the most class-conscious activists must not be to promote splits, but to encourage members to stay and fight within their existing unions, despite the machinations of the officials.
Typically, the dockers were egged on by various ultra-left groups (as well as Tribune) to leave the T&G. For them such a bureaucratic union “could never be reformed”. These flag-waving groups learned nothing and forgot everything. The argument that the T&G could not be changed did enormous damage in misdirecting the genuine frustrations of rank-and-file members. While appreciating the bitterness and anger over the antics of their so-called leaders, the split nevertheless simply served to strengthen the right-wing grip within the T&G, particularly its Docks’ Section. Even more criminal, the dispute served to introduce non-unionism onto the docks.
In the end, to preserve their position in the TUC, the NASD leaders agreed to exclude their newly-won northern members. Yet the men refused to return to the T&G and eventually took legal action to rescind their expulsions. Despite being successful in the courts, they still were not recognised by the northern employers. The NASD, outside of the TUC, moved to the right. It eventually ended up accepting in its entirety the 1965 Devlin Report (set up by the Wilson government), as it offered the NASD limited union recognition. On the other hand, the T&G, which opposed Devlin because of its large-scale redundancies and lack of security, eventually moved to the left. In the end, those activists who remained behind in the T&G to continue the fight for democratic change won through. Despite all the obstacles and difficulties, they succeeded in changing the union.
The damage, however, had been done. The main beneficiaries of the split, of course, were the employers, with some 30 per cent of dockworkers in Liverpool and Hull ending up as non-union. In 1984, the “Blue Union” amalgamated with the TGWU, finally putting an end to the disunity that had arisen from the breakaway.
The 1950s witnessed a sharp struggle within the Labour Party between left and right over German rearmament and unilateral disarmament. The party leadership, dominated by the triumvirate of Deakin, Williamson and Lawther, had no time for internal “debate” and “democracy” and strove to drive the left-wing Bevanites out of the Party. At the 1952 Party Conference, Deakin, as the “fraternal” delegate from the TUC, demanded the proscription of the Bevanites. When barracked by Constituency Party delegates, he replied arrogantly: “You know you would listen if you wanted to get money from the trade unions.” When Deakin died in 1955, his replacement Jock Tiffin only lasted six months before his untimely death. Eventually Frank Cousins became TGWU general secretary, and the right-wing monolith began to falter.
“It was a sign of the times. Rank-and-file members wanted changes. The union’s policies did not switch from right to left overnight with his election. Many of the officers and branches remained faithful to the traditional right-wing policies of the union. But looking back at that period”, recalls Jack Jones, “the change at the top of the TGWU was a watershed in the history of the Labour movement.”[3]
By 1959, the TGWU had changed its policy to support unilateral nuclear disarmament, which was carried by the Labour Conference a year later. The earth began to move, as the right-wing grip began to falter.
With Labour’s defeat in the general election of 1955 (the Tory majority had risen to 100 seats), Attlee retired and Hugh Gaitskell was elected by the PLP as party leader. Gaitskell, a middle-class upstart, represented the high point of right-wing ascendancy, in much the same way as Blair did some forty years later. Under his leadership, moves were now undertaken to distance the Party from “old style” nationalisation and “broaden” its appeal to the newly affluent middle classes. James Griffiths stated that the Labour Party should “go back to the classroom.” Right-wing theoreticians, like Anthony Crosland, explained that capitalism had fundamentally changed and could now be easily managed. So close were the policies of both Tory and Labour Parties that the resulting consensus became known as “Butskellism” (RA Butler was a prominent Tory leader).
But by the mid-Fifties the industrial scene was becoming more unsettled. After the 1955 national ASLEF strike (where the right-dominated NUR continued to work), strike figures began to grow once more. In 1957 strikes broke out in the engineering and shipbuilding industries. The following year saw a six-and-a-half week strike by London busworkers. The TUC intervened in the bus dispute, not to widen the strike, but to mediate between the workers and employers. According to Ken Fuller,
“a Delegate Conference heard Frank Cousins argue against spreading the strike, even though the Central Bus Committee had voted, by a majority of one, for this to happen. In fact, the chances of solidarity action were looking increasingly remote, given the attitude of the TUC. Local NUR leaders had voted to strike every Monday in support of the bus workers, but their general secretary, Sidney Greene, had instructed them to work; some railwaymen who stood by their original decision were sacked. Nevertheless, the Conference voted to continue the strike. A week later Conference acknowledged defeat and voted to return to work.”[4]
It was a defeat of major proportions for transport workers. Sidney Greene, however, was to receive a knighthood for his services.
The miners, still a powerful section of the working class, undertook the brunt of industrial action in these years. Between 1947 and 1957 disputes in the coal industry constituted 70.5 per cent of all industrial disputes, and accounted for 21.9 per cent of the total number of strike days lost. These were all unofficial strikes, many over local piece-rates. However, by the late Fifties, the motor industry was increasingly becoming the cockpit of industrial strife, with the loss of days running at seven or eight times the national average. Between 1960 and 1964 over 480,000 working days were lost each year in the car industry – by this time, far higher than in the coal industry. This arose out of the difficult conditions in the car plants and the ruthless approach of management, desperate to push up productivity.
“Management in the motor industry were notoriously bloody minded,” states Jack Jones, “not only in their relations with employees but among themselves. It was not unusual for top men to be fired in that rough, tough industry. In turn managers tried to reduce the labour force, intensify production, drive hard bargains. Resistance was bound to come as our efforts intensified.”[5]
Between 1955 and 1966, the average number of strikes per year was 2,458, an increase of almost 40 per cent on the 1945-54 figures. As mentioned, the mining industry, until 1962, accounted for over half these strikes. With a sustained pit closure programme under Lord Robens, involving large-scale redundancies, disputes fell off sharply. From being 77 per cent of the total in 1958, strikes in the coal industry fell to 31 per cent of total strikes in 1965 (and less than one per cent by 1970). Still reflecting the right-wing domination of the unions, between 1960 and 1964, unofficial strikes accounted for nearly 60 per cent of all the days lost through strikes, though if the national one-day token strikes are excluded the proportion rises to over 75 per cent.
Yet despite this upturn in industrial struggle, its reflection within the official structures of the unions still lagged far behind. The calm displayed at the TUC Congresses, a long way removed from the shop floor, was a pale reflection of the real mood. “At the 1957 Congress”, states Pelling, “there were no card votes whatsoever; and the 1958 Congress was also much less controversial than usual.”