In September 1995 nearly five hundred Liverpool dockers were sacked. Their fight for reinstatement has become one of the most important industrial disputes in Britain. Yet it is scarcely reported, is largely ignored by politicians and is not officially recognised by the unions. Ken Loach, The Flickering Flame, 1997
The story of the dockers is the story of a struggle for regular work, regular hours and regular pay. Everyone has a fear of going back to the bad old days. ibid.
They [employers] found a willing ally in Margaret Thatcher. And in 1989 the National Dock Labour Scheme was abolished. ibid.
The T&G had called off the strike everywhere else. ibid.
The evils of casual labour began to reappear. ibid.
329 dock workers were sacked for showing their solidarity with the Torside men. ibid.
The dockers and their families are now up against it – real hardship. ibid.
Women have got organised – Women of the Waterfront. ibid.
There has been solidarity action from dockers in twenty-two countries. ibid.
This was the battleground: here where we lived and worked is where we fought the enemy. And for those of us who remain on the blacklist continue to fight. A drab town with a population of over 100,000 where 61% of the houses are rented, 34% have no inside toilets … A battered landscape scarred by years of exploitation. Ken Loach: The Wednesday Play: The Rank and File, BBC 1971
There hadn’t been a strike here for a hundred years. And the union enjoyed the protection of a closed shop where contributions were automatically deducted from workers’ pay packets. And meetings were as rare as a sunny day on a wet weekend. Then it happened. ibid.
A clown official from a bloody clown union. ibid. branch meeting
We’ve lost faith in you completely. ibid.
But what do you do when those who are supposed to be leading the strike go out of their way to defeat it? ibid.
The strike is unofficial. ibid. union official
That’s a reporter: they’ve had a meeting this morning of the management and the bloody union, and the management have offered three pounds and the union’s accepted it. ibid. strike committee member takes phone call
You’re not even entitled to hardship money. ibid. union official
The common law has traditionally been hostile to the collective self-organisation of workers, and it is only by means of statutory intervention, in the form of ‘immunities’ from common law liability, that a space has been created within which trade unions, in particular, may operate lawfully for the purposes of collective bargaining and activities associated with it, such as the conduct of industrial action and the regulation of particular trades and occupations. Simon Deakin & Gillian S Morris, Labour Law
It was not until the ‘legislative settlement’ of the 1870s that legislation lifted the threat of criminal sanctions from all but violent forms of behaviour associated with industrial action ... but the process was not completed until the trade dispute formula was extended to cover tortious liability by the Trade Disputes Act 1906. ibid.
Judicial intervention reached that point at which trade unions were regarded as akin to public or statutory bodies whose decision-making powers were subject to judicial review on grounds of ultra vires. ibid.
After the war, the Wages Councils Act 1945 was the occasion both for the expansion of the trade boards sectors into the service sector, and for a more general attempt to place institutional wage determination on a secure footing. ibid.
It was only with the advent of employment protection legislation in the 1960s and 1970s that the industrial contract of employment came to assume the importance which it has in the modern law. ibid.
The Labour government of 1964-70 took more direct powers in the area of pay restraint. ibid.
The Labour government of 1974-1979, in common with its immediate predecessors, failed to reconcile the tension between the traditional forms of state support for voluntary collective bargaining and increasing intervention in the economy through incomes policies. ibid.
A number of means, direct and indirect, were used to undermine national bargaining. ibid.
The narrowing of immunities and the ending of the blanket immunity of trade unions from liability in tort provided employers with many more strategic options than they had previously had for breaking strike resistance, and these were put to effective use in particular disputes, such as the Wapping and Messenger disputes in the newspaper printing industry. ibid.
The capacity of the UK economy to maintain full employment has been steadily declining throughout the post-war period. ibid.
In most cultures where there are coal miners, middle-class people and above think they’re animals. Literally. And treat them that way. The Mine Wars, PBS 2016
Strangers rarely found their way into the coal camps of West Virginia. So when a matronly older woman walked into a camp one Fall morning in 1901 the local store keeper was curious … She was the notorious Mother Jones there to convince the coal miners in the region to join her union – United Mine Workers of America. ibid.
Miners in southern West Virginia had been beaten down by the mine owners. ibid.
The largest armed insurrection since the civil war … A blood-soaked war zone. ibid.
Nearly three quarters of a million men across the country spent ten or twelve hours a day in coal mines. ibid.
There were no elected officials, no independent police forces. ibid.
They forced mining families to shop exclusively at the company store. ibid.
Thousands of West Virginia miners decided to stand with the strikers in Pennsylvania and to fight for their own rights. ibid.
[Justus] Collins like all the West Virginia coal operators saw himself as a man under siege. ibid.
The summer of 1973 was one of the roughest we’ve had. Two of our strikers were killed. Dozens of our people were beaten. Thousands were arrested and thrown in jail. And all because we dared to stand up to the growers when they made one more desperate attempt to crush our union. Fighting for Our Lives, 1975
Some of the complaints the workers were making … forcing workers to sign cards … ‘We believe in justice for farmworkers’ … Our union was the United Farm Workers. ibid.
The effort of farmworkers to unionise themselves is not a recent effort – it’s been going on for 85 years in this state. ibid.
When we tried to reach the workers from outside the fields they drowned out our loudspeakers … Once we were in the labour camps they’d kick us out. ibid.
The growers called in the Teamsters … A whole group of Teamsters attacked our picket line. ibid.
58 different court orders … the arrest of 3,538 of our brothers and sisters. ibid.
They [rozzers] beat the hell out of them. ibid. union guy
And take our cause to the people. ibid.
40th anniversary of the Great GM Sit-Down Strike: ‘… faced the buckshot, faced the teargas, this armband still has the teargas on it. The Women’s Emergency Brigade of Flint, Michigan, made American history …’ With Banners & Babies: Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade, conference speaker, 1979
We were the pioneers of the labour movement. ibid. striker
The more you produced, the more likely you would keep their job. ibid.
The foremen were using the girls and holding it over their heads that if they didn’t do what they wanted to do, they wouldn’t have a job. ibid.
That’s all we had in Flint, Michigan – churches and bars. ibid.
We met in a little coalshed. ibid.
They would have done anything to turn one against the other. ibid.
That’s when we decided to form the Women’s Auxiliary. ibid.
General Motors goons – our lives were in danger – were actually prepared with guns. ibid.
First they turned the heat off on ’em, then they turned the water off on ’em. ibid.
The victory was won and the UAW was born. ibid.