PENTONVILLE 5 AND THE DOCK STRIKE OF 1972 – (Two personal views of how the dockers defeated the Tories)
WHAT WE CAN LEARN TODAY ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THAT MOMENTOUS STRUGGLE 40 YEARS AGO (Laurence Humphries)
40 Years ago in the summer of 1972 new technology had revolutionised dock handling and ‘containerisation’ was in place. The consequence of this development meant that there would be loss of work for many dockers who were all in the TGWU. 1972 was a period of great class battles, involving not just the dockers but building workers and miners. 1972 was to lead to the victorious miners’ strike of 1974, the defeat of the Heath Tory government and the election of a Labour government under Harold Wilson.
In the summer of 1972 the Heath government had set up the National Industrial Relations Court (NIRC) which was to be used by the Tories to attack the Trade Unions and the Labour Movement. Its laws on picketing, particularly secondary picketing, was used to criminalise a whole section of workers who were trying to defend their jobs and livelihood. Their basic democratic rights were being infringed and it was the start of the Capitalist state’s use of anti-union laws to restrict workers’ right to strike (withdraw labour). It was to lead to a major confrontation between the working class and the Capitalist state.
The NIRC, which the TUC and its affiliate trade unions had refused to recognise, prohibited picketing at two East London container depots. The picketing continued and 5 dockers, all Shop Stewards with the TGWU (Bernie Steer, Vic Turner, Derek Watkins, Cornelius Clancy and Anthony Merrick) were committed for contempt and imprisoned. Bernie Steer and Vic Turner were both members of the Communist Party and the Communist Party had successfully set up a rank and file body “The Liaison Committee for the Defence of the Trade Unions” to campaign and mobilise workers in opposition to the NIRC.
Because the TUC and other Trade Unions had refused to recognise the NIRC, the TGWU refused to attend the court hearing and was fined £5,000 for contempt. The court was to find the TGWU a further £50,000 and a total sequestration of the unions income “despite the wobbling of the leadership, the dock stewards remained defiant and refused to lift the boycott of the haulage company Heaton’s” (3).
The result of the jailing of the 5 dockers was that thousands of workers in the docks, printing and other trades struck, and a one day general strike was called on 31st July. Haulage bosses at Chobhams and Midland Cold storage sought other injunctions and court orders.
Meanwhile Jack Jones General Secretary of the TGWU, rather than call his membership out on indefinite strike, took the issue to the TUC. In the meantime 44,000 dockers, 130,000 other workers had downed tools in protest. Dockers in London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Swansea, Glasgow, Bristol, Felixstowe, Leith, Chatham, Ipswich, Middlesbrough and even Kings Lynn stopped work in solidarity with the 5 dockers imprisoned by the Tories. The TUC General Council voted 18-7 to have a one day general strike. Vic Feather was the TUC General Secretary.
Before the one day strike took place the Tories and the Capitalist state caved in and had the 5 dockers released on the 26th July. Norman Turner (Official Solicitor) was used to free the 5 dockers having never been used before. He successfully applied to the High Court to overturn the NIRC position to have the dockers imprisoned “NIRC had insufficient grounds to deprive them of their liberty, evidence of private investigators was insufficient” (4).
Sir John Donaldson a Tory judge appointed by Robert Carr, the Home Secretary, had wanted to get rid of the dock labour scheme, but it was the magnificent response of the working class that freed the 5 dockers. When it came to the crunch the Tories were defeated and ensuing Labour governments repealed this legislation. The Official Solicitor was used to get the Tories off the hook. It would be Thatcher and Blair who would use the anti-union laws to shackle the trade union movement.
In today’s period there has been the same movement of the working class, but a complete distrust of the Labour party and its support for austerity measures means the working class will have to seek out new perspectives to overthrow and change capitalism through a scientific socialist method. There have been, in the recent period many one day strikes and protests, in Britain, Greece, Spain, Portugal and the United States. Unlike the dock strike of 1972 no government has changed and capitalism still remains. It is open to question whether “one day 24 hour general strikes” are the answer. In 1972 Workers downed tools and there was a complete change .The question of who rules was posed. The state was unable to rule and had to use other means (Official Solicitors etc) to solve its dilemma. That is not the situation today.
To overturn the property relations of capitalism will require besides one day strikes, picketing where necessary, and abolition of all anti-union laws. We will have to continually recruit a mass of people to advocate, redraft measures to enable the historic role of the working class working in the trade unions to overturn the property relations of Capitalism.
References
1) (1) www.tuc.org.uk
2) (2) Marxist Internet Archive www.marxists.org
3) (3) SEWELL R; IN THE CAUSE OF LABOUR WELLRED BOOKS
4) (4) www.wikepedia.org
1972: dockers face down the Tory government “Britain came within inches of a general strike” (Roger Thomas)
“Arise Ye Workers” read the banner as five London dockers were carried shoulder high from Pentonville Prison in London. The date was 26 July 1972. Five days earlier the “Pentonville Five”, Con Clancy, Tony Merrick, Bernie Steer, Vic Turner, and Derek Watkins, had been imprisoned for defying the Tory government’s anti-union laws.
Edward Heath’s Tory government suffered a crushing defeat brought about by strikes which swept the country. Britain came within inches of a general strike which might well have rivalled that of France in 1968. Heath’s government was humbled and its attempt to use the courts to control workers’ activity shattered by mass defiance.
The dockers’ fight revolved around the Industrial Relations Act, a key part of the Heath government’s plans to control not just wages but, through the National Industrial Relations Court (NIRC), the activity of the unions and individual workers. The NIRC had the power to fine workers and unions.
Dockers were locked in a fight for jobs and against the effects of containerisation, which transferred many dock jobs inland to be done by workers on lower pay. Between 1966 and 1972 20,000 dockers’ jobs had been lost.
This struggle and the government’s attempt to undermine the dock labour scheme led to the development of the National Port Shop Stewards Committee. Action consisted of unofficial strikes and picketing of the container depots.
On 26 January a one-day unofficial strike was supported by 25,000 and on 7 March 14,000 London dockers struck. The main dockers’ union, the TGWU, was on the front line against NIRC and its members’ actions brought the first fine.
The TUC policy was for non-registration with the NIRC court and non-attendance at hearings. But this policy was coming under strain especially when a union of the TGWU’s size risked fines or loss of its funds. The TUC felt that it could not continue to support the TGWU when faced with threats to its own funds and those of other member unions.
TGWU members expected the national leadership to launch a national strike but they continued to drag their heels.
Strikes
Meanwhile on 1 May, Southampton dockers struck against fines while Preston and Merseyside dockers struck to celebrate May Day.
The National Ports Shop Stewards extended the action to two transport firms in each port. In Hull this led to another court case which Walter Cunningham, chair of the Hull Stewards, refused to attend. A meeting in Hull saw him refuse to pay the fine, risking jail.
With the national unofficial campaign extended, London dock stewards had selected Dagenham Cold Storage and UK Cold Storage to picket. However few drivers were honouring the ban. It was therefore decided to picket the depots directly.
Picketing began at Chobham Farm in Stratford, east London, where lorries turned away from the port had been diverted. A mass picket of 1,000 started on 6 June.
Soon the number of lorries crossing the picket line were reduced and the company offered to do a deal with the union to take on registered dockers and gradually phase out non-dockers who were paid considerably less. The stewards insisted there should be no job losses among the existing workers.
The Chobham Farm drivers and warehousemen – also in TGWU – didn’t believe this and went to the NIRC for an order to stop the dockers picketing. The court obliged, naming the port shop stewards and three dockers but not the TGWU.
Militant (the Socialist’s predecessor) at the time suggested a conference of dockers and Chobham Farm workers on the issue of containerisation to work out a common policy in opposition to the employers.
Unjust!
The Court of Appeal, anxious to try to uphold the legal system’s increasingly fragile claim to impartiality, overturned an earlier NIRC judgement and reversed the fines on the union saying that a union wasn’t responsible for its stewards’ actions and that it was unjust for the union to be penalised simply because it was not registered.
Government minister Robert Carr called the decision “a torpedo below the waterline and effectively destroyed government policy.” Redress could now only come against individual workers.
The NIRC now took out an order against the three pickets, threatening them with imprisonment for contempt of court if they failed to attend the court by 16 June. The national stewards met and called for indefinite strike action if any of the three were imprisoned.
Strikes broke out across the country involving 35,000 dockers. These were joined by car workers at Longbridge. On the Friday the stewards joined the mass picket at Chobham Farm to await the court official who was to make the arrests. But no arrests took place.
A shadowy figure – the Official Solicitor – enters the scene. He instructed the TGWU to apply to the Court of Appeal to have the orders set aside on a technicality for lack of evidence to justify imprisonment.
Judge Denning explained “we were influenced by the state of the country, by the realisation that there would be a general strike, which would paralyse the whole nation”. This merely delayed the inevitable by a couple of weeks.
At Chobham Farm a deal was signed to take on registered dockers while the existing workforce were given alternative jobs.
On 4 July Midland Cold Storage applied to the NIRC for an order to stop picketing. The court summoned seven dockers to appear. They didn’t attend so a court order banned them from picketing or encouraging others to picket the company.
Arrests
They ignored the order and continued picketing. The dockers were convinced that the government was now on the road to confrontation. The company returned to court and on Friday 21 July Donaldson issued warrants for the arrest of five dockers for contempt of court.
After the decision there were immediate stoppages of work in London and a mass picket at Midland Cold Storage. Four of the dockers were arrested that day and placed in Pentonville Prison. The fifth, Vic Turner, appeared in the picket line at the prison the next day.
The dockers shifted picketing to the prison itself. Strikes broke out in Liverpool, Manchester and Hull with other scheme ports joining by Monday. 40,000 dockers were estimated to be on strike.
From the prison, delegates were sent out to argue for solidarity action. One group descended on Fleet Street, home of the national press. Through a series of impromptu meetings the papers were brought to a halt.
Across the country around 90,000 workers were on indefinite strike by the time the five were released on 26 July. 250,000 had come out for one or two days and the South Wales miners’ executive had agreed to call its members out.
A demonstration to the prison attracted 30,000 workers.
In the light of this revolutionary wave the TUC, having argued against any solidarity action, was forced to call a one day national stoppage for the following Monday.
On 26 July the Law Lords overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision and ruled that the TGWU was after all responsible for the actions of its members.
Thus the case against the five dockers collapsed and they were released from prison. Ironically they were imprisoned for contempt and had never purged that contempt. The decision was rushed through at the start of the summer recess by a ruling class in terror at the prospect of a developing general strike.
The release was met by jubilant scenes. The next day the official national dock strike began.
The Industrial Relations Act had been defeated by mass action that forced a reluctant TUC to threaten a one-day general strike – though only when it became clear that the dockers’ militancy had won and the Pentonville Five would be released. There are many lessons that can be learned from this militant episode in the class war from 40 years ago.
