Historic Struggle - Ten Years Since the Liverpool Docks Dispute

Bill Hunter recorded dockers and their partners at the time of the dispute. Below are extracts from his introduction and from three of the interviews.

In September 1995, the dockers employed by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC) refused to cross a picket line set up by eighty strikers - young dockers employed by Torside, a company connected with the MDHC.
The sympathy and solidarity - which the dispute gained nationally and internationally - came because it was a struggle against the same problems facing the working class in Britain and throughout the world. People in all countries have now had bitter experience of the meaning of the "free market" as governments dismantle welfare provisions and drive the poor and defenceless into the pit.

Sue Mitchell - from Women of the Waterfront

In 1990-91 - when Colin [her husband] was moved to the container base - the shift patterns all changed. Suddenly he was out of the house at all different hours. I gradually saw deterioration in him as a man. He was working long hours for weeks on end. The children no longer saw him. They [the company] used to ring up sometimes and he would be saying "I'm not in! I'm not in!" It got to the point when you couldn't live normally for fear of the phone going.
All the time they were "kicking him"; taking every ounce of energy from him and then either saying, "you're not required" or "we want you more" because the ships are in.
Once he had worked six 11.00 to 11.00 shifts. And when he got to the car at about 11.45 he went, "I'm out at 7.00." And I said, "You can't go out at seven in the morning. Look at the state of you!" You were looking at a 45-year-old, more like a 65, walking out of the gate. And he was ten minutes late that morning; we overslept...He was put on a warning for that.
We wanted the human side of him back - not just the robot that brought a pay packet home. That was not what family life is about. It just seemed that we had no control. I remember saying to Colin a month before they sacked them, "This is terrible!" and he went, "I know Sue. Don't worry, the firm know it's not working. We've had a meeting. They know it's not working - they are going to sort it out."
And a month later they did, didn't they? Because they sacked the lot of them. That's probably why the women were so quick on getting involved.

Jimmy Davies Jnr - a striking Torside worker

We were on basic pay - no pension, no sick, less wages [than other dockers]. Obviously that was the start of the problem, that was the major problem from the start, that we were never on the same conditions - because we believe we should have been. Most of the dockers believed we should have been, but it was either "you come down on a lower pay or you don't come down at all."
Well the problems we had was like the basic industrial relations with our management. Our management were very bad. They treated people like school kids. They were power crazy, you know.
Well I mean you were talked down to, you were told off like you were a fucking school kid you know, and they used to shout and scream at you in front of the rest of the men to try and intimidate you or embarrass you: "If you don't do this, if you don't do that!" They were sticklers for punctuality. We had to be in for quarter to eight in the morning. If you were one minute after quarter to eight you were sent home without pay. There was no leeway with them. There was no give and take whatsoever.
So on this particular day, when the dispute began, the men on the ship were told by two supervisors of Liverpool Cargo Handling - who were directly employed by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company - that they were working overtime. You had to be told by at least 3 o'clock that you were supposed to be working overtime. More often than not you'd know yourself by the state of the ship, how much was left to go on or how much was left to come off. And this day the lads were told - I think it was a quarter to 4 - that they were working overtime, which they weren't happy about anyway but which they then agreed to do.
So then the supervisor said you know, "You'll get paid till 5 o'clock." So the lads obviously say, "Pile of shite. You pay 4 'til 6, what's different about today?" "There's nothing different, you are getting paid by the hour." So the men said, "We're not having it" and off they went. And that's the way the dispute started. Just from that.

Kevin Robinson - a sacked docker

Well as you know in Liverpool there was 7 miles of docks on this side of the water, and they closed them right down, and they closed Birkenhead. There was more at my wedding than there's on the dock now, and that's simply because of the contraction of the industry itself. And yet, there's more deadweight tonnage going through the port than was going through in the 50s.
Some of the young people that have come along, are people from all different walks of life. They've come along and they want to help, some of them are what I call 'industrial virgins' - they've never worked, some of them, since they've left school.
But they know that this is an injustice - what's happening to us - and they want to help in any way they possibly can. It's really heart-warming to know that there's young people who still believe that if you get off of your knees and get onto your feet, that you can do something about what's wrong.

Bill Hunter's: 'Workers' History As told by Those Who Made It' is to be published by Living History Library early next year.