Printed for the Cabinet. July 1949
Page 328
SECRET
C.P. (49) 145
6th July, 1949
CABINET
Copy No. 31
THE DOCK LABOUR INDUSTRY AND THE NATIONAL DOCK LABOUR BOARD
MEMORANDUM BY THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT
1. I have expressed to the Cabinet from time to time my grave concern about the frequent disputes in the dock labour industry, often involving considerable and costly delays to ships and cargoes, and sometimes necessitating the use of Service personnel to handle essential cargoes, with consequent interruption of training. As a result of previous consideration of these problems by the Cabinet, it was decided (C.M. (48) 45th Conclusions, Minute 1) to invite the Foreign Secre- tary to discuss with the Minister of Labour and myself means of improving the organisation of the Board and of forestalling further industrial disturbances in the docks. I am not aware that there has been any discussion affecting the organisation of the Board, although, arising out of a London dispute of June, 1948, an enquiry into the amenities provided for dock workers was carried out by the National Dock Labour Board and a report was prepared, which, after con- sideration by the Lord President's Committee, is being examined by an inter- Departmental working party.
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2. I now feel that the question of the organisation of the dock labour industry and the Board requires examination in the light of recent experience and to facilitate consideration of the matter I have prepared, and annex, some particulars of disputes which have occurred since 1st January, 1948, and the estimated losses involved (Annex B.) The statement, which does not necessarily cover all disputes which resulted in delays to shipping, shows a total loss of 3,673 ship days since the beginning of 1948. The most serious of these disputes were (a) the one at London in June, 1948, which started over the payment for handling of a "dirty" cargo, and which eventually evolved into a strike against disciplinary action taken under the scheme; (b) the further strike at London in April of this year arising from the dismissal by the Board of ineffective workers; and (c) the recent stoppages at Bristol and Liverpool and now London in sympathy with the strike of Canadian seamen. It was the June, 1948, strike at London which led to the declaration of a state of emergency under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, and is the only instance since the present Government took office in which it became necessary to take powers under the emergency machinery.
3. A disturbing feature of these disputes is the willingness of the men to strike, not primarily against the employers, but in defiance of their own unions and of the National Dock Labour Board, which, as my colleagues will be aware, has a governing body consisting of members nominated by the two sides of the industry, with an independent Chairman and Vice-Chairman appointed by the Ministry of Labour after consultation with both sides of the industry.
4. There would not appear on the surface any good reason for discontent in the dock labour industry. The industry, as a result of the introduction of decasualisation during the war and the placing of decasualisation arrangements on a permanent basis under the existing dock labour scheme, enjoys substantially improved conditions. The wages earned compare favourably with those of other major industrial groups, particularly in respect of over-time and piece-work rates, which are more applicable to a casual industry than to one in which there are guaranteeagweekly age. The average weekly earnings Pofgo32&offk366in
37237
B
2
Octobe69943f329 19s. 2d., which compared with
339. 963 Kult (male) workers in the coal-mining industry, £7 6s. Od. in the engineering ship- building, &c., industry, and £6 10s. 7d. in the building contracting industry, and (in April 1948) £6 17s. 11d. in the railway industry. These earnings by dockers have been achieved during a period when surpluses of labour have been in the neighbourhood of 15 per cent. on the average, and by a labour force about 16 per cent. of which are over sixty years of age. Many of the dockers, of course, earn a great deal more than the average figure, either because they obtain more regular employment or work at piece-work rates on particularly favourable cargoes. It is not uncommon for dockers to earn as much as £15 in a week of full employment. 5. The readiness of the dockers to come out on strike arises largely from the casual conditions which existed before the war, when solidarity among the dockers was the natural reaction against the dangers of exploitation of the workers in an over-manned industry. Traditionally, moreover, the dock workers bargain over the rate of payment in respect of any difficult or unusual cargo before starting work on it, and this has often meant that particular ships, as will be seen from Annex B, become sources of dispute between the employers and the men. It will be appreciated in this connexion that the Dock Labour Board are not themselves employers of labour. They are the suppliers of labour to the master stevedores, master porters and others, but they also provide the machinery by which payment is made both in respect of the work done and in respect of periods when no work is available. (A brief note on the relationship of the various interests concerned in the utilisation of dock labour is attached as Annex A.) Although the scheme does in fact ensure that dock workers have regular payments regardless of whether work is available or not, the dock worker still seems to think of himself as having the freedom of the casual worker to choose the work he will do and the conditions under which he will do it. There is, in fact, adequate industrial machinery for settling questions of payment and conditions of work, and the Dock Labour Scheme provides means of settling disciplinary questions and gives rights of appeal to suitably constituted bodies, but dockers will frequently strike and be supported by other dockers without waiting for the arbitration machinery to work or in defiance of the decisions reached. Sometimes impatience with the arbitration machinery is understandable, as considerable time may elapse before decisions of arbitrators can be given.
6. A distressing feature of the present situation is that the improvements which have been made in the status and earnings of the dock workers have not instilled in them the spirit of co-operation that might reasonably have been hoped for. Broadly speaking, the men seem unable to develop a sense of loyalty to the Board, to the stevedoring employers or to their own Trade Union leaders. They will readily listen to malcontents who try to exploit any cause of friction, and they accept fresh leaders for nearly every unofficial stoppage of work.
7. The strike leaders who instigate and sustain these unofficial stoppages are, generally speaking, men who have no regard for the repercussions of their actions on the country's trade and on the community. Their activities may well bring a whole port to a standstill, resulting in serious loss to shipowners and traders, and hampering the country's economic recovery; but despite all the losses which they cause, these unofficial leaders incur no penalty for their misdeeds.
8. It is not too much to say that the dock workers claim the benefits of decasualisation without being willing to give up practices appropriate to the casual system. The failure to achieve any fundamental change in the mentality of the dock worker as a result of several years of decasualisation must, in part, be attributed to the fact that the shortage of shipping and commodities has made it inexpedient for the Government or employers to face any major or prolonged stoppage in the industry and strikes have therefore been undertaken by the dock workers with relative impunity. In the ordinary way the National Dock Labour Board make their payments on the Thursday or Friday following the week in which the money has been earned and, in consequence, dock workers who strike do not immediately feel the loss of wages. Moreover, under the P.A.Y.E. system, they are generally entitled to some repayment of income tax in the first week or two that follows a period in which there have been no earnings. The consequence is that there is a tendency for the dock workers, for the reasons indicated, to take aglighthearted view of any strike which does Pageas ofezan a week or so. In particular, a strike started and finished just before a holiday period
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often has the losses compensated for by high earnings during the holidayf Biod itself, when rates may be double those earned on ordinary working days.
9. A serious weakness of the present scheme is the joint administration by the employers and employees, which is not paralleled in any other industry. "Works Councils" on which there is joint representation by employers and employees are, of course, a common feature of many industries to-day, but the of and I know of other instance in this country in which
representatives the actual management of the undertaking as they do in the docks scheme. Under this system of management, the trade union representatives on the Board cannot effectively advocate or take such action as would be appro- priate to employers, while they lose the confidence of the dock workers as trade union representatives because they appear in the rôle of employers.
themes of
the workers share
with the employers.
When the Bill for the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, 1946, was in preparation, my Ministry were instrumental in obtaining its amendment so as to allow of schemes being prepared which could be administered by port authorities locally without national control or joint administration by employers and employees. When the time came, however, for the Act to be put into force, a scheme on these lines was, in fact, advocated by the employers but it did not meet with the approval of the trade unions, who preferred a joint scheme on the lines of that then in operation under the Dock Labour Corporation, and it was this latter type of administration which was adopted.
10. For some time there has been a feeling among employers that dock workers should, in return for the benefits they receive, accept their responsibilities under the Dock Labour Scheme, which has been freely negotiated by their leaders and in the administration of which they are represented. Not all the strikes
which I have listed in Annex B to this memorandum are strikes directly in breach of the Dock Labour Scheme, but it is a feature of the recent disputes at Avonmouth and Liverpool, which will be fresh in my colleagues' minds, that employers have insisted on their rights under the scheme to obtain labour to work all ships, and in my view this is a reasonable request, for it seems to me most desirable that the dock workers should not be allowed to refuse to accept the requirements of the
scheme designed by the Government primarily for their benefit.
11. It would, of course, be quite wrong to overstate the case and to suggest that the effects of the present scheme have been wholly negative. Past experience indicates that there is no cause for supposing that conditions in the industry would have been better if the scheme had not been established or that there would have been less unrest among the dockers under the old system; the disputes probably would have been much more serious. The problem with which we are faced is that the National Dock Labour Board was set up to remedy the grievances of the dockers and to create settled conditions in the industry and, despite all the care which has been put into the preparation and administration of the scheme,
it has to a considerable extent failed to achieve this object. While there can be no question of going back to the conditions of casual labour which existed in pre-war days, some revision or modification of the present arrangements is, in my view, urgently needed if we are to avoid a succession of these costly and irritating unofficial strikes.
12. I am certain that, unless something is done now to place the Dock Labour Scheme on a more workable basis, there will be a progressive deteriora- tion in the conditions which now exist in the docks and which may lead to a major dispute of a most dangerous character. I have considered, therefore, whether or not the time has come to ask for the Dock Labour Scheme itself to be the subject for review.
The following are some of the proposals which I consider deserve examina- tion:
(i) The Minister of Labour is so closely identified with the Dock Labour Board that the question arises whether his conciliation functions are thereby weakened and whether it would be an advantage if the Minis- ter of Transport were substituted for the Minister of Labour as the Minister responsible to the Government and Parliament for the Dock Labour Scheme and the appointment of the National Board. This pshangs would require legislation.