Tony Topham
The introduction of the Devlin proposals this week represents one phase of the Wilsonite drive to rationalise the port industry. Its immediate effect is to strengthen the port employers, who assume much more authority over 'their' workers than they have enjoyed hitherto, It also improves the prospect for orthodox, official trade unionism, which by it's nature is more adapted to handling normal employer-worker relations than the semicasual system which has prevailed under the Dock Labour Scheme of 1947-67. The support which the T&GWU has given to the new Devlin scheme therefore rev= eals, not a conspiracy between union officials, employers, and the State, but the limitations of purely trade union ¢rategy when it is unrelated te an overall political purpose. And if Devlinisation has found the T&GWU lacking in this latter respect, it has also challenged equally the perspectives of the unofficial Portworkers' Committees. Portworkers' leaders have correctly said that the issue is not really decasualisation ~ the dockers have been permanently employed, in one sense, by the National Dock Labour Board, since 1947. The permanent allocation of dockers to individual employers which began this week, is not,therefore, a progressive step from a socialist point of view. The real issue behind the new set-up is clearly that of control. Under the 1947 scheme, the unions shared control of port labour with the employers, Any alteration had to mean either a strengthening of employers’ control, or of workers' control. In fact Devlin moves in the former direction. On this, the pnrtworkers' leaders are clear. In order to mobilise opposition to Devlin therefore, it is absolutely necessary to prepare for an alternative port labour scheme which points in the opposite direction, towards workers' control. But the main demands expressed in this week's strike actions will be for a higher basic wage, improved pensions, and proper guarantees against redundancy. All these things are of course perfectly reasonable demands and should certainly receive our support. ‘ For they do challenge the utterly cynical inequalities built in to the government's incomes policy. Whilst Gunter and Government have resisted the basic pay levels negotiated for London dockers earlier this year, (in the name of incomes policy) they have hastened to give approval to the proposal that the port employers' charges should be increased. by over 30 per cent. The employers of course need these price increases to maintain (or increase - nobody knows!) their profit margins which might otherwise be reduced by the increased wage costs they incur under Devlin. But the wage, pension and 'no redundancy' demands should be re-inforced by a challenge to the fundamental aim of Government and employers, which is to strengthen their controls and to soften up the dockers for the coming battle over redundancies and rationalisation. The gains in productivity to be achieved by new cargo handling methods are astronomical - with roll-on-off and containerisation, output per man hour goes up hundreds of per cent. Therefore, like the productivity bargainers amongst the oil refinery employers, the more intelligent and advanced port employers will be prepared to PAY FOR CONTROL. Of course they will bargain about the prices they will certainly fight against the £5,000 compensation for early retirement which the portworkers' committees are demanding. But they will fight within their own terms of references, about the price. The end of that process could see the dockers' bargaining power near to exhaustion and the stage set for the mass redundancies which the system demands. This stage may well coincide, in point of time, with the nationalisation of the
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