{"id":793,"date":"2014-08-18T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T07:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=793"},"modified":"2014-08-15T16:22:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T15:22:02","slug":"dockers-festival-kicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"Dockers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Festival kicks off"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Exactly 125 years ago, a small group of workers at the South West India Dock launched a strike that would spread like wildfire, igniting what would become the foundation of the modern trade union movement.<\/p>\n

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Few dockers of the time were organised, but the Great Dock Strike of 1889 changed everything. Eventually, 100,000 dock workers banded together to fight against low pay and casualised labour. Unusual for the time, the strike gained the mass support of politicians, religious leaders and the general public. Even trade unions internationally pitched in: Australian unions raised over \u00c2\u014130,000 (equivalent to \u00c2\u01413m in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s money) to support the strikers.<\/p>\n

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The striking workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c whose main demand was the \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdocker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tanner,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 or a rate of sixpence an hour \u00e2\u20ac\u201c eventually gained their terms and conditions in one of the most successful trade union mobilisations ever.<\/p>\n

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To commemorate the strike, Unite has organised the Dockers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Festival, a year-long series of events, from walks and talks to films and music. To launch the festival, Unite members and dock workers set sail on the Thames on August 14 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the day the Great Strike began over a century ago.<\/p>\n

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Unite general secretary Len McCluskey addressed the guests to kick off the launch.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe truth of the matter is that many of us wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be here today if it hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been for the historic struggles that took place during the Great Dock Strike,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McCluskey said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAbove everything else, this strike demonstrated that unskilled workers could be formed into a trade union, that they could organise themselves and fight for justice.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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In attendance at the launch were a number of dock workers who told of their own struggles.<\/p>\n

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Keith Watson was one of many trade unionists \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including 19 shop stewards \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who was dismissed for trade union involvement during the more recent Tilbury Port strikes in 1989. Striking against the Thatcher government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s abolishing of the National Docks Labour Scheme, which protected dock workers from becoming casualised, workers in Tilbury and across the nation took unofficial strike action. The 19 dismissed shop stewards were eventually vindicated after the longest employment tribunal in history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Watson explained the common thread running between the 1889 London strike, the strikes at Tilbury, and the struggles facing dock workers now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHistory continues to repeat itself. Despite all of the employers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 promises, casualised labour \u00e2\u20ac\u201cexactly what the 1889 strikers were fighting against, too –became rife just a few months after the Docks Labour Scheme was abolished, particularly in Tilbury. Unless people are prepared to organise and fight, the same thing will continue happening again. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening now.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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The Great Strike of 1889 was also a milestone for religious involvement. Monsignor John Armitage told of Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Manning\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role in the strike.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bManning was very involved in the East End community and with the dockers and their families. He supported the strike as an establishment figure and helped them win better working conditions,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Armitage explained. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Pope of the time, Pope Leo XIII, was so impressed that he wrote the first of the social encyclicals inspired by Manning\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work. You could say, then, that Catholic social teachings started in the London Docks.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite assistant general secretary Peter Kavanagh connected the 1889 strike to the battles still being fought by working people today.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now again a growing tendency towards precarious employment,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Kavanagh said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have migrant workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just like many of the Irish migrants who took part in the Dock Strike of 1889 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c being exploited. 125 years on, of course we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made important advances, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still much work to do. The Dock Strike can serve as an inspirational example of people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c entire communities, even internationally \u00e2\u20ac\u201c coming together to achieve something great.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To find out more about on-going Dockers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Festival events, visit the festival\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exactly 125 years ago, a small group of workers at the South West India Dock launched a strike that would spread like wildfire, igniting what would become the foundation of the modern trade union movement.   Few dockers of the time were organised, but the Great Dock Strike of 1889 changed everything. Eventually, 100,000 dock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}