1889 London dock strike

Industrial dispute in the Port of London May 2017 May 2017 thumb|right|Manifesto of the South Side Central Strike Committee, issued during the strike The 1889 London dock strike was an industrial dispute involving dock workers in the Port of London. It broke out on 14 August 1889, and resulted in victory for the 100,000 strikers when they won their pay claim of sixpence per hour, the so-called "dockers' tanner". The industrial action also established strong trade unions amongst London dockers, one of which became the nationally important Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' Union. The strike is widely considered a milestone in the development of the British labour movement, symbolising the growth of the New Unions of casual, unskilled and poorly paid workers, in contrast to the craft unions already in existence. The strike helped to draw attention to the problem of poverty in Victorian Britain and the dockers' cause attracted considerable public sympathy. Background The London dock strike of 1889 came during a surge in labour activism among London's working class, as poorly paid workers in many industries organized against low wages and harsh conditions. It was preceded by several other developments which marked the emergence of a new mood amongst unskilled workers. The dockers took their confidence from 1888 the successful London matchgirls strike of 1888 at the Bryant and May factory in Bow,Raw 2009 154 and the successful organisation of London gasworkers in the National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers by Will Thorne and Ben Tillett, who would become major leaders in the dock strike.Lovell 1985 101The First Dispute: The Eight Hour Day http://www.gmbunion.org/history/Dispute.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20080703230454/http://www.gmbunion.org/history/Dispute.htm 2008-07-03 GMB, London Region The 1888 strike by the matchwomen was the spark. Treated with hostility and demanding better pay for their work, the women showed that low-paid, overlooked workers could organize and be heard. Dock labour was the male equivalent. It supported families but at a high cost in poor conditions and low pay, averaging "five pence an hour on the 'plus' system," with a small bonus for finishing jobs early.Raw 2009 160 Supervisors often refused to pay the bonus, and the men stopped doing the unpaid extra work. After the matchwomen's victory, "the dockers and other workers contacted the Union of Women Matchmakers to ask for advice on establishing their own organizations."Raw 2009 154 What began as a request for a one-penny hourly raise grew into a strike of around 130,000 workers, earning it the name the Great Dock Strike. Workers from many trades, including "stevedores, ship-painters, dockyard mechanics, carpenters, shipwrights, carmen, lightermen," united for one goal.Raw 2009 162 The dockers' strike was more dramatic than the preceding disputes, because of the sheer number of workers involved, the poor reputation that dockers previously enjoyed, and various other aspects of the dispute. Dispute Sing a song of sixpence, Dockers on the strike. Guinea pigs are hungry, As the greedy pike. Till the docks are opened, Burns for you will speak. Courage lads, and you'll win, Well within the week. London dockworkers in 1889 Newth A. M. Britain and the World: 1789–1901 Penguin Books New York 1967 0-14-080304-1 119 20% right The 1889 London dock strike started on 12 August, sparked by a disagreement over how piece-work was paid at one of the port’s dock systems. For several reasons, the walkout spread from there, and by 22 August the whole port had stopped work. Employers tried to break the strike but failed to weaken it. By 5 September, some were willing to offer concessions, and a small number of men went back to work on those terms. Most port workers stayed out, however, until a full settlement was reached on 14 September. By then the port had been almost completely paralyzed for nearly four weeks, and no earlier stoppage in Britain’s shipping and dock industries had been on such a scale.Lovell 1985 100 Colonel G. R. Birt, the general manager at the Millwall Docks, gave evidence to a Parliamentary committee, on the physical condition of the workers: The poor fellows are miserably clad, scarcely with a boot on their foot, in a most miserable state ... These are men who come to work in our docks who come on without having a bit of food in their stomachs, perhaps since the previous day; they have worked for an hour and have earned 5d.; their hunger will not allow them to continue: they take the 5d. in order that they may get food, perhaps the first food they have had for twenty-four hours.London Docklands History https://web.archive.org/web/20070927152927/http://www.bardaglea.org.uk/docklands/8-strikes-physical.html 27 September 2007 accessed 14 Feb 2007The dock strike began over a dispute about 'plus' money during the unloading of the Lady Armstrong in the West India Docks. 'Plus' money was a bonus paid for completing work quickly. The East and West India Docks Company's (E&WIDC), general manager Lieutenant Colonel John Lowther du Plat Taylor (of 49th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers) had cut their 'plus' rates to attract ships into their own docks rather than others. Prior to the strike, few dockers were organised, but once it began, the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' Union recruited a substantial section of the London docks workforce. The principal demand of the agitation was for the dockers' tanner, meaning a rate of sixpence an hour. The strike was noted for large, peaceful processions which impressed middle class opinion and won sympathy for the strikers' cause from figures such as Cardinal Manning, who acted as meditator between the striking workers and the dock owners. He was seen as fair and impartial by both sides. Upon the resolution of the strike, the dock workers collected £160 for Manning in appreciation of his work, and Manning donated the money to a local hospital to provide a bed. Notable organisers who came to prominence during the strike include Ben Tillett, John Burns, Tom Mann, Ben Cooper, Will Thorne and the seamen's leader Joseph Havelock Wilson. The most notable politician to come to the fore during the strike was the Progressive Party London County Councillor John Benn. As an increasingly prominent local politician, he was invited to stand for Parliament as the Liberal Party candidate for St George Division of Tower Hamlets. He was subsequently elected in the 1892 general election, becoming the first of four generations of the Benn family to serve as MPs. Media coverage and financial support In 1889, newspapers were a main source of news and could shape which issues the public paid attention to. Their coverage of the London Dock Strike spread well beyond Britain. From late August, Australian papers reported on it extensively through cable services,Walker 1981 42 and an editorial in The Age on August 29 prompted readers to start a relief fund.Walker 1981 44 Most Australian metropolitan dailies sympathized with the dockworkers and kept supporting them throughout the strike.Walker 1981 44 The coverage drew significant financial help for the dockers and their families.Walker 1981 46 British conservatives even blamed the surprising flow of colonial donations on the cables' "highly coloured pictures."Walker 1981 44 Of the £16,075 raised by the British public and unions, £7,420 came through radical newspapers.Walker 1981 45 Supporters saw the strike as a desperate response to miserable pay and conditions.Walker 1981 46 Together, the press coverage, public sympathy, and donations created broad international support for workers' rights. The strike relief fund was supported by £30,000 donated from Australia.London Dock Strike, Britannica accessed 12 Dec 2023 Long-term results The strike was a landmark victory for "New Unionism," which focused on organizing the unskilled and semi-skilled workers. This phenomenon, according to historians like Eric Hobsbawm, marked a qualitative transformation of the British labor movement and drew attention to the sheer scale of poverty in Victorian Britain. Even the established labour aristocracy was caught off guard by the subsequent emergence of general unions representing unskilled workers.Lovell 1985 100–113Duffy 1961 306-307Frank Broeze, "Militancy and pragmatism: an international perspective on maritime labour, 1870–1914." International Review of Social History 36.2 (1991): 165-200. The strike profoundly transformed how the middle class viewed workers. The large, peaceful, and organized processions through the streets of London, led by charismatic leaders like Tom Mann and John Burns, impressed them. Londoners watching from balconies of upscale hotels waved handkerchiefs as a token of support. The strikers' self-restraint, discipline, and "pluck" challenged the perception of the poor as inherently disorderly or prone to violence. Previously dismissed as impossible to organize and inherently threatening, working-class participants displayed remarkable organization and discipline. This shift revealed the possibility of resolving social tensions through peaceful means. Juliet Gardiner and Neil Wenborn, eds. The History Today Companion to British History (1995) p. 241). The successful strike had a galvanising effect on dockworkers in the Dutch port of Rotterdam and triggered the 1889 Rotterdam dock strike nl Staking in de Rotterdamse haven (1889). This was supported by the English unions, which actively sought to prevent English dockworkers from being deployed as strike-breakers. Union organiser Harry Orbell travelled to Rotterdam, where, following the strike, the 'Rotterdam Branch' of the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union was established.Smit 2013 64Bouman Bouman 1952 79 Church roles The involvement of influential, religious figures, notably the respected Cardinal Manning (who acted as a mediator) and William Booth of the Salvation Army (who raised funds for relief), lent significant moral legitimacy to the workers' cause. From the Catholic Church's point of view, Cardinal Manning's involvement in the strike, as a mediator trusted by both sides, could be seen as foreshadowing the encyclical Rerum novarum ('Of New Things') issued by Pope Leo XIII two years later, on 15 May 1891. Addressing "the condition of the working classes", the Church's policy set out in that encyclical explicitly supported the right of labour to form unions, but rejected socialism and affirmed private property rights. The Pope said, "Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labour, nor labour without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity".)William Kent, "Henry Edward Manning." The Catholic Encyclopedia. (1910) See also Organized labour Stepney Historical Trust References Sources Bouman P.J. https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=MMKB35:176264000 De groei van de grote werkstad: een studie over de bevolking van Rotterdam Bouman W.H. Van Gorcum 1952 Assen nl Broeze Frank August 1991 Militancy and Pragmatism: An International Perspective on Maritime Labour, 1870–1914 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/573ABFBFB14E6F4A4FA45B79BE507848/S0020859000110491a.pdf/militancy-and-pragmatism-an-international-perspective-on-maritime-labour-1870-1914.pdf International Review of Social History 36 2 165-200 10.1017/S0020859000110491 Duffy A.E.P. 1961 New Unionism in Britain, 1889-1890: A Reappraisal https://www.jstor.org/stable/2593226 The Economic History Review 14 2 306-319 JSTOR Lovelll John Christopher https://archive.org/details/stevedoresdocker0000love/ Stevedores and Dockers: A Study of Trade Unionism in the Port of London, 1870-1914 1969 MacMillan 1969 London Lovell John Christopher https://archive.org/details/developmentoftra0000unse_b8g1/ The Development of Trade Unionism in Great Britain and Germany, 1880-1914 George Allen & Unwin 1985 0-04-940080-0 Mommsen Wolfgang J. London 100–113 The Significance of the Great Dock Strike of 1889 in British Labour History Husung Hans-Gerhard https://archive.org/details/developmentoftra0000unse_b8g1/page/100/mode/1up Raw Louise https://books.google.com/books?id=tBoSBwAAQBAJ Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History Continuum 2009 978-1-44112-1-042 London/New York Smit Evert https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1750303/146548_thesis.pdf De syndicale onderstroom: Stakingen in de Rotterdamse haven, 1889-2010 Vossius UvA 2013 978-90-5629-737-4 Amsterdam nl 64 Ben Tillett Memories and Reflections (London, 1931) Walker R.B. November 1981 Media and Money: The London Dock Strike of 1889 and the Australian Maritime Strike of 1890 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27508490 Labour History 41 41-56 JSTOR Further reading Brown, Kenneth D. John Burns (Royal Historical Society, 1977) online. Cole, G.D.H. John Burns (1943) online Fishman, W. J. East End 1888: A Year in a London Borough Among the Laboring Poor (Duckworth, 1988) online McCarthy, Terry, ed. The Great Dock Strike, 1889. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson in association with the Transport and General Workers’ Union, 1988) online. Pelling, Henry. A History of British Trade Unionism (Macmillan, 1963) online Schneer, Jonathan. Ben Tillett: Portrait of a Labour Leader (Croom Helm, 1982). Wasp, David. The great dock strike, 1889 (Longman, 1974) online External links The Great Dock Strike https://web.archive.org/web/20080225051202/http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.77/The-Great-Dock-Strike-of-1889.html 25 February 2008 at the PortCities project Top of the docks How social hierarchy determined the outcome of the 1889 London dock strike Trade Union Ancestors https://libcom.org/history/1889-the-great-london-dock-strike 1889: The Great London Dock Strike libcom.org https://web.archive.org/web/20130212155936/http://libcom.org/history/1889-the-great-london-dock-strike 2013-02-12 live Category:1889 labor disputes and strikes Category:1889 in England Category:History of Catholicism in England Category:Labour disputes in England Category:Labour disputes in the United Kingdom Category:Poverty in England Category:Water transport in England Category:1889 in London Category:Social history of London Category:Economic history of London Category:Port of London Category:Maritime strikes Category:August 1889 in the United Kingdom