BM Blob's pamphlet on the struggles of dock workers across the world during the 1980s.
Translated and produced by individuals in Lisbon, Barcelona, Arhus, London, New York
Introduction by BM Blob
Like Sleeping Beauty, workers everywhere are re-awakening. Hopefully at long last to finally realize their desires. Although now becoming clearly visible, this world re-awakening has been long in preparing and has gone through many unsung routes. This pamphlet is about one of them.
Most of the translations appearing here are leaflets/short texts which the Spanish dockers have written over the course of their struggle. Some were addressed to assembled workers, others were handed out on the streets during demonstrations and others were published in dockers' newsheets.
These texts have a special importance because they deal clearly with the problems facing the modern proletarian movement: problems related to political parties and their rival gangs including unions, technological innovation and unemployment and their effect on the autonomous class struggle to abolish all classes.
Everywhere containerization has been introduced it has provoked strikes. The ones that hit the American seaboard in the 50's (containerization was sow 10 years in advance of Europe) were worlds apart from the 'corrupt' gangland unionism shown in "On the Waterfront". The spectacle of the reformed hoodlum battling for an honest trade unionism may have been sweet music to the ears of the American liberal establishment but it was only, a screen because the film's premier was barely over when plans were being laid for one of the biggest container ports in the world: New York's Port Elizabeth. This container port, and others like it in the US were duplicated throughout Europe, the Tilbury container dock being opened in 1976, some 3 years after Port Elizabeth.
At long last, following the multinational character of the world economy, more and more proletarians are making concrete, international contact. Although there is much that is uneven in this, it's a step in the right direction. Obviously one has to keep one's distance from the bureaucratic international of world trade unionism and related bodies. (eg. TIE - Transnational Information Exchange; itself partially funded by the World Council of Churches).
The third international of European dockers, (together with exiled dockers from Latin America) was held in 1979 in Barcelona under the slogan: "The emancipation of the working class will be the task of the workers themselves, or it will not be at all." Since then many other such meetings have taken place frequently in different European ports. However, despite the commendable autonomy insisted on by the Barcelona conference of '79 (and of course since then), trade union rank and file guys with their sights on official positions weren't criticized. What's more, neither were occasional low ranking bureaucrats. Rightly political parties were given the elbow. Nonetheless, a section of that obnoxious Lenin-look-a-like - the International Communist Current - was given rope - but not enough to hang itself. However, the example of this conference and the victory which was to be achieved by the striking dockers afterwards, meant that the Spanish libertarian experience was concretely communicated internationally. The Danish dockers in '83, themselves influenced by the Spanish example, said of their own strike: "Not since the 30's has there been so much international solidarity as was shown --- all through our recent 10 week long strike".
Both strikes received hardly any mention in the worlds press which has now abandoned its 'duty' to merely falsify and misrepresent struggle, leading to what might be termed a media induced depression where trifles swamp any mention of life-giving class conflict. In the midst of the "information society": absence of information.
The strikes in Spain and Denmark unlike the recent dock strikes in the UK came from clear autonomous initiatives. At certain points, however, the autonomous national organization of the Spanish dockers, the Co-ordinadora sat down at the negotiating table alongside the big central unions of the CCOO and the UGT. This really has not to be judged as an instant act of collaboration and betrayal of the autonomous movement. Rather, the Co-ordinadora allowed the unions to sit down with them based on whether or not the unions supported the real movement. Thus their practical interests momentarily coincided. That's all. What's more some dockers have been ever ready to criticize the Co-ordinadora when they felt something was wrong (c/f the Gijon report in May '83 - no fetishism of 'pure' organization here....) Obviously too, there's also an ever present danger of a creeping bureaucratization in some permanent, though consciously anti-union link up organization. Any collapse into a variation of parallel unionism or the old syndicalist example has to be watched, (e.g. using the term 'union' for an autonomous body like the Co-ordinadora, when such a term, is just too marred to be recycled). And if in the future, the Co-ordinadora, because it is a permanent organization gets in the way of real subversive movement, well then, it will just have to be subverted along with the rest of alienated society.
The example of the Co-ordinadora has, so far, proved an inspiration to other workers' collectives in Spain and through contacts made during the dockers' strike, many of these collectives have formed an inter-enterprise co-ordination. This co-ordination provides concrete support, circulates news obviously neglected in the press and gives direct aid to other proletarians who move their arse. In January of '82 there was published the first issue of a bulletin called "TODOS A UNA" (ALL TOGETHER) which presented certain texts of different collectives. Although at first, "TODOS A UNA" was full of left wing commonplaces and half truths, it has since improved quite a lot moving towards a clearer anti-union (including the CNT), anti-leadership perspective, together with a commitment to the open assembly form.
The assemblies which conducted the Spanish dock strike and much of the theoretical elaboration within them, marked something of a break from the woeful tale of what happened elsewhere in the downturn of class struggle: assemblies becoming props for the unions; merely spectacular assemblies. Even so, there's something of a disparity between the practical radical temper of "OUR ORGANIZATION" to the somewhat dull machinery of the Statutes of the OEPB where, there's a danger of separation into various categories (economic/ cultural), which mirror the larger separations existing within bourgeois society. These separations could, at a later date, delay the emergence of a more fully developed unitary critique. But due to the dogged and splendid efforts of some Barcelona dockers (as part of a delegated committee), a small radical library exists, which as well as containing files on docks (and dockers' struggles) throughout the world, contains theory of a high order. Collected there, for example, is much of the really good stuff handed out by autonomous workers in the SEAT car factory in Barcelona. (Incidentally some of these proletarians received draconian prison sentences for their activities). Existing functionally, such a center is also an example of how practical theory, escapes the rather fevered ideological collectives which tend to gel around 'radical' bookshops. And probably it's best to see the barbers shop attached to the OEPB as part of that long and good tradition of collectivised "barbarism" in Barcelona. At the same time one has to be clear that many of these organized leisure activities gymnasiums, TV/Video rooms etc can easily be placed within a social welfare framework and the self-management of alienation. Yet, it is obviously better to learn karate alongside your mates with the common aim of opposing authority than under a macho gym master who wants to impose even more authority.
When compared with the many anecdotal commentaries written by Spanish workers detailing and criticizing their own struggles which took place immediately (or rather became intenser) after Franco's death in late '75, the documents published here mark a real advance. Unlike the more recent dock strike in Spain, demands for the abolition of wage labour and the transformation of everyday life did not come top of the list. Linked to an actual struggle these demands acquired a proper utopian concreteness breaking out of their status as rather empty, make believe truisms.
The Barcelona dockers' open assembly remains an example to us all especially given the fact that it was a defensive struggle, "a question of survival", as they themselves put it. Most importantly-though, the workers won. However these texts are uneven in quality some are inspiringly clear, others a little muddled. Also there's some repetition. But before raising an accusatory finger bear in mind these texts are an example of workers writing accurately about their own struggle and attempting to communicate their knowledge and experience to others.
Would there was more of it about because spoken communication, though essential, evaporates like morning dew if not set down in a more durable form for all to see. Moreover such communication increases self confidence and helps to break down isolation and feelings of impotence. Any road here it is warts and all.
Since the conclusion of the Spanish dock strike, insurgency in the docks, particularly in 1984, has grown by leaps and bounds, with major action taking place in India, the Philippines, Japan and the U.K.
We have put together an article, included here, on dock struggles in the U.K. concentrating in particular on the past 15 years or so. Our efforts to track down "The Dockworker", a magazine influenced by the libertarian example of the Spanish and Danish dockers, proved fruitless. Research officers in the TGWU all but hung their heads in shame, when forced to admit they had never even heard of it.
The new period of open confrontation between capital and the proletariat must surely supersede what has been published here - no matter how good it is - by those who out of necessity must create the new world.
But we, who are not dockers but have produced this pamphlet have said just about enough. Where it's possible, LET THE DOCKERS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.
The Transport of Commodities and the Dock Struggle
The following text is taken from the No.2 issue of IN/ DOLENCIA, an occassional magazine published in Barcelona. The article was the outcome of hours spent talking to striking dockers and its detailed discussion of the mechanisation of the docks surely makes it the best article to have appeared in IN/DOLENCIA.
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The primary aim of capitalism is to produce commodities which have a determinate level of profit and an objective realization of value, resulting in their transformation back into money.
Transportation of commodities, a techno-operative task of little weight within the Marxian formulation of the capitalist cycle, has turned out to be an important sector both from the standpoint of the individual capitalist with a view to calculating costs and in the degree to which it tends towards strategic domination of the world commodity market.
Primo Maggio, No. 13
Valorization of capital does not end in the factory with the production of a commodity but is a process which continues in the sphere of circulation and beyond-a trajectory which begins with the act of making the commodity and ends with the act of selling it.
Calculating the costs of transporting commodities has always been a headache for capital. Taylorism never entered the docks and the organization of transport was backward compared to the organization of production. While capital was being concentrated in trusts and monopolies for all sectors of production, the rich buccaneer was the lone trader on the seas and the family haulage company dominated transport. (Only with railroads, because of the high initial investment required, did monopolies - whether state or private -appear.)
The big ports, where hiring practices and labor conditions were very oppressive, proved to be important sites of proletarian struggle. And the dockers' history has always been bloody. We have only to recall the great strikes of the San Francisco dockers in the 1930s and the 1970 Polish dockers' strikes on the Baltic coast which left many dockers dead.
Transport companies are now rapidly expanding the sector through monopolies. Today they own ships, fleets of lorries, trains, containers, and factories where container cranes are built and docks are repaired. If to this one adds that the big monopolies (oil, tobacco, fruit, etc.) organize their own transportation, the net result is a picture which shows that production and distribution are in the same hands.
Sealand operates 135 ports in 52 countries and has berths in each. Many are owned directly and others are state concessions. Sealand possesses a fleet of 63 ocean-going ships and 25,000 lorries. Since 1969, it has worked hand - in -glove with Rj. Reynolds Tobacco Co., one of the biggest U.S. multinationals, and has cornered 35% to 40% of the American shipping market.
With the advent of motorized shipping, shipping lines were able to regulate themselves. Fleets were established. Shipping times were calculated - thus ensuring a fair degree of accuracy for costs. But this did not amount to greater control over the time commodities spent in port. The organization of labor in the ports, like in 19th century pre-Taylorite factories-remained in the hands, of the workers. It was the dockers themselves, organized in work gangs, who controlled work speeds and tonnage.
Class struggle, however, prodded the transport companies into using containers. With containers, they could rationalize the organization of labor in the docks. They could impose their own authority so that the dockers' gangs would organize nothing and they would organize everything.
Containers are the extension of the production line into transportation. Commodities leave the assembly line containerized, then go onto a ship, then onto a truck or lorry or train, aDd are transported to the selling point. From the factory to the door-todoor sale, the rigidity of the production line-the dream of every capitalist-is maintained, making the worker a slave to the machine-in this case, the container-and unable to control the process of loading and unloading.
But the worker's ability to bring the assembly line to a standstill (a fundamental part of the workers' struggles in the 1960s) reappeared in the sphere of transportation. In Spain, 13,500 dockers were able to endanger the smooth and rapid circulation of commodities by the fliminsiest strike. Hence the acrimony and intransigence of the port bosses, as well as the whole of capital, eachtime trouble looms on.the docks or in other transportation sectors. It is enough to recall how the bosses acted during the latest strike in the Asturias haulage firms.
From market port to terminal port
The most important market centers and industrial zones were founded and developed near the ports. The traditional port is a market port where commodities are stored and auctioned. Barcelona's port retains vestiges of the traditional market porteven bananas are still sold there.
The market port was dominated by shipping lines. Ships had to bring goods to market-which was, traditionally, the port. The physical layout of the port was a product of the work which was necessary on traditional ships: lots of storage depots and.. in order to facilitate the dockers' work, a minimum distance between where the boats were tied-up and where the commodities were stored. Next to the docks certain sectors of the bourgeoisie invariably sprung up. Since their profits were high, they had little mcentive to modernize-technologically or organizationally. The property of the state, whose task it is to facilitate capital-ist exchange, the market port is also home to the state civil service.
The workers of the market port were recruited from the lumpen proletariat. Over time they became skilled workers who liked their work and knew it well-since it was they themselves who organized all tasks. The lack of hierarchy and absence of intermediaries created a strong sense of solidarity among the workers. This intense solidarity formed the basis of their fierce struggles.
The market port was, to a great degree, where the transport of commodities ended, but the modern port is merely an intermediate point in the transportation of commodities. Shipping lines no longer dominate the modem port-the port must be connected to the rail and road network. Many times we have heard the President of the Chamber of Commerce, Senor Fiqueras, and the president of the Port of Barcelona, Senor Guell, bemoaning the lack of infrastructure around the port. Their complaints have been listened to: plans are already underway to connect the port to the transport network-even though it will create an urban disaster.
The terminal port does not have a huge array of storage depots because it no longer must stockpile goods. Instead, the terminal port is made up of huge wharves piled up with the allefficient containers. Although an infinite number of companies appear to operate in the modern port, there is in effect only one company.
The port is totally mechanized. Cranes and toros carry out the actions workers once performed and dominate the work process on land and on ship. The terminal port tends toward specialization: the port of Barcelona handles general goods, the port of Tarragona handles grain, while the port of Bilboa handles scrap iron and steel.
The organization of labor is controlled in the offices of the dock companies just as sea transport is internationally directed from three centers: New York, London and Tokyo. From these centers, ships can be directed on a moment-to-moment basis into ports where there is less congestion or conflict. The centers of transport know at every moment where goods in transit are and what stage they have reached in the circulation time of commodities.
Dockers in the terminal port are not very different from factory workers. The pride and pleasure in being a docker-with its solidarity and rejection of hierarchy-have been lost along with control over the job and freedom of movement.
Technology and the docks
In analyzing the history of containerization it is necessary to take into account the impetus that war gave to this method of transporting goods. Containers first appeared on the scene during World War 11. The first containers were utilized during World War 11 to prevent the personal property of the American military from getting lost in bases in Asia and Europe. During the Korean crisis military spare parts were shipped by containers from New York to bases in Yokohama, Japan. By 1952, the American army possessed a stock of containers estimated at around 110,000. In 1966, Sealand was using a containerized fleet in the area around Saigon to transport arms to American military depots. This service was amply paid for by the U.S. government, which signed a contract with Sealand worth $21 million. The company used this money to promote the use of containers on sea routes in the North Atlantic (1966) and in the Far East (1968). Sealand also used this money to further the use of containers in Port Elizabeth (Port Authority of New York).
In 1955, Maclean set up the first container-producing factory. He founded Sealand four years later with the financial backing of big business. Requiring a large capital investment, containerization was, from its inception, controlled by multinational corporations.
By 1973 there were from one to one-and-a-half million containers. They were distributed as follows: 63% shipping, 33% land-based, 3% railroads, and 1% transport firms. The cost of fitting out a ship that could carry about 1,200 containers was around $15 million. The majority of land-based container companies were situated in New York, with subsidiaries strategically situated throughout the world. The most important of these was the ICI (International Container Transport), with about 30% of the containers, followed by Integrated Containers Service, Interpool, Sea Containers, SSI Containers Corporation, and UniFlex Containers. The monopolization of transport into a few firms and the linking of these firms with industry and finance indicate the degree to which containerization is a spatial extension of the factory. The container is not only a mobile docker but the extension of the factory in space.
Bit by bit, containers are displacing the traditional system of transporting goods. The daily quota of dockers is constantly being reduced since the loading and unloading of a containerized ship requires fewer workers. Capital demands not only that the number of dockers be decreased but that dockers be done away with all together. In Hamburg there is a container terminal that has been installed by Siemens. Here loading and unloading are totally automated and dockers have ceased to exist. The terminal is supervised by closed-circuit TV and the only people to be seen around the docks now are security guards who, from their huts, ensure that no one enters the compound. The entire operation is *computerized and controlled by a data base in Bonn. When the Spanish dockers went on strike demanding to keep their jobs they had Hamburg in mind.
A container is a standardized metal box. Commodities in containers suffer no damage when being transported. More important, however, containers effectively stop thieving-that practice of auto-reduction by which dockers traditionally topped-up their earnings. After World War II, thieving had taken on industrial proportions in New York: companies were shocked to learn that despite spending huge amounts on security they had lost some $1.5 million in stolen goods in 1948 alone. Shipping companies were quick to see the advantages of containerization: faster distribution meant a quicker return on capital while increasing the ratio of tonnage to wages meant a reduction in labor costs. Moreover, containerization also eliminated-or greatly reduced-the black market, a byproduct of proletarian auto-reduction.
The growing use of machinery such as cranes and elevators on the docks complements containerization. The central point for the distribution and production of loading-unloading container cranes is on the west coast of America, home of the Pacific Coast Engineering Co. and Star Iron and Steel Co. Pacific is a subsidiary of the Fruchauf Corporation, the most important producer of containers in the U.S., which itself belongs to United States Lines, a shipping company which has a stake in landbased container firms.
Roll-on/roll-off ships are another technological innovation similar to containers. These ships have direct access to distribution warehouses, where motorized transport-trucks, cars, container rigs-can actually be driven onto the sea-going vessel. Needless to say, the roll-on/roll-off ships are a replica of Yankee war ships from which tanks, guns, and trucks could disembark.
But automation has achieved its maximum expression in grain ships and in ships carrying liquids such as oil and gas. These ships do not require dockers. In the port of Barcelona grain is mechanically loaded and unloaded through wind funnels. The company in charge of this, Conden-finas, has only to hire a limited number of workers.
Commodities in containers have a secret character: they can not be seen. The containers themselves are stamped in military fashion with numbers. This considerably hampers the struggle against arms shipments which dockers the world over wage. Through the use of containers, the abstract character of commodities in their circulation phase is intensified, alienating wage labor more still.
Technology in the docks has changed the conditions of labor. Don-finated by the inexorable pace of the machine, dockers no longer suffer as much from physical fatigue as they do from nervous fatigue. Dockers have always had high accident rates but with mechanization the tendency is now towards more and more fatal accidents. Occupational ailments have changed from sore muscles and back problems to nervous exhaustion and stress. As in the rest of industry, safety conditions have changed and have given rise to new dangers for workers.
Port Organization of Work and Wages
The work of a docker essentially consisted of loading and unloading commodities from the ship to the port and from the port to the ship. This was carried out by a gang of workers and mechanics (related administrative work was shared between the workers and foreman). The gang was always made up of the same people and had considerable control over such work situations as work speeds. The gang not only wielded a high degree of power on the job it also engendered a strong sense of solidarity. The solidarity and support between members of the gang knew no hierarchical gradations. This generated a collective expertise that was passed on from generation to generation. In this way, the organization of work remained in the hands of the dockers themselves, who created directly democratic organizational forms that went beyond those organizations primarily concerned with the sale of labor power. The way dockers got paid was different from the way factory workers get paid. A docker's wage was determined by the tonnage of g6ods his gang loaded and unloaded and also by the kind of rods that were handled. The wage received per ton was divided equally among the gang (see Table 2). It was a daily rate, set by the OTR Permanently employed dockers receiving a weekly wage were exempt. This manner of establishing wages made workers more aware of their labor as being just one more commodity-and partly explains their high combativity and consequent high wages. In other words, the dockers knew what they were selling. Looking at Table 2 we can appreciate the extent of their victory: their rates increased while minimum rates changed only minimally.
But the introduction of containers has changed the wage-tonnage relationship to a wage-container relationship. Wages therefore are no longer determined by the tonnage moved. The bosses try to hide this fact through legislation and by introducing more technology. They know that their idea of wage/productivity is substantially different from the dockers'. The worldwide tendency in the majority of ports is to eliminate the wage-tonnage pay structure and to substitute it with a guaranteed wage, making dockers more and more like other industrial workers.
Elements for a Short History of the Port of Barcelona
The historical relationship between the port of Barcelona and the industrial development of Catalunha will not be analyzed here. Nor will we discuss Barcelona's importance as a French port or the profits accumulated over the centuries by the bourgeoisie from the wages they paid dockers. We shall limit ourselves to discussing the type of work and contracts made since the birth of the OTP, and the workers' struggles they have given rise to. *
From the beginning of the century until the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, dock work was characterized by favoritism and a tap on the shoulder. Favoritism involved humiliation and reached such great proportions that it even included on occasion being kicked through a hoop-i.e., those who didn't go through the hoop didn't get work. The plaza, the pen where workers sold themselves daily, functioned so that the bosses could choose the most loyal workers. Labor conditions were harsh-for instance, the dockers had no shelter from foul weather.
Though the bitter strikes of the 1920s laid the basis for the end of favoritism and the beginning of job rotation, the Repubhcan government abolished this practice. After eight months of bitterly fought struggle-in which eight workers, mainly from the CNT, were killed-the practice was re-established in 1931. After July 19, 1936, the port itself was collectivized and after the events of May 1937 control of the port passed into the hands of the Generalitat or, more correctly, the Republican Army. When Franco's troops entered the ports in 1939 the dockers' collective suffered a great defeat. Many dockers were killed. But those who survived cut loose the moorings of the ships in an effort to destroy them.
After 1939, the dockers were made to sing cara al sol and once again had to parade up and down the wharves. In 1944, the OTP was formed. Created by Giron, the OTP was a vertical trade union and company labor exchange, which the port bosses had to use in order to hire dockers. The OTP also took over the management of social services, such as care of the aged, which this Minister of Labor was so interested in. Like the CNS, the OTP's structure was vertical-and standing atop the pyramid was the Under-Secretary of Labor.
The OTP re-established the rotation system of job hiring, setting up a registry of dockers and ensuring that all dockers had the chance to work. In time, workers were accredited with unemployment pay for the days they didn't get hired.
The OTP also enacted some labor ordinances controlling work speeds and wages-though it was up to the dockers to see that these laws were enforced. The abuses by the dock companies made these ordinances a dead letter until the dockers collected their forces under the protection of Giron's paternalistic legislation and saw to it that they were implemented. This was the first demonstration since 1939 of counter-force on the docks.
Like other vertical unions, the OTP was used by the workers to aid their struggles. The dockers had a double motive in using an organization like the OTP since it was both a labor exchange and a trade union. As is the case in many European and American ports, union cards were needed to get work. If the workers were too disruptive or did not obey the dictates of management/union they were fired.
Bit by bit, control of the OTP passed into the hands of the dockers' collective. The first thing the dockers did was to ensure the rotation of job hiring. Then they guaranteed social assistance and pensions. When the vertical union withered away, the dockers latched onto the OTP as their own organization. Once the tool of aggressive dock capitalists, the OTP became the bulwark of workers' power. It is easy to understand the companies' annoyance: an organ they had created to discipline and suppress dockers had become their principle enemy. Dockers are not naturally oriented toward a sort of guild organization nor are they corporatist (as more than one union leader has called them at press conferences). They are imbibing the same brew that the companies made them swallow-but now for their own ends. They don't want soup. Then drink from glasses!
The Organization of the Dock Workers
The following chronology of the 1980 dockers' struggle draws heavily from one prepared by a member of the Coordinadora. It is based on his own experiences and also on information he received from all the Spanish ports. We had intended to publish this chronology in its original form-but the final part, which presumably would have explained that the dockers won was never completed; Spanish dockers within the Coordinadora have told us that one day there will be a conclusion. We hope soon. In the meantime, though incomplete, this chronology-as a worker's statement-is an excellent subversive factograph and is potentially much better than the text from InIdolencla. The original Coordinadora chronology was printed in Luta nos Portos, edicoes Contra a Corrente, Lisbon, 1982.
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To explain how our organization arose we must go back to December 1976. Twenty-one unforgettable days! From our collective there arose the cry: "Strike defend our wronged comrades!"
El Port, No. 6, Bulletin of the Barcelona Dockers
The Estibadores Portuarios de Barcelona (OEPB) had its origins in a strike which began on November 12, 1976, the day a general strike had been called throughout Spain. As did workers elsewhere, the dockers suffered repression at the hands of the bosses for joining the general strike. Seven dockers were sacked. But in contrast to other workplaces, the dockers answered back. After paralyzing the port for 2 1 days, they got their comrades reinstated.
Born of this struggle, the OEPB was the direct expression of workers' autonomy. It had nothing to do with the official workers' movement and had even to battle it to survive. The OEPB was part of---theother workers movement," an assembly movement which had been openly proclaimed during the shoe industry strikes in Vitoria and during the construction industry strikes in Roca.
The press-without exception-accused the new assembly movement of being unruly and irresponsible. Capital and the unions tried to bury it through the Moncloa Pact. But the---otherworkers movement- continued to manifest itself for several more years: in Fasa, in Ford, and in the ports. After the 1978 and 1979 strikes in Fasa (Valladolid) and in the Ford Almsafes factory were defeated, however, it was the dockers' collective that alone survived. But the OEPB had always gone against the current both in its organizational form and in its high combativity.
Conflict in the docks took on a new clarity with the OEPB. Management asked: what do these dockers want- The dockers answered: the organization of all the docks in the country. And so the Coordinadora grew-outside the control of the majority unions of the CC.00 and the UGT. Over time it created an international network of dockers and had the Third International Congress of Dockers convened in Barcelona. Present at this Congress were representatives from Italy, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, England, Belgium, France, and Spain as well as delegations of exiled dockers from Latin America.
The 1980 Dock Strikes
In 1979 the OEPB called a strike for December 21, 27, and 28. This strike proved to be the baptism of fire for the Coordinadora and the beginning of a huge conflict which would sweep the ports in 1980. The immediate cause of the strike was the privatization of the docks and a proposed reform of the OTP which would have meant that dockers would no longer be able to use it as a contracting body. Twenty-four docks controlled by the Coordinadora-about 12,000 dockers, out of a national total of 13,500-joined the strike. In those docks controlled by the UCT and the CC.00 work went on as usual. This despite the fact that the UGIF and CC.00 had agreed to walk out.
In Coruna scrabs tried to break the strike and caused confrontations that led to the intervention of cops. In Gallicia there were many arrests and injuries. This was to be the shape of things to come for all Spanish dockers. In Tenerife the army, the police and the Guardia Civil had to form a security cordon for the scabs. However, in the end it didn't do them much good anyway since the ships were boycotted, through go-slows, when they got to their final destinations. In England, dockers refused to unload cargo that had been handled by scabs. They declared that they would call off their boycott only after:
1) Striking dockers were paid the same amount of money as the scabs that had loaded the ships.
2) The company gave $1,000 to a good cause.
3) The company apologized to the Coordinadora.
According to English dockers, these demands were made---ata moment of high tension: the port authorities had threatened a lock-out and the dockers a general strike if they attempted to impose one.---These three demands---~'a bitter pill for the bosses to swallow"-were finally met.
Conflict began anew in May when the Coordinadora decided to push for a collective agreement in which Dockers' jobs and the former system of labour contracts would be guaranteed. It also tried to stop the "secret"
negotiations that were taking place between the Administration and ANESCO (the port bosses' group) in which dockers' rights were being whittled away.
Strikes continued throughout the summer, leaving a trail of injuries and even death. On July 2 1, Belen Maria, the daughter of a Canary Islands docker, was run over by a car when she joined her family in a sit-down protest at one of the entrance gates of Las Palmas.
By the end of the summer, management had to concede defeat-for the first time in the transitional years. It reluctantly signed all the points of the agreement the Coordinadora had proposed.
The Decree and the Dock War of 1981
"Once the union battle was lost, then the political battle began."This is how one ANESCO representative described the port bosses' plans after the strife-torn summer of 1980. Taken over by a team of analysts belonging to the OECD, dock management began to try to reverse the provisions of the agreement they had signed with the dockers by waging a war against the dockers and against those small dock companies which, because their profits were threatened during the strikes, had been the first to sign it.
Under the banner of modernization, a new decree was proposed which threatened these small dock companies with extinction. It set a minimum number of workers companies had to pay weekly and forced even small dock companies to contribute heavily to paying for dock infrastructure. The decree also proposed converting the OTP into a labour exchange, which companies could use whenever they needed workers. Under the new proposal, if a docker refused to work for a particular company that company could hire from among the unemployed. This would be the avenue by which the dock companies could legitimize hiring scabs. The decree also called for the setting-up of local councils made up of equal numbers of management, dockers, and administration representatives to maintain worker discipline and control work speeds. Since each group in the council had the same voting rights, it was obvious to the dockers who would run them.
What the bosses had lost in the agreement they signed with the Coordinadora they tried to get back through a clean decree from Madrid. The decree unmasked the true intentions of the State, which had all along feigned neutrality by defending only the---right-of bodies to negotiate.
Since the decree was so openly anti-docker it could not be enforced all at once. The bosses decided to attack the dockers' collective at its strongest point. They applied the terms of the Royal Decree first to the port of Barcelona--where,- according to the bosses in HoJ'a del Lunes, -- the national leaders of the Coordinadora are to be found.-- Dockers responded by calling selective strikes when four companies (CEOSA, MAPOR, Contenemar, and Viaritima Layetana) tried to carry out provisions of the new decree. These strikes led to 4,000 instances of workers being disciplined and the firing of 173 workers. But the strikes themselves were ineffective because the companies hired scabs.
Throughout the year we can distinguish two stages, both clearly defined by the methods of struggle. The first stage was marked by the selective strikes against the companies that had applied the decree - above all in Barcelona and Tenerife. On the first of November 1980 the barrio of Barceloneta came out on a general strike in support of their neighbours - the dockers. The dockers' wives played an important part in the struggle. As a protest, 400 women occupied the Santa Maria and on 17th November '80 a demonstration of women and children was broken up by the police using all the anti-riot gear at their disposal.
Barceloneta was stormed by the police and defended street by street by the dockers and their neghbours. The final result was several arrests and many workers and police hurt.
On the 6th of January, 198 1, the Diario de A visos published the proposals of dockers from Rochester in England who refused to unload 45,000 boxes of tomatoes and 3,000 bales of peppers from Tenerife. The 'Asociacion de Casecheros y Exportadores de Tomate de Canaries' signed an agreement with the dockers, consenting to export its produce through companies which had not signed the decree and would not employ scabs. On the 26th January the selective strikes were called off. 300 scabs continued to work, 200 of them belonging to the 'Fuerza Nacional. de Trabajo'. The president of this organisation was to be seen afterwards at the EFE Agency.
On January 28th the President of Barcelona Port, Carlos Guell de Setmenat declared to the press: "The workers taken on by the port have saved the Catalunian economy." It was a homage to the scabs.
The second stage began on the same day as Guell's announcement. In a confrontation between workers and scabs hired by Maritima Layetana several hoists were chucked into the harbour, with scabs still on them.
The dockers decided on a go-slow to prevent the scabs from putting them out of a job. On February 1st the Barcelona dockers refused to work on the "Cuzce', a ship bound for San Salvador and waiting to be loaded up with 20 Fiat tanks. Other ports were told to keep an eye open for the ship so the boycott could continue. Later, the dockers were told the ship's cargo was bound for the Peruvian military.
On February 10th '81, sacked dockers occuped the Italian ship "Aquila" as a means of bringing pressure to bear on the matter of getting their jobs back. On February 23rd and 24th a general strike was called throughout all the Spanish ports in solidarity with Barcelona. These were particularly tense days but the failed coup did not succeed in stopping the mobilisation.
Management spokesmen did not delay in sending communiques to the press announcing the total ruin of the port of Barcelona. Nevertheless in Maritima (a local publication dealing with the port) the following news item could be read: "According to studies carried out, the only 3 European ports in which tonnage shipped in 1980 actually increased were as follows: Amberes 2.4%, Hamburg 1.4%, Barcelona 4.8%. "
The daily El Pais, one of the newspapers most favourably disposed to management, announced that the strikes on February 23rd and 24th would lead to a loss of 50,000 million pesetas a day. Meanwhile companies belonging to the port announced their intention to close if the climate of anarchy and violence did not cease. On February 25th, temperatures on the wharves rose and incidents between scabs and workers only ceased when shots were fired. The strikes set for the beginning of March were called off as a demonstration of the dockers good will, faced with the prospect of negotiation.
On March 1st the bosses agreed to the readmission of 72 workers in CEOSA. On March 18th, El Noticiero Universal mentioned the attack on the Mapor headquarters and the beating up of its Director. Given this background the bosses refused to negotiate. Lopez Fando, director of the OTP made a statement to La Vanguardia in which he stated "all dialogue must take the Decree as the basis for reform - the numbers of workers employed in the port is superabundant and the best paid in the world. " (March 25th). Antonio Llado spoke to the press in similar terms: "A go-slow means working two hours a day hence the price of goods rise. "
On April 2nd, the La Vanguardia newspaper published a statement by the dock's bosses about the conflict: In 3 months, from the 9th December to March 24th 1981, 262 of the newly contracted workers have been hurt, some of them badly and there have been 56 aggressive acts. A container hoist wvs wrecked worth 83,000 ptas., 3 cars were burned, the lamps on 6 cars were broken and there have been 32 slashings of tires. The Correo Catalan spread more light on these imperfections: "3 tractors ruined, 3 hoists thrown into the water, 2 hoists with their wheels broken, 2 hoists with their motors ruined, 17 platform supports wrecked. "
On April 25th '81, the courts (Magistura del Trabajo de Barcelona) voted in favour of the workers, declaring the sackings of the 23 workers null and void. On April 28th, Barcelona dockers decided to work a normal shift calling off their go-slow. This was a gesture of good will, leaving it up to the courts to reinstate the sacked workers. On May 1 5th '8 1, the Servei Territorial de Trebell de la Generalitat ruled in favour of the workers demanding the reinstatement of the sacked workers. A comment sprayed on the walls went as follows: "Whenever they take charge of a matter it is already too late" (para una vez que tienan competencia sobre un asunto, llegan tarde).
On May 22nd, the workers tried to evict the scabs once more because the companies ignored the verdict of the courts. The Civil Guard and the National Police were there to prevent them. On June 15th '81, the Greek ship 'Trade Monter' was occupied to protest against the failure of the companies to implement the court's decision. Two days later, the occupation was called off, even though the companies still continued to ignore the courts. On June 8th, the Contemar company, in a letter to El Correo Catalan condemned the practice of sabotaging port machinery.
From this chronology one can judge the bitterness of the conflict which in its second stage seems to carry us back to the 20s and the years of 'pistolerismo' when the Catalan ruling class supported by scab unions broke strikes and shot union leaders, forcing the worker's organisations to also shoot back..
At the height of summer a peace formula was finally agreed on. On July 8th, scabs left Mapor. A few days later, a rumour began to circulate about a possible local agreement concerning the port of Barcelona that might bring peace back to the port. Meanwhile, the courts ruled in favour of the sacked workers declaring an the sackings null and void, with the exception of 17 sackings, which were pronounced inadmissable in court. CEOSA and Mapor rehired the sacked workers and the 17 workers whose case was declared inadmissable were returned to the Plaza (the practice of sharing out work equally). Sacked workers belonging to Maritima Layetana have still not been re-' hired but they have been paid weekly by the company since
June 13th.
As a result of the agreement signed August 31st 1981, scabs are continuing to work in the port but not for very long. At the moment, Maritima Layetana has 9 8 scabs, Contemar 3 8 and CEOSAjust around 12.
This local agreement is simply a temporary peace treaty and both sides are conscious of the fact. It is necessary to get rid of many jobs and do away with the Coordinadora if Spanish ports are to comply with the interests of the multinationals. The workers know this and will in the future be on the look-out.
'Our Organization'
This text was written by Barcelona dockers who had been elected to co-ordinate the strike movement in the Warcelona docks in 1979. In an interview in the Diario de Barcelona, (December 2nd, 1980) with some Barcelona dockers we-can read: " Our organization was born within the assembly movement of 1976, with the break from the verticalist'CNS union. The comittee which had led the 21 day strike was mandated by the assembly to form a more stable organization. We put this idea out all over Spain and it was accepted in the majority of ports ". The document, dated October 1979, elaborated an organizational proposal and was presented by the Organization of Barcelona Dockers (OEPB) to a national conference of docks'.representatives-held in Barcelona in October 1979.
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1
The union practice in our country was totally annihilated after,the fascist victory in our civil war (1939). The systematic persecution of the militants of the traditional unions, and of those men within the working class who demonstrated their combativity, wrecked all possibility of organized struggle.
All the workers who were left imprisoned in the centrally controlled union,- the CNS, were dominated by the high ranking leaders of the Falange. Amongst our victorious enemies these people stood out the most. The workers' representatives in the factories and work places were chosen by the bosses and entrepreneurs. The CNS with its black lists was an organ of control and a means of purging the more rebellious workers.
During the 60's the first struggles began to bubble up. Strikes broke out and people were mobilized. They were set in motion by the class itself by means of clandestine organizations created by the workers in their place of work. These organizations were intended for struggle and were not influenced by, or dependant on, any political party.
From the co-ordination of each factory section and struggle an independent and unitary form of organization began to re-appear. This organization was the Workers Commissions (Commissiones Obreras - CC.OO.)
It was initially an absolutely democratic organization conststing of assemblies formed by delegates from the factories, regions etc. The Con=ist Party, after several years of political opportunism, ended up taking over this organization, turning the CC.OO into the mass organization, mouthpiece and the political platform of its' militants and leaders. Their slogans and manipulations fucked over its' unitary and councilist character. This provoked the large splits out of which grew different organizations and different unions. These splits came from the left of the CP and each new party which formed gave birth to its' mass, or union organization. The great workers' struggles that took place in the last epoch of Francoism couldn't help but be fragmented and encumbered by the weight imposed on them by the political groups which took them over or pushed them along.
2
In any case because of the anti-francoist character of the whole movement there had to be some common ground. On the trade union level, this meant principally the destruction of the fascist union, the CNS and trade union freedom. But here also there appeared two clearly differentiated forms of practice:
1. That of the majority unions which, though illegal, were already expanding and taking shape (CC.00. - already totally dominated by the Communist Party; the UGT, traditional union of the socialists of the Socialist Workers Party of Spain; USO - Union Sindical Obrera etc.)
The alternative was to take over positions within the CNS. So they put themselves up for CNS elections as mediators and civil lawyers in the factories. They believed this provided a legal cover from which to direct the struggle in the firm and avoided the repression meted out to other militants while enjoying a wider audience amongst the masses. Clearly they were out to inherit, in the near future, a structure (given the crumbling of Francoism) which afforded the possibility of capitalizing on struggle and militant unionism.
2. The leftist parties with a small class presence; groups of independent militants who began to define themselves by the autonomous, self-organization of the class, and anarchist groups organized in their union, the CNT. They defined themselves as being for a direct struggle against the CNS, with the aim of destroying the vertically organized union.
Their struggle was brought to a head with a successful boycott of the CNS elections for mediators and civil lawyers and a demand to isolate and sack those that remained. At the same tine there developed an alternative organization totally on the margins of the CNS which, by its' ability to struggle, had to be permitted by the employers as the only negotiating organ. Basically, the form of organization generated by this group was the ASSEMBLY and the COMMITTEE OF DELEGATES. The former was the ultimate decision making organ and the latter was a body elected by the assembly, whose members were, revocable at any moment, to carry out decisions reached in the assembly. These organizations of delegates from the factories co-ordinated themselves on an area, or, branch of work basis.
3
Up to that point in tine, the struggle in the Spanish ports, as in other branches of production, had followed this dynamic. In the docks a number of comrades had managed to rise up to prominent positions in the CNS and from these positions of surrender had succeeded in attaining a relative peace on the waterfront. Confronted by management and the harbour companies their personal intervention had weakened conflicts which could have taken on a more general and radical aspect. Organized in work gangs, the combativity of the workers was alone capable, when problems arose on board ships during working hours, of resolving in their own way the thousands of questions that the specific organization of dock work raised.
The organizational problem in the docks began to be posed when it was recognised the CNS was already, because of the wear and tear of the system and the increasing discredit of its representatives, an outdated organism.
There had been ports where posts of mediators and civil lawyers had been occupied by CC.00. militants and militants belonging to other unions (Corunna, Vigo, Sevilla). Because of their support for some struggles these leaders had been sacked.
Concretely, in Barcelona, although spontaneous flare-ups existed which exploded in into strikes, the representatives of the CNS easily succeeded in recuperating the movement. In the 1975 elections, CC.00. candidates were victorious and traditional representatives were obliged to step down. (Amongst them one could probably find honest men of a combative spirit who had been recuperated by the uselessness and bureaucracy of the vertical system).
It was because of the strike convened by the central unions ~ the COS (in the docks the CC.0O.) on the 12th of November 1976, when 7 comrade-representatives were sacked, that the dockers' collective came out on indefinite strike (with the opposition of the CC.0O.) which lasted 21 days. The strike demanded the daily gathering of the Assembly to keep people informed and to directly control the extent of our action. We were forced to be the authentic protagonists of our decisions. The assembly demanded of our comrades that they give up their positions as mediators of the vertical union, which, once again, appeared to be allied with capital in order to repress us. The assembly elected a strike committee which was at any moment subject to recall, and whose delegated members had ~io power of decision, nor of negotiation, beyond that decided by-the assembly.
The most difficult stage of Barcelona's dock struggle, during the francoist era, took place under the cover of this form of organization.
4
The lesson was not in vain. The committee of delegates had to be accepted by the bosses and management as the sole organ of the assemblys' representation.. Even after the dock strike they had to admit to the assembly as a fact of life. The unity and strength with which the collective was prepared to defend the tools of its daily struggle was total because they had proved their worth.
Once the strike was over the committee of delegates asked to be allowed to step down because the reason they'd been elected no longer applied. But the ASSEMBLY gave them the task of drawing up an organizational proposal based on their estimation of the way the strike had been run and which could assure future struggle.
At this point in time there began a great polemic between the different options of the moment, a polemic which was already being debated in the general context of the working class throughout the whole of Spain. (Franco had died and with him there began to perish many of the Francoist structures, amongst them the vertical union). The unions were beginning to understand the task of controlling the workers was down to them. Each union, as one may guess, had in its' possession the sole solution. Our unity was being threatened by the sectarian struggles waged among the central unions.
The unity maintained during our difficult strike had taught us that this unity was too precious to be destroyed now by endless slogans, membership cards, sectarianisms etc. We understood that our decisions could not be delegated to union bureaucrats. This experience had a decisive influence on the consciousness of our struggle. To hand over proletarian responsibility to representatives is to throw away our need as a class to participate in social transformation. We realized we would never arrive at the social revolution through leaders or liberators. Those caught up in and distracted by the obligations of their position and the representative function they flaunt, end in distancing themselves from those they represent. As they are not affected by the same problems, troubles or struggles they end up almost unable to recognise them. The estrangement is inevitable. But there are too many invitations to dialogue, to negotiation, to integrate etc for this ever to become apparent to them.
We were conscious that large organizations which are not continually inspired and invigorated by the base end up burocratizing themselves. They serve their own structural ends and defend only themselves, forgetful of their authentic objectives.
We realized our organization must not have as its sole aim the task of entering the job market to fix the price of labour. To negotiate the terms of this sale and thus perpetuate it, is the role allotted to the unions in the capitalist organization of society. For this reason they are re-inforced by the State, by the bosses' organizations and all the realms of power. They concede to the unions their role as moderators, as walls of containment of the energies the working class can develop to radically transform the environment. Those barriers prevent the working class from questioning the existence of the sale of labour power, the social organization and finally fr6m questioning its existence as a class.
We understand that we cannot fall into the trap which capital has prepared for us to divide our life, our behaviour, into different spheres - political, trade union, cultural etc. Our social life is one, everything is inter-related. The sole object of this division is to reduce to undialectical categories for discussion that which for us is a real global problem which demands a solution in practice and which cannot occur without a transformation that implicates every aspect of social life.
Confronted by the previously described conjuncture and based on the preceding points of analysis (without suggesting these are the only ones) the decision of the ASSEMBLY of Barcelona dockers was to create an organization where all power of decision remained always in the hand of the assembly. This organization was to be UNITARY, CLASS BASED, AUTONOMOUS, INDEPENDANT, and SELF-ORGANIZED.
UNITARY: because it tends to unite all the dockers of the port of Barcelona, independantly of their political, religious, cultural opinions etc.
CLASS BASED: because all its' members have to be wage earners and for this reason to belong to the working class and consequently antagonistic to capital. Their demands won't remain restricted to the economic level but will also be social in the widest sense, right up to the elimination of exploitation of man by man and the alienation of work for capital.
AUTONOMOUS: because it will be the workers themselves who will decide on the aims to be pursued which means giving consideration to and employing whatever methods are necessary to regain control over their lives.
INDEPENDANT: because it is not, nor will it ever be, subordinated to any political party, nor to any union, ecclesiastic organization, nor to any other organization such as the State or civil service.
It will be permitted to contact union bodies that are representative of the working class, always given that they show mutual respect for the principles of LIBERTY, AUTONOMY, internal DEMOCRACY and INDEPENDANCE.
DEMOCRATICALLY SELF-ORGANIZED: because it will be the workers themselves who determine the organization and what bodies it requires. In the same way their representatives will be elected from amongst and by its members. These necessarily will be dockers, who will also be freely revoked whenever a majority of those they represent consider it necessary. In accordance with the aforementioned, we will take care to avoid burocracy by not allowing anyone who holds a burocratic position in the docks to vote on any question, problem or issue.
During the past three years we have struggled to remain loyal to these principles. The procedure organic to its functioning has been to hold a General Assembly once every two months and an assembly of 24 delegates at least every week. In addition we have already held two elections to delegate committees taking care to ensure that between delegates and the committees appointed to carry out certain tasks no burocracy whatsoever arises. Throughout, the assembly has been kept informed of any measures that have been taken and an information newsheet has been set up which any docker can have free access to.
6
We were confronted with serious problems in our practice:
a) The lack of class consciousness. The degree of integration reached by the present day society of consumption. The ideological vacuum we are suffering from and the internalization of bourgeois legality.
b) The problem of facing a difficult epoch of crises and political change where all the forces of the left showed themselves interested in helping capital overcome its' difficult situation.
c) Constant attacks by the bosses in the docks in order to obtain a change in our organization of work which would allow them more room for manoeuvre and enable them to realize their profits. In the same vein they wanted to strengthen their authority over the manual workers and extend privatization favouring docks infrastructure and trade.
d) There were hardly any organizations like ours which could have come up with a better kind of support and which was to the mutual benefit of both of us. However democratic illusions have in some ways caused us to submit to the renunciation of struggle and a desire for pacification developing in the big central unions. So the workers' struggle has receeded. This has retarded co-ordination and reciprocal solidaristic struggle.
e) The continual attack on the part of the State and the bosses towards all the minority, assemblyist, autonomous organizations. This attack we share with the CNT (anarchist union) which nevertheless, did not stop them from being seduced by the siren-songs of the Grand Negotiations, the offers of participation, the promises which came from on high etc.
f) And that which has been the gravest of all - the continuous attack launched principally by the central unions - the CC.00. (Communists) and the UGT (Socialists) They have yet to digest the defeat they suffered in such an important sector as the ports and the part they play in the economic life of the country. Let's not forget the ports could bring a significant pressure to bear on the political-economic framework of the country bearing in mind the internal repercussions and the international attention any action in the ports could attract. It is for this reason that the political realists understand that it's a sector which should not be left in the hands of anyone and which they are interested in dominating as a support for their politics.
Their efforts have been continually directed at hindering any successful outcome to the struggle and collective negotiations going on within the ports. Questioning the validity of representation directed from the base by committees of delegates, they proposed themselves as the sole valid expression and representation of the whole of the working class in the country, by virtue of being majority central unions. However their presence in the docks is minimal, a fact which has constantly defeated their endeavours.
The systematic use of the media which in this so-called democratic epoch is to a great extent already a dominant force, boycotted all our information and attacked us mercilessly as if we deserved to be treated as enemies of the working class.
Without doubt the principal themes of their attack has been to define us as cowards and of being guilty of a corporatist mentality. This is not the place to enter into our defence but it is simply worth mentioning that our struggles have been constant, our methods radical and to point out what we've achieved by struggle without conciliation and without making pacts with the bosses, the support and solidarity given us by other comrades and sections of the class and as far as possible, in each situation, the critical capacity of our analysis of the capitalist organization of society,etc. all of this demonstrates, given what was possible in each situation, what we really are. Our definition and defence lies in our movement, in our actions, in our daily practise. And this is public and daily and in the service of the whole of the working class - and it is from them that we await the verdict and not from the politicos with opinions and ideological systems which defend external interests.
Here we should make plain the difference between ourselves and the radically different position held by comrades in the CNT. Their position as an organization has been different all along. Right from the start they did not seek to pit themselves against the will of the ASSEMBLY. Rather they put themselves at its service and participated actively in its struggle, aware that only through this form the unity of the dockers' collective could be safeguarded. They supported the assembly organization, including their militants within it, without, of course, stopping being a union.
7
The rest of the dockers' collectives in the country were also caught up in the efforts required to leave the dictatorial epoch behind and to discover their direction within what should be union freedom.
Judging above all, by the results of the first free union elections, we can delineate three organizational tendencies, taking into account, of course, that, although we lump them together, each port has its own peculiarities- we hope that their contributions to this congress will define them with greater accuracy:
1.Those who opt for a massive or majority affiliations to the large central unions existing throughout the country: principally, the CC.00. and UGT. With a presence in the little ports and with a minority of all the national dockers' collectives, it cows to 13,500 dockers. On top of this there are those dispersed in unions of a national character in some of the regions of the country (principally basque).
2. The docks which chose to create a local union which was exclusively for the docks and had the clear structure, principles and goals of traditional unions. With a presence in the large ports and many of the small ones, they amounted to a good part of the collective.
3. Those who chose to support our self -organized Assembly experience, giving to, it an organic - form and a legal front. With a presence in the large ports, they amounted to another large part of the collective in a number of docks.
One must make it clear that a lot of the time there were two of these in the saw port. As a consequence there were internal struggles until one or the other obtained predominance. In fact there are docks even today in which alternate forms still making it difficult to comprehend what's going on.
8
Despite all these differences a living desire united us: the necessity of having a nation-wide unity to confront the common enemy (the central administration and the national organization of port employers, ANESCO), one which struggled to overcome wage differentials and sought to introduce labour regulations on a unified basis.
Here there arose the difficulty of moving towards a national co-ordination of the dockers' organizations.
Basically, we all understood that this co-ordination had to be based on absolute respect for the organization or alternative which each collective had made in their port.
Only the UGT and the CC.00. intended unity to cone about through their unions since they are national central organizations. For this reason they were excluded from the co-ordination and went onto the attack with their typical accusations. However it is necessary to note these worthwhile exceptions of docks which, while having a massive affiliation to these central organizations and which, without abandoning them chose to continue with the CO-ORDINATING ORGANIZATION (Cartegna, Alicante, Motril ....)
The CO-ORDINATING ORGANIZATION continues to understand that only solidarity in the daily struggle, continual non-sectarian discussion, the taking up of common positions vis-a-vis common problems... can yield the fruits of a total unity at every level ideological, organizational and in terms of action.
In the meantime, we continue to consider a plural, democratic, assembly CO-ORDINATING ORGANIZATION in terms of the reality of the base which inspires it. guarantee of this co-ordination is equally present in its practise of absolute information, assembly decisions imposed from below and, above all-, in the common actions carried out unitarily in all the docks until now.
The CO-ORDINATING ORGANIZATION recently came to constitute itself with some statutes and guidelines for its functioning that we put forward as a contribution and working tool to this congress.
In order to state our purpose somewhat more clearly, we can say we want this to be an organization of unity and struggle which shuns burocratization and bosses. All decisions are to be arrived at through the assembly. No one is obligated to belong to it neither are they excluded from it. Being dockers is what counts.
9
Finally and in conclusion, we want this report to be simply an instrument, without any other purpose than to provoke discussion at this congress. We don't propose this as an exhaustive and conclusive struggle; we are conscious of its multiple pit-falls, of the hasty way we have dealt with a process spanning a considerable period of tine and containing a great number of nuances, circumstances and multiple happenings. At times certain statements could be gone into at greater depth.
With this as a basis we look at what is going on around us. We don't therefore want anybody to feel hurt for having being excluded or because we have set a limit to their experiences.
We are not trying to show that our process has been the best, nor the richest, nor even that it has arrived at the most correct conclusions. It is simply the nearest and thus the most familiar to us. We only want to propose it as one more contribution to the debate for the consideration of everybody.
We believe that it is only from this point, from our struggle, from our movement, from our contribution to the transformation of our social relatiQns, from our own context in the exploitation of man by man, from the systematic destruction of nature... ..that we can extract the conclusions necessary to continue the fight.
We also expound those desires which impel us to pursue an international unity which becomes vital not only for the desire to establish a brotherhood without frontiers but also because of the multi-national nature of exploitation, of domination.
It is a workers' unity forged from reality. Without that we will be bowled over by pretentious claims. It has to be understood as a necessary process - but without beguiling ourselves with stages which have already proved their ineffectiveness in the historical experiences we have inherited from our class comrades.
Finally, one must understand that -the emancipation of the workers will be the task of the workers themselves or will never take place.
Barcelona 12th-13th and 14th of October 1979.
The GO-ORDINATING ORGANIZATION elsewhere in this pamphlet is referred to as the Co-ordinadora.
A Message From Dockers To Their Unemployed Comrades.
All the docks in the country have been at a standstill for five months. The port bosses have attempted to take our jobs from us (as they'll take yours one day). Appropriately we in Barcelona have been on strike in 10 docks since Monday.
In order to break our strike the Government has declared that the use of scabs in the docks is legal. The Employment Office is taking care of apportioning scabs to the port bosses as they are needed. Under threat of suspending unemployment benefit, workers are sent to take the jobs on offer in the docks. The few comrades that have fallen in the trap have retreated once they have realized their mistake - especially after seeing how a job in the docks meant being under the close scrutiny of the Guardia Civil. Nevertheless there are groups of scabs and provocateurs who mingling with the unemployed have attempted to break the strike.
The dockers are intent upon continuing their legal strike and to resolutely defend our jobs. We denounce the shameful role the Government is playing which instead of resolving your grave unemployed situation, makes you undergo the shame of being scabs. Although we appreciate your desperate plight we would like to dissuade you from being taken in by those who take advantage of your necessity, in order to continue exploiting you for their own profit. They shan't give you a job except you pit yourself against other workers. To achieve their purpose this is what the bosses are trying to do.
STRIKING DOCKERS Barcelona. 21. 7. 1980.
ANESCO Circular.
Dated August the 13th 1980, ANESCO announce that they are "entering the political struggle" and intend to use the media and journalist/cops singling out the liberal daily El Pais and the Stalinist influenced Cambio 16. This circular and the dockers' reply to the Cambio 16 editorial was published in La Estiba No 4, the bulletin of the Co-ordinadora.
*********
ANESCO
ref FGU/PGM
13th August 1980
INFORMATION CIRCULAR NO 22/80
As ANESCO has indicated, while having lost the trade-union battle in this serious problem that has laid waste every port in the country, we have begun to wage a political struggle in which we have succeeded in getting the media to mention the docks problem in a series of articles published in the largest and most prestgious periodicals and magazines, in order that public opinion is informed about the problems of the sectors with maximum clarity.
For your information we adjoin photocopies of articles published in the daily newspaper El Pais on the 9th, 10th and 12th of August by Rudolfo Serrano under the title:
"THE URGENT RESTRUCTURING OF THE DOCKS"
An editorial published in the magazine Cambio 16 no 454 and signed by D. Juan Tomas de Salas, entitled:
"A MAFIOSO MINISTRY"
An article published in the magazine CAMBIO 16 no 454, entitled:
"THE VERTICAL MAFIA - LEFTIST"
THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT BY THE "UNTARNISHED CLARITV OF THE BOSSES, THE ADMINISTRATION AND SOME SO-CALLED PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS.
*******
Editorial From Cambio 16
A MAFIA MINISTRY
Festering at will, this country is a storehouse of surprises. The worst of it is, many of these surprises stink to high heaven, even more so if the State appears to be mixed up in all the stench. And worst of all, Franco-leninism continues calling the faithful to prayer, bringing civil society down to its level. It's a fair bet you didn't know the Ministry of Labour was organising and financing wildcat strikes in Spanish ports- It's a fair bet you weren't aware that notable Gironists (Francoist Minister of Labour), prompted by anarchists, super-communists, ETA syndicalists, and other radical elements have set up a docks mafia which would make Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando and the "law of silence" on the "Waterfront" green with envy. And all of them are, surpise surprise, in the Ministry of Labour, grouped under the autonomous organism of the OTP's negotiating sector.
There's more to come. A sub-secretary belonging to the Ministry pulls the strings manipulating the strikes. He is in control also of the large sums of money that go to finance the franco-leninist mafia and whatever's left over is divided up amongst State functionaries. It is Marlon Brando's Mafia thrice over. A shabby national disgrace.
What is to be done- The Government cannot continue supporting strikes together with all the extremists belonging to the sector. The OTP must go. As always, the CC.00 is attempting to take over the dockers verticalist organisation with all the lifts in working order. "Yesterdays' red shirts" turn into "yesterdays' black shirts" and the Giron verticalists have become even redder than Rioja wine once they saw their jobs as dockers' mandarins were at risk. The Commissiones Obreras, State functionaires and extremists have together profited from this strike forcing management to give in and making sure that Spanish ports continue to be the most costly in Europe. Bread for a privileged few today but hunger for everyone else tomorrow. One cannot carry on like this.
The francoist dockers' structure must be dismantled and the UGT and ANESCO have drawn up a plan to do just this. The Government cannot organise a docks' mafia and collect money for it. The Ministry of Labour must stop providing "protection" - and receiving money - for dock companies and dock workers. Getting rid of the extraordinary OTP and restoring power to the dock companies and unions is the only solution. In a country with such a high level of unemployment it is intolerable that a mafioso minority should sustain itself on dock labour, receive awesome salaries, put the national economy at risk and prevent dockers who don't hold the sacrosanct OTP card from working in the docks. Dockers are dockers and not those the OTP say are dockers. And all of this is organised and supported by the Ministry cif Labour. Incredible. Right honourable Minister, this country really deserves an explanation.
Chairman of 'Cambio 16' Juan Tornas de Salas, Editors Note: As you have not deigned to give me an explanation, I am announcing that I am thinking of asking for one, week after week, until the Minister gives me one. Enough of complicity and silence. You are either asking for corruption or are against it. There is no. other way.
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A Docker's Reply.
From La Estriba #4
Workers cannot, of course, be made into slaves. But that does not mean that attempts to turn workers into slaves should be taken lightly. If such attempts were a laughing matter, we could dismiss Juan Tornas de Solas by shrugging our shoulders and saying "God, what a wretch that man is!"
It is wonderful to see how eager Juan TomAs de Salas is to take up and peddle whatever lies his employers care to dole out to him. What humiliation for a man (a man-) to be forever spreading lies around that he didn't even think up for himself!
For example, Juan Tomas de Salas, you say that the workers have been exploiting ANESCO-the organization of their poor, gullible bosses. Where, exactly, do the workers get the power to that- Don't tell us you believe-or expect your readers to believe-that the dockers are so powerful that they can impose a code of silence on everyone, including their bosses! The simple fact is that you are so servile towards those who tell you just what to print that you affect not to know that the code of silence, here as in docks all over the world, is imposed by a powerful mafia otherwise known as, the employers. Could you conceivably be unaware of this- Give us a break! just tell us one thing: why should the workers of Spain-or of anywhere else for that matter-aid and abet their own exploiters by imposing a code of silence which brings comfort only to their enemies- Do you think there are one and a half million unemployed in this country because we, the workers, want there to be- ... No, Juan Tomas de Salas, the law of silence is always, always, ALWAYS imposed by the bosses. And it is imposed to humiliate the workers, to turn them into slaves, to oblige them to work more, and to back up the bosses' threat not to hire anyone who doesn't do everything they are told. This way, Juan To~ de Salas, if the bosses don't like someone, all they have to do is point the finger. And it's precisely because they want to continue pointing the finger that they want to privatize the docks. It is ANESCO, esteemed Juan Tomas de Salas, which wants to point the finger, which wants to privatize the docks - and which imposes the code of silence ...
If 1 weren't afraid of the economic power to which you have given your allegiance, if 1 didn't already know just what that power was capable of, 1 would reply to you in the kind of language you would understand. As it is, 1 am afraid to do so. But don't go thinking, Juan Tom.~s de Salas, that 1 am afraid of you. How could 1 fear someone so utterly cowed, someone whose only purpose in attacking others in print is to get ahead at his newspaper ... Fancy needing so much schooling just to get ahead at that lousy paper! You miserable bastard! All that schooling and still so dumb! You would say anything to get ahead, but i know one thing, Juan Tomas, that you don't: YOU DON'T STAND A CHANCE!
THE DOCKS CONFLICT. A Safe Investment.
EL PORT. Information sheet 6/80 of the Barcelona Dockers.
The big dock companies are paralysing the port. A group of related companies and multinational firms protected by ANESCO, the port bosses organization, have imposed a lock-out in all but name on the port of Barcelona. They want to suppress competition, crush the dockers and dictate their conditions through a monopolistic system. The case merits careful examination. Without the faintest pretence these big companies have announced their intentions. They are bent on taking sole charge of the port facilities ~ that is of a public service. In order to achieve their ends they had no misgivings when it came to a conflict. They could sustain a long dispute thanks to the important financial support they possess. The small and medium sized companies have no other choice but to beat a retreat and abandon the docks. The workers themselves will have to submit to the one boss. The country will incur the cost of this top level undertaking. To create a dispute any excuse served. With the aid of the Government Administration it proved enough to drive the workers to the wall. They knew full well the dockers'collective would never accept the dismantling of their work structure in the docks. On Oct the 29th '80 the dock companies got what they needed to paralyse the docks. With the aid of a simple decree, the Government abolished in one fell swoop a system and organization of labour the dockers had won under a republican government. They had always defended this and it had been legalized through an agreement - the last in fact that took into account the characteristics of dock labour itself in the ports. Leaving to one side the judicial aspects of this conflict, it is certain no decree could modify the conditions reached in the agreement. Nor could the Government Administration interfere in matters of labour relations which belonged exclusively and inalienably to those it concerned - as set forth in the agreement. But in this instance legality doesn't amount to much. For the big dock companies, it was a question of a "political struggle" permitting dirty tricks which were then dressed up. Was it really necessary to stop all trade in the docks just to get rid of the small and medium sized companies- Yet the docks ground to a standstill. Was it really necessary to put before the workers an unacceptable decree in order to bring the docks to a standstill- But this is what happened. Confronted with this conflict you can guage the measured response of the dockers. Dockers' organizations in Barcelona and nationally, calculated exactly the scale of the problem and the consequences of each of their actions. They has always avoided regarding the bosses as a single entity knowing that the "political struggle" was also directed against the weakest dock companies. Therefore the dockers had attempted to keep things moving in the ports.
The strike which began on November the I0th '80 was directed against only four dock companies in the Port of Barcelona. Its sole purpose was to warn the bosses of the necessity of changing their plans. These four companies had signed and then not carried out the docks agreement. This is an exceptional situation and demonstrates a certain contempt on their part, although in general those companies that had no intention of carrying out the terms of the agreement, preferred not to sign.
Now they are losing their export trade and commodities are piling up on the wharves. The moment of truth has arrived. They are losing their export trade and commodities are piling up because a reduced number of companies are intent on taking over the port and won't make good the loss especially since they are run from a long way off. If goods remain on the wharves the company that produced them foots the bill and indirectly the country itself. So much so that dock companies, bent on saving their last penny, lay off 70 workers. The dispute in the docks has cost them very little and with luck and sow help from the Government Administration could yield big profits.
Who's Who In The Docks' Dispute.
(Written by some Dockers)
The conflict has already been going on for four months. All are complaining about the losses this is causing not only in our port but in all sectors in Cataluna. Everyone appears fed up with it. But no one dares pronounce one-word or take a step in the direction of even a glimmer of a solution. And it is the case that so many interests and influences are being brought into play in the port that we will never get to grips with all of them.
The Ministries of Public Works*, Labour and Transport appear to be the driving force behind the legislation which while attempting to restructure the sector have, in fact, organized a 'mopping up' operation. But this is only in appearance because the famous piece of legislation is the result of a political struggle which the big bosses announced in the media during August 1980, after they'd lost what they called.the union battle. Protectors of the bosses in the Government are many but at the apex of the pyramid is to be found Calvo Sotelo[*c/f Glossary *] who appears to be the man that managed to get the legislation through for ANESCO. And it isn't so preposterous to think this considering his connections with the business world and more concretely with the CE0E*. Thus it's hardly surprizing that the administration puts so many obstacles before us, ensuring the legislation is properly enforced and legality respected. This was the present he handed on a plate to the bosses and it was they who dictated the letter of the text approved by the Council of Ministers. Faced with such extremes - as he exclaimed to a high official in the Ministry of Labour: "no piece of legislation containing all the recommendations put forward by business ever left this Ministry."
The Minister of Labour complained because he had been condemned the most in the entire "business". And in this vein everyone is thinking of the 1,000's of million pesetas that circulates through the OTP. All those who criticize the OTP of mismanagement of funds have arrived at this conclusion through an overestimation of the amount of control it has over this money. So much so that it cannot even meet paying its officials and dockers. But who can insist that another branch of Government administration can offer a more clear cut form of management-
The Ministry of Public Works who initiated the battle against the Ministry of Labour has, as regards the dockers, enlarged its ministerial powers. The bosses being able to elect the Minister, granted him in the legislation, overall responsibility, knowing full well this Minister's head is stuffed full of ideas which will make things better as regards the world of money. On the other band this is the Minister who through the works juntas* is sponsoring the politics of privatization in the docks which the big multinationals are so interested in. In order to consolidate this new political initiative it was necessary to give guarantees in every structural, administrative and individual sphere. Hence the need to monopolize every function; because what this country has demonstrated is the inability of official organs to jointly settle a matter. When this happens an ideal situation arises and people are ordered about from every direction at once and the Government is able to shirk the consequences without assuming any responsibility for resolving the matter.
The OTP wanting to radicalize the situation more and bring the ports to the point of total collapse, lost no time in getting the Dockers' collective to mobilize. Not being in agreement with the legislation, the OTP thought fit to interpret the legislation in the crudest possible way against the workers, believing the workers would th-en rise up. For instance social security is to be instantly axed (there is as much likelihood of this happening as doing away with the Marine Social Institute); we will all be unemployed; those that had a permanent job (though some of these have now being sacked) will not be given a pension. Moreover all administrative means shall be at the beck and call of the companies who will discipline us and refuse to have anything at all to do with what one could suppose a proper organization of labour formerly belonging to the OTP. Its zeal led them to believe that they could even close the Port Library. The workers appreciate that the OTP is putting up a defence and are inclined to help but it just isn't on ethically at the cost of our skins. The OTP is mistaken here and we cannot at any price let it go because it is playing the saw game the bosses are intent on playing. This is not surprizing as far as the dockers are concerned because this has been their role since the start but there are times when deceit becomes even more intolerable.
The Transport Minister - third member of the triumvirate struggling to dominate the OTP - has up to now been waiting for his rivals to mutually cancel themselves out. However there exist many indications that point to him as the alternative. In a recent UCD-,i~ conference he presented himself as a force the OTP could be asked to depend on. The Minister of Labour faced with the Transport Minister preferred to give way so as not to lose when confronted with his secular enemy, the Minister of Public Works. And the XT a union that has no representation in the ports, already senses a change at Government level under the tutelage of its master the PSOE-*. So it campaigned for the alternative provided by the Ministry of Transport. Thus if nothing happens in a short time we could suffer another dizzy spell in the ports, with the.Minister of Transport beginning to run the docks without asking for the workers' opinion. The present legislation has granted powers to the Transport Ministry which is linked through its regional authorities to the Marines whose military arm deals with labour matters. This is one of the secular survivals of the former francoist regime which the merchant marine has fought against and against which the dockers are already engaged in struggle, We have had some experience of how zealous some of them are in carrying out their disciplinary function.
In this situation of ministerial rivalry, the bosses assembled in ANESCO, which is linked to the CEOE, is being quite accommodating because, in view of the rich pickings at stake, what one side doesn't permit the other will. The bosses policy of putting itself in the front row of the Government Administration, making it dance to its its tune, is producing extraordinary results. But ANESCO after the defeat it suffered in June is no longer a coherent body possessing a lot of members. Because of the policy of non-negotiation it has pursued, ANESCO has not known how to get out of the present conflict. So its members have been obliged to find their solutions on various occasions either actually in the ports or, at the company level. They remained masters of the situation in name only. ANESCO affiliates, although paying lip service, were situated on the margins of the co-signatories. Small and medium scale enterprizes were resentful once more of the association because they had found out that its policies implied their disappearance. Actually ANESCO apart from serving the interests of a few big businesses linked to the banks and the multinationals is an empty organization. Hard nosed technocrats belonging to these organizations make use of ANESCO's organization which in these moments represent no one. They amount to the most determined bunch of businessmen and industrial relations analysts who advise the CEOE in the country. They are made up of high officials belonging formerly to the CNS, their boss being Fabian Marques. The docks' struggle is testing his reputation as a member of a Government cabinet which has destroyed the most determined workers' struggle in the past few years. In the docks they have already suffered a defeat and in the present conflict, they are bringing every professional expert they have to bear on the problem in order to restore their lost prestige. What matters is not the docks nor its affiliates because the experts are only defending their interests from a professional viewpoint while the conflict lasts.
The Ceneralitat[*c/f Glossary *] wants to be a touch stone of the conflict. Although it's true the conflict originates in Madrid, it is Cataluria which stands to lose the most. But since it sees how black and impossible things are, it prefers not to participate so as not to compromise its image. But there are matters it can deal with, in particular the hiring of scabs. But having a common cause with such important supporters as port bosses, how could it be expected to expose the companies gigantic fraud- In addition the Bank of Cataluna has big investments in the docks. Also it seems Madrid did not want the Generalitat to intervene and if it did, it did so on the orders of Madrid. It did not know how to gracefully get out of declaring the employment of scabs illegal and so it has had to put up with them for four months. It is pitiful to see the Generalitat which has been primarily concerned with increasing its powers holding debates to avoid exercising those it already possesses.
The big central unions, the UGMC.00. are hardly represented at all in the docks. Unfortunately for the bosses and the Goverment these unions have not managed to establish their sway over the dockers' collectives, so that they could be the 'responsible' managers stifling dissent amongst the working class in the ports. The circulation of commodities could be seriously held up here because 907. of Spain's import/export trade is dependent on the docks. These unions accusing the Co-ordinadora of being mistaken attacked it on every occasion, accusing it of irresponsibility, extremism, cowardice, etc. Of course they did not support the actions the dockers undertook however just their demands might be. As the main union power, because of its dependence on the PSOE, the XT was to back up the port bosses, signing the agreements that implied the acceptance of the entire capitalist plan of re-organization in the docks and of course what promises to be the mcnopoly of labour relations in the docks. The XT and ANESCO instigated joint press campaigns against the Co-ordinadora which economically were supported by the bosses. The CC.00. who at a general level is questioning the UGT's right to hold the leading position as regards union politics also tries to discredit the Co-ordinadora. Without supporting the Co-ordinadora's struggle it nevertheless makes overtures to it, so it can flex its muscles in front of the collective and take credit for its victories. But by maintaining close contact itself with the bosses, it was able to take over the structure and influential positions held by the Co-ordinadora. The Government, the bosses and those big central unions never ceased saying publicly that all what was wrong with the docks was the fault of the, dockers themselves who weren't organized in Trade Unions possessing a 'majority'. Without doubt this reveals once again the function played by Trade Unionism in capitalist society. Their organizations were able to discipline and control the workers and are absolutely essential to the reproduction of capitalism. All attempts at a negotiated settlement to our conflict met with the Goverrmients' stricture that these unions had to be seated around the negotiating table. No matter that they did not have the 1.0% membership required by law to play a part in the negotiations. This minimum required by law had been insisted upon by the UGT and CC.00. to check the advance of smaller trade unions which they supposed would take up more radical positions thah theirs. These big central unions together with all the bosses and the Goverrmient Administration are now planning repressive measures against the Co-ordinadora which one might suppose implies its dissapearance.
But the options open to the dockers through their assembly led autonomous struggle becomes clearer the more trade unionisms' manouverings stand revealed. Their silence when it was apparent Fuerza Nueva[*c/f Glossary *] were being employed as scabs, their cordiality with the bosses lowered them in the eyes of the proletariat who continued to struggle with determination. This struggle clearly was pointing in the direction of anti-capitalist objectives, then, was obliged to lower its sights given the reflux of class struggle in Spain.
All internal struggle between different State organs, between different forms of capitalism, contradiction between small and medium capital, between one or another political and trade union power, we recognise perfectly as minimal, logical contradictions in capital's already too long voyage. But all they really do is mask the prime contradiction between labour and capital. In this moment of struggle it is within this contradiction that the dockers'struggle is inscribed.
The Port Will Win.
The following text was read out at an Assembly of Barcelona dockers on December the 15th, 1980 by a worker who was not himself a docker. The Assembly, held in a local Barceloneta cinema was attended by some 500 people and was held chiefly for information purposes. After describing some of the events of the previous days (the attack on dockers by scabs in a bar, the occupation of the Marine Institute by dockers'wives and the events on the Western docks) some Trotskyist politicos tried-to address the meeting but were booed and hissed until they were forced to leave. When some CNT people tried to speak, there was the same reaction but the table in a paternalistic way, called on the meeting to let them speak. They did speak although hardly anyone paid attention. The following text was then read out and initially provoked a hostile reaction - when in calling for consciousness of the plight of the unemployed, it appeared to some deaf souls, to be justifying scabs. Finally it was listened to. This document was stamped by the OEPB and distributed afterwards.
Eye-witness report.
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ASSEMBLY OF DOCK WORKERS
Comrades,
We daubed this slogan on the walls but once having done it a doubt crossed our minds. Will they win- The doubt won't go away and we have to recognise it for what it is. Only then can we begin to discuss your struggle and what the chances of victory are. Whatever we have to say to you is done with the sole aim of lending support to your struggle. Do with it as you please. If it is of no value to you, chuck it away.
1. Your struggle has attracted attention. During a moment of capitalist crises it is a response to a restructuring process calculated to expand capital. Mindful of your own interests you struggle against such a restructuring, doing whatever you hold to be right. So far so good. However doubts arise the moment you begin to defend small capital against the multinationals (i.e., the private sector) because you then set yourselves up as defenders of nationalization against a stronger opponent. When you do this, you are not only kidding yourselves but us also. You make the struggle between the multinationals and small and medium capital, between ANESCO and the OTP, between private and State capital, between the most reactionary and the most progressive factions of capital appear to be not an inter-capitalist conflict but 'a struggle between capitals' interests and your own. You therefore tend to confuse our anti capitalist class perspective, the starting point, one day, of an assault on capitalism, with capitalist perspectives.
The same doubts creep in when you reason that it is the multinationals who have caused the crises and all that you are asking for is that the ports continue working normally. All you have done is confuse us still more because you do not say that the capitalist crises is we ourselves, the working class. If we did not sell our labour power, which is an essential commodity to capital, there would be no capitalism. Once we negate ourselves as a class and stop supplying this life blood, capitalism cannot reproduce itself.
We must not attempt to rescue a crises ridden economy and hold this to be in the general interest. Don't elect to "democratically administer the ports as a public service because this is a capitalist option. We must never lose sight of our power to destroy capitalism. Capital wants us to fight on the same terrain as itself. Whenever we opt for a capitalist solution, like bothering about the state of the economy believing it guarantees our material well being, we do precisely that.
2. Your struggle has been branded corporatist by the big central unions, out to re-inforce your isolation, and by others who want to see you crushed. So it is ~ just like all our struggles. Corporatism always exists whenever a particular section of workers, makes a sectional demand that is detached from demands made by other sections of workers or groups. Take, for example, unemployed workers who demand a job or workers, still in work, who demand a wage rise or other concessions. Take those who daren't demand anything at all for fear of losing their jobs. Take workers faced with the sack (like yourselves and others belonging to the "companies engaged in struggle") who demand to be kept on. This latter demand could be generalized to cover, at the very least, all the other companies engaged in struggle. But because these struggles were not timed to take place together or on account of the nature of the demands raised, they went their separate ways. Yet what serves to unite them is nothing other than our condition of being wage slaves, subject to the law of the economy. No matter how utopian it may seem it is here that the unity of the proletariat is to be found. The struggle against this condition raises the possibility of generalizing class conflict and extending class solidarity. Class unity is not-essentially an organizational problem but springs from something we are all opposed to: our condition of being commodities in the system of wage labour. When we oppose it we are no longer acting according to sectional interests but as proletarians in order to cease being so.
The amount of class unity and solidarity is nothing other than the sum of the demands. This is not a question of degree or quantity but of vantage point. However trite a struggle may seem it is capable of uniting us provided we are struggling for, something we want and refuse to be sidetracked by the state of the economy or the firm. We might appear to be giving our assent to what exists and acquiescing to any number of aspects of capitalism but from this vantage point we can focus on everything else. If this wasn't the case the end of capitalism would be a pure fiction because only an explicit struggle against the system of wage labour would then have the power to unite us. We have already seen today how this process gets under way, precisely because there is a continuity between the demands put forward and the abolition of wage labour. More particularly, we have felt its presence in the relevant questions raised, during struggles of this kind, to do with what kind of society we want, what kind of production we require, what kind of life we want to lead and how best to set about achieving them so finally we can put the capitalist machine we set in motion, behind us. Then we need never surrender our labour power to it again. Capital cannot substitute this commodity for another, in the same way, for example, it can substitute atomic energy for oil, should the need arise.
3. Generally, in pursuit of demands, violence is called for. (There is, however, in many struggles an obvious discrepancy between a disproportionate use of violence and the quality of the demands themselves). This could also be your failing. However this is not to deny its use provided it abuts demands and does not become detached from them. For example, dealing with scabs, although primarily a social problem, also involves the use of violence. Few of us have made provision for the day unemployment relief runs out, so, there have been a few violent arguments with scabs forced back to work because of unemployment. Solving this problem has more to do with extending the struggle than suppressing it on an individual basis.
4. A final word on the assembly which is your weapon of struggle. Thanks to it you have prevented the central unions gagging and manipulating you. On several occasions you have waged a successful struggle through it and it will continue to bring you victory. But don,'t handle it roughly because it is highly vulnerable, assailed by burocratic inertia and on the point of collapsing through our own weakness and accomodation. Don't allow it to waste away, don't convert it into a species of bourgeois parliamentarism. Let rotation and revocability always remain in force. Don't lean permanently on the same comrades no matter how honest they might be. As you told us in your open assembly two weeks ago: neither representatives nor represented. For every action embarked on, for every strike and clash, elect a committee. Hang on to it for all it's worth; cram it with a class content. Minus this content it is worth nothing, or, it is worth no more than a central union. Extend it, break out of your corporatism even more. Continue to open it up - to us, to your wives, to your neigbourhoods. In that way we are able to discuss your struggle and what solidarity action we can take because what you then do is also our business. We are rebelling against being unemployed, against domestic work and factory work, we are rebelling against our status as wage slaves and proletarians. One more step if we don't want to stay this way.
fraternally, some comrades.
(Barcelona. 15. 12. '80)
The Dockers' Assembly And Supporting Committees.
To All The Workers Of Catalunya
We the dockers of Barcelona have been on strike for the past month against four companies - the most important of the sector.
With the aim of installing a powerful disciplinary regime the port authorities are gambling on a ruthless attack on the workers.
on account of the new tecnical facilities they want to eliminate jobs leaving workers unemployed.
They are striving to destroy a workers' organization which has demonstrated - through the Assembly - its capacity for struggle and unity in action faced with the agreements - always negative as far as concerns the working class - which the central unions are imposing. In the final analysis, it is an attack by multinationals in order to install their dictatorship; privatizing the ports and eliminating competition so enabling them to absorb transport costs within a monopolistic system.
During the last four years the dockers' struggles have not only hung on to the concessions we have obtained but needs to and are succeeding in maintaining and increasing the numbers of workers employed, reducing the working day to six hours and imposing a levy on all companies which reduce the workforce by installing new machinery, thus guaranteeing a wage for the workers who are made redundant.
We are struggling in short to combat the effects of the crises proposing solutions that benefit the workers.
our mode of struggle has been direct action and immediately obtaining our rights. This has been rendered possible thanks to our assembly organization where none of the workers can delegate their responsibility in solving their problems. It is an organization which through the practise of joint struggles has equally demonstrated its viability through the Co-ordinadora - nationally and internationally. ANESCO (the port bosses association linked to the Spanish CBI) has brought all its influence to bear on the Government which, abandoning its democratic mask to carry out its real repressive function, is playing the role of protagonist. This has been done through a law eliminating our right to strike and legalizing the use of scabs protected by the police and the Guardia Civil.
With the aid of two more decrees, they are attempting to annul the Dockers' Statute and all that was obtained as regards the docks in last summers'(1979) agreement. They are implementing by decree the reduction of the workforce, handing over control of labour matters to the military marines and to the Juntas* where six authorities and six companies are destroying the workers' collective.
This climate of company inspired terrorism has already begun to make its effect felt. There have been more than 3,000 instances when workers have been penalized and a further 172 workers have got the sack out of a collective comprising 1,500 workers.
Right now, the claims arising out of our struggle center on the negotiations concerning the Decree the Government has granted to ANESCO. Without making any concessions we demand the following: job preservation and stabilizing the number of workers employed.; elimination of the disciplinary regime exclusively in the hands of the 'bosses; maintenance of rotation so that work can be equally shared out amongst all members of the collective ;that the minimum number of workers that make up a gang is not reduced and that the minimum level of output required for each stint is not increased.
Without doubt, repression of dockers' struggles is one more to add to the list of other workers' struggles rebelling against capitalist domination in the present situation. This repression condemns us first to unemployment in order to persecute us as either hooligans or terrorists afterward's. This is evidently the case in the Caso Scala [*c/f Glossary *] trial where some young workers five been tragically converted into tools of the authorities to degrade a section of the working class. A comrade from Minie has been sacked simply for being voted onto the factory committee. It applies to the 2 million unemployed workers obliged to beg for their right to a living. There are the continual measures, lay-offs, company closures etc.
All these things are provoked by the same old exploitation created by the dictatorship of capitalism.
Confronted daily with this capitalist repression, confronted with a capitalist exploitation which grows ever more intolerable as each day passes, it is necessary to respond with unity and solidarity. We are calling on you to advance towards it together.
9. 12. '80. Barcelona (THE ABOVE LEAFLET WAS HANDED OUT IN THE STREETS OF BARCELONA)
Some Historical Notes.
This article was written by a worker from Barcelona who, while himself not a docker, had accompanied the dockers' struggle closely. The article was written at the request of some French comrades and published by Contra a Corrente, Lisbon in 1981.
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The Present Struggle of The Spanish Dockers.
Establishing adequate political conditions to make capitalism more profitable both on the international scene and in Spain continues along its contradictory path, moving on from the old francoist regime towards its necessary modernization. Without the integration of the working class in the Economy and the 'national interest,' this is not possible. Parties and unions get all steamed up over perfecting this objective. However they are constantly checked by workers resisting such integration and submission. This resistance goes from mere abstention (50% in the Parliamentary elections and in the last union elections) up to the explicit rejection of these forms of gagging. This occurs when workers organize in an autonomous manner in decision making assemblies with elected revocable committees. Just so the dockers. Their collective which has resisted manipulation by the central unions has, as outlined above, organized itself autonomously and an attack has been unleashed against the restructuring/modernization of capitalism in the docks.
The quantative and qualitative importance of this branch of industry (representing 62% of the import/export trade with the EEC) - as well as the dockers' combativity over the years, accelerated the corporatist francoist organization of dock. labour. (For example in 1931, a strike which lasted 8 months and left 8 dead, managed to re-introduce the equal dividing up of labour amongst the dockers which had been achieved in the 20's and then was got rid of by the Republic). Under the francoist. Giron[*c/f Glossary *](1944) the OTP was founded which combined privilege and corruption with the super-exploitation of manual labour and high accident rates. Dependent upon the Ministry of Labour, the OTP drew up the terms of the agreements which the dock companies had to accept. And this is how the rotation system dividing work equally amongst the dockers was once more set in motion.
The technological modernization of the docks (containerization, roll on/roll off) required the transfer of State managerial functions to private multinational companies able to support the cost of the docks infrastructure. Previously this had been the State's business because of the high investment required. Also there was the matter of competitiveness (all the more necessary because Spain was faced with integration into the Common Market) and the need to modernize Spanish capital mentioned previously. To achieve a greater profitability these combined factors required a major restructuring of the docks and ports entailing both the destruction of the OTP and the greater exploitation of dock labour.
This latent tendency resulted in direct confrontation even before the summer of 1980. An agreement putting an end to the OTP was signed by ANCESCO. This association was intimately linked to the bosses' Confederation and to the UGT, the Socialist union which was hardly represented at all in the docks. But this agreement clashed head on with the reality of a workers' collective organized in autonomous assemblies. A victory was scored over ANESCO when the agreement was rejected. After a strike lasting several months, the Dock companies were obliged to come to an agreement with the dockers' Co-ordinadora (a nation wide body elected by Assemblies of dock workers) representing 85% of all dockers. This agreement included improvements contained in the Dockers' Ordanance and other advantageous aspects of the OTP which-the workers had no intention of renouncing. The assembly organization which the dockers have adopted arose in heat of battle in the port of Barcelona in 1976 when a strike lasting a month was called against sackings. This organization, spreading to all other ports in Spain placed all decision making powers in the hands of an assembly and elected constantly revocable committees. Though in an absolute minority in the ports, the combined efforts of the big central unions have not so far been able to weaken the assemblies. They lack the presence of a typical trade union structure inside the docks.
With the agreement signed the battle had been momentarily won by the dockers. However ANESCO realized it could not speed up the necessary restructuring of the docks by seeking confrontation with the dockers in this way. So, getting the Governments ear, it started to play tough. In due course the Government passed legislation (October 29th '80) favouring ANISCO, in which the OTP was reorganized and the workers were handed over to the dock companies and the last word in repression i.e. the Military Marines and the Dock's Director. The Ordanance of Dock Workers acknowledged in the summers' agreement was done away with, the right to strike abolished, the use of scabs permitted and the number of workers employed forcibly reduced by law. Also labour matters were handed over to Tribunals composed of six lawyers and six dock companies who proceeded to crush the workers.
To prevent the legislation being applied the dockers resolved to fight back. On the 10th of November 1980 they came out on strike. The strike was restricted to those companies that did not conceed the four minimum points which if not amounting to quashing the legislation, modified its application. Faced with a strike threat, the majority of ports signed an agreement but in Barcelona, four large companies (Contenemar, Maritima Layetana, Ceosa and Mapor) refused. Over-ruling the others they started to apply the legislation sacking dockers and bringing in scabs in response to the strike they had provoked. The four minimum points - a condition for calling off the strike-were as follows.: the refusal to allow the dockers' collective, indivisible up to now, to be slit up into registered and non-registered, job conservation and job stabilization; maintaining the rotation system ensuring a fair work distribution; getting rid of disciplinary procedures exclusively in the hands of the companies. Lastly there were to be no productivity hikes per shift and the minimum number of workers settled on per gang could not be altered.
This selective strike has been going on for the past two months with other ports joining in (especially the Canaries). When workers struggle for their immediate interests taking daily decisions on the conduct of a strike, they are no longer reduced to merely voting and consuming. Passivity gives way to individual and collective acts of resistance. Incidents between dockers and scabs heavily protected by the police and Guardia Civil began to break out. Some responded with solidarity action, (one day the entire district of Barceloneta where many dockers live came to a standstill, many militant actions were undertaken by dockers wives, assemblies sprang up and demonstrations joined by other workers took place), while there was a lack of solidarity shown by others (the big central unions). Sackings took place, workers were penalized and there were clashes with the police. Tension was high, becoming for the Regional Government a problem of public order. The dockers did not manage despite the violence and the insufficient extension of the struggle outside the confines of the port, to chuck out the scabs. But the police were unable to restore calm. The Civil Governor attempted to intervene in and settle the dispute. After a couple of months, the Dockers' assembly came to the conclusion it might be an idea to call an end to the strike in its present selective form (although this still hasn't happened). The assembly was prompted to do this faced with the impossibility of getting-rid of scabs (which would have made the strike effective) and because of a promise by the Docks Director General for negotiations concerning the readmission of the sacked workers. Negotiations were also to take place on the points mentioned previously, softening the tenor of the legislation. Given the need to have concrete demands raised by the present struggle met and given the unfavourable context - in which there was a slackening of the struggle, both quantitively and qualitively - the dockers, even if there had to be a temporary compromise, had to look for other forms of attack in a struggle they knew would turn out to be long and hard.
The entire process has up to now laid bare a series of contradictions in Capital and amongst the workers. We have seen how contradictions Within capital between multinational capital, small and medium sized companies and the Government proliferated. The dockers made good use of these contradictions although over estimating them in several aspects. They were at times deluded by these contradictions inherent in capitalism aiding the resolution of its problems.p Now for the workers organizations themselves. There was a total boycott of the dockers' struggle by the UGT because it was totally hand in glove with ANESCO. The CC.00. did not-support the strike either and consequently did not call for solidarity from other ports in France and Italy where communist unions held sway. This was hardly surprising because the organization of labour in these ports (where work was not shared out evenly and union elections still prevailed) was contrary to what dockers in Spain were demanding. The CNT was the only union that supported the struggle. It found itself obliged to defend itself before the dockers' assemblies open to all other workers. And in spite of what the CNT claimed, it had to do so from a pronounced anti-union viewpoint saying it wasn't a union in order to criticize, like the rest of the unions, the dockers' anti-unionism. The dockers were able to see this better as a result of the CNT's behaviour in the course of union elections. The CNT did not propose the Assemblies and revocable committees in place of the factory committees it denounced as being in the pay of.the bosses and the Government. Instead it proposed union branches in the factory. As regards the leftists they just played at pledging their support for the strike, a support which collided head on with an autonomous organization containing neither representative's nor represented.
As regards the workers en masse, solidarity actions were few and far between and the dockers were consequently isolated. In a situation where there had been an alarming increase in unemployment (more than 2 million in Spain) fear of being out of work played its part too. So did the determination of the bosses and unions to completely wreck any attempt at autonomy. A