At the 26 January conference all speakers were in favour of a general strike including Steve Gillan, general secretary POA, John McCormack vice-president UCU, John Hendy QC, co-author of the booklet “Days of Action”. Chris Bough deputy general secretary and Len McCluskey Unite general secretary.
Vitor Dias, president of the Portuguese dock workers, whose union had participated in the 14 November European general strike was also an invited speaker.
The motion to the conference was moved by Mark Hoskisson, secretary of Liverpool TUC.
Two women speakers had been invited but unfortunately they had been unable to attend.
The motion stated that a general strike will only be called if individual unions “convene emergency meetings of the appropriate bodies to plan a detailed campaign in their unions and major workplaces putting the case for a general strike with speakers enlisted to address branch meetings, workplace mass meetings and town or city wide public meetings in advance of co-ordinated ballots”. It stated, “Once the date has been named, each major town and city a convention of delegates from all affiliated unions should be called and hosted by the relevant Trades Councils ensuring that such action is co-ordinated and united”. It said further that a decision for a general strike must be publicised across Europe so the possibility of a second historic international general strike being organised.
On 14 November 2012 millions of workers across Europe, particularly those in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, took united action against attacks on public services, jobs, wages and working conditions. The conference agreed that these experiences should be built on by taking further united united action.
International workshop
Portuguese dock workers President says – if you don’t fight you will never win.
Vítor Dias, President of the Portuguese dock workers union said that when listening to the first section of the conference he felt he was back home because what he heard is the same.
He was introduced by Martin Ralph, vice president of Liverpool trades council, who said that Merseyside TUC decided that any discussion on organizing a general strike in this country must involve workers who had been part of the historic European general strike of 14 November 2012. He went on to describe the solidarity action across several cities by the trades councils and others including Liverpool trades council and stressed the importance of exchanging experiences and learning from each other across Europe.
Vítor said that they had just ended a five-month strike dock strike which had not achieved their immediate demands but had forced the European commission to alter its policy of privatisation and deregulation of the docks. He said that this change could only be achieved by strike action and that the strike action could only have been sustained by the national and international solidarity received from trade unions, students and youth and other workers. In November they organised an international day of support for their strike and 150 dock workers from other countries joined them in solidarity. That support was organized through the International Dock Workers Council (IDC).
{module Propaganda 30 anos – MORAL}Vítor talked about the growing problems facing European workers. He explained that in the past just the mere threat of a strike could win their demands, or they could achieve a victory through a one hour or one-day strike. But today, after five months, they are still fighting.
He made the link with the wider financial and economic crisis and spoke about the attacks by European governments, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and IMF. In this way he identified common points of struggle for workers throughout Europe.
He said that the worst thing is not to fight, “if you don’t fight you can never win, but if you do fight you’re always in with a chance, to start to fight and resist is already a victory”.
The Portuguese dockers along with other unions and social movements joined the 14N general strike. On 15 September they joined a movement of youth and the unemployed and participated in mobilisations in nine cities of one and a half million. This action was not called by the official union leaderships.
A very lively discussion followed Vitor’s opening contribuion. A question was asked about the role of the police in Portugal. He explained the police have attacked demonstrators, therefore on a recent demonstration the dockers demanded that there would be no police and that they would appoint their own marshals and observers.
Another time the women handed flowers to the police, kissed them on the cheek, and attempted to make friends with them, Vítor commented “it had an effect.” There was a question about sectarianism between trade unions, which had been a problem in Greece. Vítor explained that many unions are affiliated to a trade union central but are participating in actions despite their leadership’s reticence.
Workers from UCATT, PCS, Unite, UCU, the RyanAir campaign, the Manchester United Service Users committee and Kevin Robinson, sacked Liverpool dockworker all contributed to the workshop discussion. Kevin talked about the Liverpool dockers dispute (1995-98) and the support they had received from the dockworkers in Portugal, reinforcing the point on the importance of international support and how important that support is in sustaining their strike.
For information on the Portuguese dockworkers see estivadeportugal. logspot.co.uk, the IDC web site is http://www.idcdockworkers.org/
