EU Shipping

[cappy]

the figure you quote john for union members leaving is not suprising to me whatsoever.....there is no doubt the big battalions were infitrated by the former bully boys with communist leanings our own jim slater admitted he was or had been a member of the communist party.....and there is no doubt many were wary about disagreeing with the head counts in shipyards and many other large at that time union meetings .....as you quote at one time 98 percent in oz were working under union rules now the figure is 12percent ......what happened ...well the rank and file got wise and got out...but back to our MN seamans union.....i put this for louis who is one of the few left ......what was the B O T whack which was union negotiated compared to the rations actually offered on most vessels by the shipowners .....it probably never changed since the 50s when i ist went to sea.....and yet in the 60s eggs every day fruit every day never a shortage of bread .....to be honest the whack was prison food standard for those days .....while second steward on one vessel .....we left the tyne .....the stores were plentiful....we had arabs down below and geordies on deck and catering......arabs came for rations ...ok just tell me what you want and its yours in dry stores .....happy arabs ......along comes the union minded AB ...we want wor whack .....no need ses i....thers stores for 9 month on here..him we want wor whack ....no need ...just give us wor whack.....well ballocks by then right come back and i will have your whack ready ...he got his whack ......4 days later .....back he comes how the fxxx is it we are having to get tea and sugar connie onnie from the bleedin arab firemen.....they have got loads of everything......well i told youyou wanted your bleedin whack and you got it ....probably the whack has changed very little from the 50s and 60s.....dont suppose it was ever a thing the union looked at again.....but then i never came across a union man in shields who wasnt in the old mans pocket as well if needed....unions once needed .....happily not in my life or my era.....cappy

[vic mcclymont]

From the Book "The Changing System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain by H.A. Clegg.
During the unofficial seamens strike of 1960, Jim Slater who was a member of the National Seamen's Reform Group, was with other members of this group struck off from the Seamens Register, which in fact stopped him going to sea. He was allowed to re-register a year later.
The National Seamens Reform Movement wanted to establish a system of shop stewards similar to that of other industries. He was instrumental in calling the unofficial strike of 1960.
He stood for the position of General Secretary in 1962 and was defeated. In 1964 he became the General Secretary for the North East and was elevated to the "executive".
He was active in calling the 1966 Seamen's strike and was branded by Harold Wilson as a Communist, an accusation that he denied.
Vic

[Keith Tindell]

I must have been very lucky, 50-60s at sea , and always had good grub. I can remember the discussion by the older hands when anyone mentioned board of trade whack, and they cautioned, some of your milk butter sugar rations would have to be deducted to go to the galley for cooking, that always seemed to squash the trouble makers argument, . The main complaint i recall on some ships was no overtime, hence shortage of beer coupons when going ashore, kt

[Louis the fly]

When an American first launched his invention of carrying cargo in metal containers it was originally designed for rail transport.
Many shipping companies, looking to the future, saw the advantages of containerized cargo ships. Rapid turn around times in loading and discharging ports, less crew costs, less thefts and damage to cargo. The majority of British ship owners were slow to react to this change and were left with fleets of aging and obsolete ships. Some still with hatchboards, three tarps, locking bars and wedges.
Container ships hastened the end for seamen and dock workers. Our knowledge and skills were no longer required, one man in a crane could do the work of a hatch full of dockers in far less time. Remotely controlled container carriers moved the cargo to their designated positions on the dock sides.
Although all of us who were still at sea at this time were against the rise of the container this was progress, this was the future, it is impossible to hold back the tide of change.
I still expect the same old rants about unions to continue on these pages but unions played no part in the demise of our Merchant Navy.

[cappy]

morning vic .....the reform group was organised by slater and another guy in shields ....it was 2 shillings to join and was to chuck out the resident union in shields and form a new union for seaman alltogether ....they paraded round wearside and the north side of the tyne .....there was some ....i believe many with bad books .DRs etc who saw it as a chance to get back to sea under his umbrella....he had a motorbike and i believe he lived in the horsley hill area of shields at that time ....he had never been deep sea and was a ships fireman he came around the seamans pubs ie the eagle vaults ..mechanics ...and the chi plus others i was approached to join and told him i didnt have two bob ......the union in power then took his union membership away so he could not get to sea ....i have no idea were the 2 shillings for his new movement went ......but i do know through meetings later he got to represent shields as a union rep and the whoops leader of the seamans union who funded him i dont know......

[cappy]

keith i think although the whack was still and probably still is in the ships articles ...it was a shocking set of figures and not much above starving diet ..where by although complaints were part of a seamans rights....the shipowners provided much better fare ......ps except on the beech field where brian was AB....PEGGY ...FIREMAN... TRIMMER....COOK and bring your own grub...no showers and cooked on a size 12 shovel off the coal burning fire....proper hard times ...cappy

[Captain Kong]

Paddy Neary was the Chairman of the National Seamens Reform Movement,
I still have my Membership Card
The strike was from July to October 1960 , there was a break of two weeks for negotiations then on again.
I was on the Strike and out of work from June to October.
Here is an article about Paddy who was gaoled just for making a speech, Cunard put a high Court Injunction on him I was there at the meeting when the Police ran in and arrested Paddy , on the bomb site next to the Sailors Home
The National Reform Movement that caused the strike in 1960, and that would change the NUS forever, is perhaps less famous today than the strike from the same union in 1966. The jailing of Paddy Neary in the 1960 strike, which caused such a backlash, and is the topic Whaley’s musical play, resulted from a clause in the 1894 Merchant Shipping Act. A George Foulser pamphlet analysing the more well-known 1966 strike points out that under the 1894 Act
We Marched around Liverpool a few times and appeared on TV.
The Seamen wanted a 44 hour week, not the 56 hours as it was. so the balance would be paid as overtime.

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During a seamen’s strike, a seaman speaking at the strike-meeting ashore can be silenced and if necessary jailed under the Act, even when he is not on ship’s articles. On application to the High Courts of Justice by shipowners or their representatives, an injunction informs the seaman in question that he must cease from speaking at strike-meetings and from all other activities designed to further the strike, otherwise he is liable to go to prison for contempt of court. A number of us were unable to address our fellow seamen because of injunctions received during the July strike of 1960. These injunctions were still valid in the second seamen’s strike that year, August-September, 1960.[3]

And as Foulser explains it was this particular clause that saw Paddy Neary jailed

It was a July injunction which sent the strike chairman Paddy Neary to Brixton Jail for contempt of court just after the second strike began. Those of us with injunctions against them all got ready to join Paddy. Fortunately for us the Neary jailing awoke a storm of national protest, and the authorities stopped at jailing Paddy. I should just like to make a point as a gentle reminder, that despite being merchant seamen, we are British after all-or are we? -so why should a seaman who strikes be liable to trial and imprisonment? Striking is legal here. This is a free country -for everyone bar us seamen.[4]

So what had Paddy said? According to the Irish Independent at a meeting in Southampton he is reported to have said

‘We want members of the catering, deck and engine room etc. of the Queen Mary to use their influence to stop that ship from sailing. She is in your hands.’[5]

This was considered a sufficient breach of the injunction to have Paddy jailed. The reaction to Paddy’s jailing was remarkable. There were several different marches in protest at his jailing, with thousands lining the streets of Liverpool in protest, one of the marches ending in the Liverpool Stadium, now most fondly remembered as the site of many a prog-rock concert. Years later, in 1969, during a House of Commons debate on the Merchant Shipping Bill, MP for Bootle, Simon Mahon said of the 1960 strike and Neary’s jailing in particular

I want again to put on record something I touched on earlier. We talk about the contributions which Governments have made and why they did not do what they should have done. I remember that during the 1960 strike I contacted the then Minister of Labour. I believe that he is in another place and is now known as Lord Blakenham. He was then Mr. John Hare—a Minister of Labour in those days. On 23rd August, 1960, I had reason to send him this telegram: I request your urgent intervention on behalf of Mr. Patrick Neary who has now been imprisoned for activities in British ports during the unofficial seamen’s strike. I regard the sentencing of this man as unjust and contrary to the best traditions of British democracy. Further, I claim that the law under which this man has been punished is being wrongly used and apart from this my firm belief is that the 1894 Act should have been amended a long time ago. That was part of the telegram that I sent to the Minister at the time. I received an undertaking that amending legislation would be introduced at the earliest opportunity. It has taken a long time. It is a big job, and I do not want to be churlish about it. But I am only one of a legion of people who have been claiming that this legislation should be amended on behalf of sailors.[6]

The strike itself had caused widespread disruption for its duration, other ships as well as the Queen Mary being affected. A statement from the Cunard Company, quoted in the Irish Indpendent ran

‘The Cunard Company are making every effort to assist their passengers in the predicament in which they have been placed by the crew’s completely unjustified disregard of the welfare of the passengers on whom they depend for their livelihood.’[7]

The strike lasted for quite some time and Paddy wasn’t released from jail until the beginning of October 1960 after not just protests in Liverpool, but some 500 who marched to Brixton in September. , Paddy went on hunger strike. At least, of sorts. The story goes that he was in fact getting dillisk sent to him by my grandmother, his sister, wrapped in the local newspaper as a means of keeping him going during the hunger strike. As part of being released, in an affidavit Paddy is reported to have expressed regret and ‘humbly apologised’ as he now realised he had acted wrongly. Nevertheless, when asked did he think this was the end of the Reform Movement, he defiantly stated ‘it is only starting’.[8] In an interview with Bill Hunter, he also said:

‘Let us be clear that while the material gains of the strike were only small, we achieved several things. First, we have laid the foundation for the National Reform Movement. Secondly, we forced Yates to negotiate against his wishes with this movement. Only two days after saying he would never have anything to do with unofficial organisations, he was meeting the acting chairman and the secretary of the Reform Movement, and he also had to humiliate himself by meeting Billy Hart who he expelled from the union in 1948. This stands as a warning to all union leaders. The National Union of Seamen will never be the same again. During this strike many young seamen have become politically and trade union conscious and these will be a great strength in our fight.’[9]

There are aspects of this story which belong to our family, to the family’s collective memory and there is also the historical truth to be claimed from the sources – the newspapers, the reminiscences of seamen, the newsreels. It might described as a tension between family memory and history and ‘proper’ history. If history is really about people, then it can even be about people you’re related to. It is a remarkable thing to be able to bridge the distance and join the story my family knows and that which during those heady final months of 1960, the wider Irish and English public came to know: the story about a man who caused so much trouble for the National Union of Seamen’s conservative leadership and inspired such strength of feeling among his fellow workers. and arrested him.

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[cappy]

brian there is no mention of the future slater president ...who was a communist ....there is no doubt of that ......the country was getting back onits feet .....the last thing folk wanted was communism ...sadly that was hidden well away....but certainly appeared in many high places later.....i was present when he was told you are a commie to which he replied iether yes or i have been a menber of the communist party.....i am talking 60 years ago ...but that was something of a question he answered ....cappy

[Captain Kong]

In Liverpool one of the Committee was Barney Flynn, who was a Communist.

He had a Communist Training School upstairs in an Ale House on the Dock Road. I knew a lad who attended and he was later sent to Mosc0ow to complete his training in Industrial Sabotage,.
I never saw him again.
Around that time many ships had unexplained fires on board.???

[michael hooper]

you are so right.the union took our money and we got bugger all in return.