The Greatest Game no more - Redundant Dockers and the Demise of `Dock Work'

Abstract

Prior to the abolition of the National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS) in July 1989, registered dock workers had good jobs. This was the result, first and foremost, of militant solidarity on the part of dock workers and, of course, the NDLS, which was itself a principal outcome of organised struggle. Deregulation post-1989 has transformed `dock work' to such an extent that the industry no longer offers the kind of extrinsic or intrinsic rewards enjoyed by dockers in the past; but the restructuring of the industry was only made possible by the mass redundancy of ex-registered dockers, in particular trade union activists. It was redundancy, in conjunction with the abolition of the NDLS, that led to the demise of what was once the `greatest game in the world'.