why did devlin fail? casualism and conflict on the docks

British Journul of Industrial Relutiotrs 2 9 2 June 1991 0007-1080 $3.00

Why Did Devlin Fail? Casualism and Conflict on the Docks Peter Turn bull * and Da vid Saps ford * * Final version accepted 28 November 1990.

Abstract

Following the decasualisation of dock labour in 1967at the behest of the Devlin Committee it was widely anticipated that Britain 'sports would enter a period of indusirial peace and prosperity. In fact, the docks entered a phase of unprece- dented militancy which persisted throughout the early 1970s. This paper examines why Devlin failed and demonstrates how continued insecurity on the waferfront, largely as a result of technological change, continued to be asource of conflict and dissension. More fundamentally, decasualisation was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for industrial peace on the docks, as institu- tiorial reform alone did not address many of the real troubles of the industry.

1. Introduction

For much of the postwar period industrial relations on the docks, and in particular the strike record of the industry, occupied centre-stage in political and public debate. During this period the registered docker became Britain's most strike-prone worker, despite greater employment security, improved working conditions and higher average earnings following the introduction of the National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS) in 1947. To many people it appeared that 'the traditional practice of the dockers is that, if any group of dockers declare a strike, all dockers in that dock will immediately follow suit without question. Their boast is that they strike first and only ask why when the strike is over' (Economist 1950: 1045). Dissension and inefficiency in the docks were therefore the subject of several official inquiries during the 1950s and 1960s, all of which came to ostensibly the same conclusion, namely that the causes of dissension had chaoged little, if at^ all, since 1947 and that the majority, if not all, were associated either directly or indirectly with the casual system of employment. This argument was of course most clearly and forcefully articulated in the Devlin Report of 1965.

* * Senior Lecturer i i i Economics. University of East Anglia. * Lecturer in industrial Relations, Univcrsity of Wales College of Cardiff.

238 British Journal of Industrial Relations

Devlin (1965) argued that the 1947 Scheme had introduced only a measure of decasualisution bv establishing a register of bona fide dockworkers and ‘attendance’ or ‘maintenance payments’ for those registered dockworkers (RDWs) who were ‘underemployed’. The National Dock Labour Board (NDLB) was still the ‘contractual’ or ‘holding employer’ of all RDWs, while the stevedoring companies, dock companies and port authorities were the ‘operational employers’ who actually utilised the dockers’ labour. Thus it was the NDLB that controlled the size of the workers’ register, allocated casual men from the ‘pool’ to the operational employers and exercised discipline over the dockers. According to Devlin (1965: 4), ‘it is these peculiar features of industrial relations in the docks that make dissension and inefficiency more prevalent than in ordinary industry’. The Committee did not suggest that all the factors contributing to dissension and inefficiency would disappear with more regular employment, but it nevertheless stated quite categorically that, ‘if conditions in the docks can be made similar to those in industry generally, a beginning can be made; and the excessive trouble that is a feature of the industry could thus be removed’ (p. 4).

However, empirical analysis has determined that decasualisation did not have the desired effect on strike activity. Our comparison of the pre-and post-decasualisation periods failed to discern (statistically) any effect on dock strikes attributable to the Devlin reforms (Sapsford and Turnbull 1990). But several plausible explanations for this lamentable state of affairs have been proposed: (a) that Devlin’s analysis was incorrect or incomplete; (b) that the analysis was correct but the prescriptions offered were inappropriate; (c) that the analysis and prescription were both correct but were not fully implemented (or else were implemented in a way that provoked rather than reduced strike activity); and (d) that the situation deteriorated after 1965 because of events that could not have been reasonably foreseen by Devlin (Durcan etal. 1983: 288-311).

Analysis of these arguments allows not only an evaluation of why Devlin failed, but more importantly an evaluation of industrial relations reform of the Donovan ilk implemented during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The docks have often been cited as the archetypical case of an industry where, with strong union organisation, fluctuating weekly earnings and a fragmented collective bargaining structure, workers have the means, the motivation and the opportunity to strike more often than their fellow workers in other industries (e.g. Clegg 1979: 272-9). Infact,of Britain’sfourmost strike-prone industriesduring the postwar period (the docks, coal mining, car manufacture and shipbuilding), the docks were the exemplar in this respect. The dockers arguably had greater economic power, both in relation to the state (through theeffectsofdockstrikeson the balanceofpaymentsand thevalueofsterling) and certainly in relation to their employers (as any time lost by a ship in port cannot easily be recovered, nor can a perishable product or late delivery be easily sold on the market if delayed by strike action). Dockers therefore had the means to strike and to do so independently of any formal union organisation; their pay fluctuated more than that of any other occupational

Why Did Devlin Fail? Cusualisrn and Conflict on the Docks 239

group, as the majority were engaged for only a four-hour ‘turn’ before being returned to ‘the pool’ to ‘shape’ for work again, thus giving the docker greater motivation to strike; and the performance of dockwork by small gangs under conditions of almost infinite variety, depending on the vessel, the cargo, the time, the equipment and the weather, gave them more opportunities for bargaining than possibly any other occupational group. The failure of institutional industrial relations reform on the docks is therefore of more general significance and potentially a ‘test case’ of the ‘Oxford School’s’ theory of industrial conflict which had such an important influence on industrial relations reform in the late 1960s and beyond.

2. Casualism, conflict and the effects of decasualisation

Before examining the four hypotheses proposed by Durcan et al. and attempting to discriminate (statistically) between them, it must first be established that Devlin ‘failed’. In short, it must be demonstrated that decausalisation had little, if any, effect on the pattern or determinants of strike activity on the waterfront. In proposing that casualism actually caused conflict, Devlin identified nine key features of the casual system to which the greater propensity of dockers to strike was attributed. The principal factor was the dockers’ lack of security, produced by unstable employment patterns, periods of underemployment and, as a result, variable levels of income. ’

Empirical support for Devlin’s argument emerged from a study of annual data over the pre-Devlin period 1950-66 by Mangan (1979) and from a study of quarterly data spanning both the pre-and post-Devlin periods (Sapsford and Turnbull 1990). Both of these studies focus on the two key characterist- ics of casualism, namely the sensitivity of employment opportunities to fluctuations in the level of economic activity and wage irregularity; and both confirmed Devlin’s (1965: 41) observation that during years of comparative peace in the docks work tends not to be too abundant. Empirically, this was demonstrated by the existence of a significant inverse relationship between the industry’s surplus labour rate and dock strikes. However, empirical support for the second characteristic of the casual system, the effects of wage irregularity, was less conclusive. I t was expected that the greater the variation in dockers’ weekly incomes, and consequently the more difficult to budget household expenditure, the more likely is strike action. Although the wage variable in Mangan’s (1979) study had the expected positive sign, he found little convincing evidence regarding its significance. For the longer period 1950-85 the wage irregularity variable was actually negatively signed although insignificantly different from zero (Sapsford and Turnbull 1990).

The model developed by Sapsford and Turnbull (1990), which forms the empirical starting-point for the current analysis, extended the Mangan model in three directions. First, we adopted as the dependent variable, in preference to strike frequency, the ratio of the average number of dockers


on strike per day during the quarter in question to the ‘average daily live register’.* Second, we included a measure of wage growth on the basis of the usual argument that (other things equal) the higher the rate of growth of earnings, the less likely it is that a strike will occur. Third, in view of the marked technological changes that have taken place in the industry since the late 1960s, a measure of ‘mechanisation’ was included in the analysis, namely the percentage of roll-on/roll-off trailers and lift-on/lift-off containers in all foreign and coastwise traffic. The empirical results (Sapsford and Turnbull 1990: 35) provided support for both of these additional hypo- otheses, demonstrating that dock strikes were negatively and significantly related to wage growth in the industry, and positively and significantly associated with the degree of mechanisation. The former was particularly important in the docks after decasualisation, as the so-called ‘modernisation’agreementsof 1970-2 essentiallycomprised an industry-wide productiv- ity bargain in which outdated work practices and the piecework payment systems associated with casualism were traded for higher pay, which in turn was expected to produce both peace and efficiency on the waterfront.

The basic strike model for the industry, which will be developed to determine why Devlin failed, can therefore be written as follows: PS, = a(] + a,SLR, + a2M, + a3E, + a4EV, +u,, (1) where

PS = the logarithm of strike probability SLR = the surplus labour rate M = the percentage of mechanised trade E = earnings growth EV = earnings variability u = a disturbance term

The addition of more recent data, up to and including the quarter immediately preceding the government’s announcement of the abolition of the NDLS in April 1989, has allowed the entire post-Devlin regime to be analysed. The results are presented in Table 1 for the data period 1955 (1)- 1989 (I) (based on the semi-log specification), and include a time trend (7‘) and a set of seasonal dummy variables (SD). The former has proven statistically significant in a number of previous empirical studies of UK strikes (see Durcan etal. 1983: 221-2), and it has been noted, and confirmed by NDLB records, that dock strikes follow a seasonal pattern and often occur in ‘epidemics’. Only the significant seasonal dummy variables are included in the equation reported in Table 1.

Although the results in the table support the ‘casualism-causes-conflict’ hypothesis, the earnings variability term ( E V ) is incorrectly signed. This is potentially a very important (perverse) result, as it contradicts the ‘received wisdom’ on the effects of income variability on strikes. However, it would be inappropriate to generalise from these results as the variable achieves significance only after 1980(II), and the earnings data themselves are not entirely satisfactory as a measure of income variability.3

Why Did Devlin Fail? Casualism and Conflict on the Docks 241 TABLE 1

Ordinary Least Sqhares Estimation of Basic Strike Model, 1955(I)-1989(II) Dependent variable is PS: 137 observations

Regressor CoefJicienr‘ Stundad error f-ratio

C O N ~ T A N T SLR M E EV T SD1 SD2

R2 R2 Residual sum of square5 s.d. of dependent variable DW statistic

Tesr siatistics‘

A: Serial correlation B: Functional form C: Hdteroscedasticity

-5.3947% * -12.5413** 0.0235*

-0.0510** -0.0046301** (J.022 I * * 0.6915** I ,0196’ *

0.3640 3.3190 0.0101 0.0214 0.00 101 32 0.0035264 0.2637 0.2720

- 14.8223 - 3.7786 2.3204

-2.3822 - 4.5787 6.2543 2.6226 3.7491

0.4072 * * F-statistic F(7,129) 12.6599 0.3751 s.e. of regression 1.2585

204.3208 Mean of PS -5.1610 1 ,5920 Max of log-likelihood -221.7747 I .782S

Diagnostic Tests

LM versionh F version

CHI-SO (4) = 3.8742+ F(4.125) = 0.9094-t CHI-SO (1 ) = 1.4438 F(1,128) = 1.3633 CHI-SO ( 1 ) 0.7845 F( 1 ,135) = 0.7775

Structural Stability and Predictive Failure Tests

Test s?atuticsd Chow I Chow 2

Sub-periods 1955(J)-1967( Ill) 11 F(8,121) = I 5651 F(86,43) = 1 0367

1955(I)-I972(III) v F(8.121) = 2 3528 F(66.63) = 0.8679

F(8,121) = 15176 F(59,70) = 0 8205

1967@V)-1989( I)

“In this and subsequent tables, a single asterisk denotes a coefficient that is significantly different from zero at the 5% level, and a double asterisk denotes significance at the 1% level.

b+ denotes the absence of autocorrelation at the 1% level. ‘A: Lagrange multiplier test of residual scrial correlation. B1 Ramsey’s RESET test using the square of the fitted values. C; Based on the regression of squared residuals on fitted values.

dChow 1 refers to Chow’s (1960) test of the stability of regression coefficient, while Chow 2 refer6 to Chow’s second test, which tests the adequacy of model predictions. In both cases, figurts in parentheses denote degrees of freedom.

While the results offer support for Devlin’s central thesis, there is no ‘breakdown’ in the model after 1967, which would be expected if decasualisation had the desired, and expected, effect. This was determined by subdividing the data period into the ‘casual era’ (1955(1)-1967(111)) and the ‘permanent era’ (1967(fV)-1989(1I)) and then examining whether the


hypothesised relationship still held. Even the further subdivision of the period into a ‘casual’ (1955(1)-1967(III)), ‘quasi-permanent’ (1967(IV)- 1972(III) and 1974(IV)) and then ‘truly permanent’ (1972(IV) or 1975(1)-1989(11)) employment regime, following the Interim and Final Reports of the Aldington-Jones Committee, which further enhanced employment security, failed to yield any evidence of a breakdown in the model. The bottom section of Table 1 reports test statistics for both structural stability and predictive failure tests, Chow’s (1960) first and second tests respectively. The results demonstrate that in no case is there any evidence of model breakdown in respect of either parameter stability (Chow 1) or the model’s failure to predict strike activity following major institutional change (Chow ,2). In addition, further analysis of the complete sample period using CUSUM and CUSUMSQ techniques (Brown et al. 1975) likewise failed to yield any evidence of structural in~tabi l i ty .~ In sum, decasualisation appeared to have had little, if any, effect on strike activity. Devlin had failed.

3. Devlin and the dockers: incorrect/incomplete, inappropriate, emasculated, or simply overwhelmed?

Why, then, did Devlin fail? As already noted, Durcan eral. (1983: 288-311) have offered four possible explanations, which they explore through a combination of empirical observation and qualitative analysis. However, their analysis only covers the period 1946-73, and the years 1967-73 were among the most conflict ridden of the postwar period. This was a period of major institutional and technological change and it clearly colours the analysis of Devlin’s apparent failure. Unsurprisingly, Durcan et a / . (1983: 311) remained agnostic on both the specific factors that might account for the failure of reform and indeed their judgement of decasualisation itself. But by developing the model set out in equation (l) , the effect of exogenous or unanticipated factors such as technological change can be evaluated more systematically, as can the Devlin reforms themselves and their anticipated consequences. Each of Durcan et a1.k four hypotheses is therefore evaluated in turn.

(a) Incorrect or incomplete?

Empirically, the results of both Mangan (1979) and Sapsford and Turnbull (1990) confirm the representations made by employers and unions at numerous official inquiries that casualism caused conflict. Conversely, Phillips and Whiteside (1985: 239) have pointed out that, ‘The argument which attributed conflict on the waterside to the casual system . . . gave surprisingly little attention to the dockers’ own perceptions of that system. It viewed their attitudes as the secondary effects of an employment situation rather than an integral part of it.’ Devlin’s concern with structures thus led to

Why Did Devlin Fail? C‘usualism and Conflict on the Docks 243

a Aative neglect of motives and intentions, and the Committee overlooked the possibility that ‘the fight was to protect the casual’s life, not to secure its abolition’ (p. 256). The most obvious manifestation of this was a reluctance on the part of dockers, as Devlin (1965: 6) noted, to allow the number of ‘pdrmanent’ or ‘weekly’ workers to increase above a quarter of the total redistered labour force. Wilson (1972: 308) provides an annual figure for the number of permanently employed registered dockers from 1947 to 1967 fram NDLB sources, and these data allow a direct test of this hypothesis. Other things equal, the percentage of permanent workers ( P E R M S ) employed during the casual era should be positively associated with strike activity if Devlin was incorrect.

In contrast, Durcan et a f . (1983: 288-99) argued that Devlin’s analysis was essentially correct, although there were a number of inadequacies in the Report. They noted that, despite the increase in demand for dock labour over the period 1947-51, redundancy was still a very real threat and in many cases a reality. Compulsory dismissals i n an industry always characterised by underemployment, but now under the aegis of a Scheme to regularise employment, provoked conflict. In contrast, although labour demand fell sharply after 1951. this was not met with mass dismissals. Instead, the register was managed by natural wastage, limited recruitment, temporary release and, in later years, compulsory retirement. According to this account, then, Devlin’s analysis was merely inadequate rather than incor- reck. Essentially, the Committee had failed to examine post-1951 events in sufficient detail, and consequently had failed to examine the effects of redundancy on strike activity.

Redundancy was to be a key issue after 1967, especially as the employers had made, and Devlin reiterated, a ‘No Redundancy’ pledge as a precondi- tiofi of decasualisation and modernisation. Economies of labour were expected from both technological and institutional change, but they were not expected ‘to be so severe as to outpace the natural wastage in the industry’ (Devlin 1965: 9). This transpired to be a gross miscalculation, and the first National Voluntary Severance Scheme was introduced in 1969. The Scheme ran continuously (but was not always funded) and the level of maximum payments increased from only f150C) in 1969 to over f5000 by the mid-1970s. By the end of the 1970s maximum payments reached f8.500, and they increased more than threefold in the next decade. But on many occasions when employers wanted to cut back their labour force, dockers were still reluctant to leave the industry. This was attributed to the relatively high average age of the work-force and their generally poor prospects of finding alternative employment given rising levels of unemployment and the general perception of the docker as an ‘unskilled labourer’. More importantly, very few (if any) alternative jobs would display the level of autonomy enjoyed by dockworkers.

After 1967, then, even voluntary redundancy provoked conflict. Sever- ance payments were raised periodically rather than continuously and the ratio of redundancy payments to dockers’ average weekly earnings (RP)


indicates periods when employers were more actively seeking to run down the work-force. Thus, if Devlin’s analysis was incomplete, and if the employers underestimated the ease with which they could ‘buy’ dockers’ jobs, and those of their children, then even voluntary redundancies might provoke conflict. In other words, RP should be positively associated with strike activity if Devlin were incomplete, and scrutiny of these data therefore permit a further test of Durcan et al.’s first hypothesis.

(b) Inappropriute prescriptions ?

If Devlin’s analysis of the causes of dissension were correct, then, on balance, the recommendations of the Committee ‘appear to have been well matched to the diagnosis of the industry’s problems’ (Durcan et al. 1983: 300). However, Durcan et al. (1983: 300) note that it was perhaps inappropriate to leave Phase I1 negotiations, the so-called ‘modernisation agreements’ which were to abolish all restrictive practices and introduce a new wage system, to local negotiations. The absence of any clear guidelines from Devlin, other than on decasualisation, left a hiatus i n subsequent negotiations and led to contradictory changes across ports (p. 300).

In sum, however, Durcan et al. (1983: 300) found little support for their second hypothesis. Indeed, the criticism itself is somewhat misplaced for an industry that had always been characterised by local autonomy and by custom and practice at the port level. Neither the employers’ organisation nor the trade unions had ever managed to exercise tight control over their constituents at this level. The variation that exists across ports is certainly an important element in any explanation of subsequent strike activity after 1970-1, but it was not so much the prescriptions that were at fault but the manner of their introduction. This hypothesis is therefore discounted outright.

(c) Implementation or Emasculation.?

Several problems relating to the implementation of the Devlin reforms have been noted in the literature. Decasualisation and modernisation were deliberately separated into two distinct stages on the grounds that previous negotiations between the parties in the early 1960s had failed to bring an end to casualism because the employers were trying to ‘buy the rule book’ at too low a price. Thus, the act of decasualisation alone in 1967 could not live up to the heady expectations of peace and prosperity. However, the preparations for modernisation ‘left much to be desired’ (Wilson 1972: 91). Employer numbers were not reduced sufficiently, especially before decasualisation, nor were they consolidated into sufficiently large units to provide regular employment. More importantly, the variation that emerged in payment systems, and in particular the move to piecework at Liverpool, also contributed to conflict (Durcan et al. 1983: 301-4). A further implementation problem overlooked by Durcan et al. was the effect of subdividing the

Why Did Devlin Fail? Cusualism and Conflict on the Docks 245

labour force into permanent, temporarily unattached and supplementary groups. In 1967 the vast majority of dockers were allocated to an individual employer on a permanent basis, but the creation of a Temporarily Unattached Register (TUR) and a Supplementary Workers’ Register (SWR) soon became a major source of dissension, particularly during the period 1967-72.

The TUR was intended as a ‘holding device’ for workers awaiting a disciplinary case or reallocation to another employer, while the SWR allowed employers to hire non-registered dockers during periods of peak or seasonal demand. However, the employers increasingly used the TUR as a ‘reserve pool’ and a ‘backdoor’ method of dismissing surplus labour. By mid-I972 there were over 1600 men on the TUR (predominantly in London), and this precipitated a national strike in that year despite the recommendation of the Aldington-Jones Committee (1972) that the TUR be used purely as a holding device for workers pending disciplinary cases. A similar commitment was made in the Final Report of the Aldington-Jones Committee (1974), and there was to be no further recruitment to the SWR other than for strictly seasonal or short-term requirements. Again, employers were thought to be evading their obligation to provide permanent employment by using (non-registered) supplementary workers whose number exceeded 3000 in 1973. The growth of these registers, and of the TUR in particular, brought an angry response from thc dockers and is expected to be positively associated with strike activity.

Of the factors identified by Durcan el ul . , the effect of employer rearganisation can be examined simply by including the number of employers as an additional explanatory variable. Following Durcan ef al. , there should be a positive association between employer numbers ( E N ) and strikes (i.e. fewer employers should imply larger employing units, greater stability and regularity of work, and therefore fewer strikes). But after 1972, when dockers were assured of a ‘job for life’ by the Aldington-Jones Committee, any docker who lost his job because his employer went bankrupt had the right to be reallocated to another employer, whether or not the employer needed more labour. This became a constant source of friction during the 1970s and 1980s as employers became increasingly reluctant to accept dockers transferred from bankrupt competitors. Thus, the net decrease in the number of employers (DEN) is also expected to be positively associated with conflict and dissension.

The changes made to the payment system have been singled out as a major source of conflict between decasualisation and the introduction of modernisation agreements hetween 1970 and 1972. As Wilson (1972: 190) argues, ‘the practices of casualism outlived the casual system itself‘ because of the retention of piecework. Both Wilson (1972: 295-6) and Mellish (1972: 134- 5) aoncur, therefore, that, in so far as the Devlin Committee attributed poor labour relations to the casual system itself, they were proved wrong. But, ‘in so far as the Devlin Committee defined the labour problems of the docks as strike-proneness and restrictive practices, and recommended decasuafisa-

246 British Journul of Industrial Relations

tion to bring about a change in payment systems as the means of resolving these problems, they have been proved right' (Mellish 1972: 135; emphasis added).

The effects of piecework on strike activity can be addressed in two ways. First, as Britain's ports basically moved from piecework to flat-rate payment systems between 1970 and 1972, with some variation and one notable exception, the relationship between casualism and conflict should break down in 1970-2 if not in 1967. In fact, as both Wilson (1972: 293-6) and Mellish (1972: 134-5) argued that decasualisation alone was insufficient to bring peace to the waterfront, the relationship should break down in 1970-2 and not 1967, which might then account for the particularly high level of strike activity between 1967 and 1972.

Second, the comparison between Liverpool and London can be analysed more systematically. Both Wilson (1972: 295-6) and Durcan et al. (1983: 303) note the contrast that emerged in the strike pattern of these two ports between 1966 and 1971, namely, an increase at Liverpool and a decline at London, and both cite this as prima facie evidence that piecework was at the root of the industry's problems. More precisely, strikes at London declined after 1970 when piecework was abolished, while at Liverpool the introduction of piecework in 1967, and the consolidation of piecework in the Phase I1 agreement of 1971, led to the opposite result, as Table 2 demonstrates. So if piecework was likely to cause earnings variation, then the relationship between wages and conflict should hold for Liverpool but not for London.

TABLE 2 Strikes at Liverpool and London, 196688

Ave. no. of strikes per year Yeur London Year Liverpool

196667 35 1960-67 13 1968-7(1" 34 1968-71b 74 1970-79 10 1972-79 30 1980-88 6 198(!-88 7

"Phase I1 was negotiated in June 1970 for the London riverside and in September 1970 for the enclosed docks. hAt Liverpool piecework was first introduced in October 1967 and Phase I1 negotiated in October 1971.

Source: NDLB.

One further consequence of the negotiation of Phase I1 agreements at the local level was quite unforeseen and quite remarkable. Permanency of employment was itself intended to reduce fluctuations and stabilise earnings, but it was also envisaged that, by raising the guaranteed minimum weekly wage far above the paltry national time rate in 1967, wage levels would be consolidated and instability further reduced. Thus, if the gulf

Why Did Devlin Fail? Casualism and Conflict on the Docks 247

between the minimum rate and average earnings was indeed ‘the root cause of insecurity and the increasing complexities of the wages structure’, as Wilson (1972: 225) suggested, then raising the guarantee in 1967 and increasing the ratio of guaranteed to actual earnings (GP) should also reduce strike activity. In June 1970, however, a national strike over the national time rate (the first national strike since 1926) shut down Britain’s ports for nearly three weeks. The strike itself was quite simply ‘a remarkable

4u

301

No. ol striker

2a

1OC

- GROSS

YEAR I954 I961 1968 I975 19x2 I985

I W J I 1 I 1 I I I I I I I L I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I947

FIGURE 1. Dock Strikes, 1947-1989

GROSS disputes represent the recording of each stoppage in each separate port o r London sector while NETdisputes include only those stoppages which, having the same cause or object, occur simultaneously in a number of ports, despite the eventual duration of each strike at the individual ports, and/or are continuous in time in London sectors.

248

feat of opportunism by union militants’ (Wilson 1972: 273). It was almost bizarre that a national strike should erupt over a national wage claim at a time when local negotiations on modernisation made any national agreement on the national time rate, which was now below the guaranteed wage, less central to the existing wage structure. In part, the 1970 strikc was an attempt to exploit the weaknesses of the wage structure and the opportunity presented by the employers’ failure to negotiate a wage increase in 1969. But as Wilson (1972: 275) makes clear, the strike was also ‘a means of asserting t h e unity of dockers at a time when inter-port differences in wages and types of work made it unlikely that common ground would be found again’.

The wider significance of the 1970 national strike was that it ‘demonstrated a degree of solidarity previously unrecognised in the industry’ (Durcan etal. 1983: 304) and probably contributed to the subsequent growth of ‘multi-port’ disputes. This possibility is illustrated in Figure 1, which indicates the growth of multi-port or ‘solidarity’ strikes (GROSSminus NET disputes) which became a significant feature of dock strikes in the 1970s. This appears to be consistent with Wilson’s (1972: 296) prediction that, after 1970-1, strikes would tend to be ‘disputes of right’, such as the definition of ‘dockwork’, rather than bonus disputes or other wage disputes typically associated with piecework. If multi-port disputes were indeed the result of problems attributable to the implementation of Devlin’s (two-stage) reforms, then decasualisation might be expected to ‘work’ if NET disputes are employed as the dependent variable, but to ‘fail’ if CROSS disputes are considered.

British Journal of Inrlustriul Relutioiis

(d) Overwhelmed by the unknown?

The final explanation that might account for the ‘failure’ of the Devlin reforms is the possibility that factors came into operation after 1965 that could not reasonably have been foreseen at the time of the inquiry (Durcan er a/ . 1983: 304). The most obvious factor in this respect is the impact of new cargo handling techniques (Sapsford and Turnbull, 1990). New technology brought a new dimension to industrial relations in the industry and threatened to wreck the Devlin reforms: jobs still had to be protected, ‘not because men were not taken on at the call or because their pay fluctuated, but because mechanisation was removing jobs altogether. Here was the fundamental flaw’ (Wilson 1972: 304).

In reiterating the employers’ ‘No Redundancy‘ pledge as a result of decasualisation, Devlin (1965: 90) actually noted that ‘There is a solidarity in the docks, perhaps even more deeply rooted there than in the trade union movement generally, which makes it impossible for any set of men to accept a benefit at the expense of their fellows.’ New technology was one such ‘benefit’ which shattered the promise of permanency for all registered dockworkers. Thus, conflict over redundancy and the terms of ‘voluntary severance’, which began no more than a month after decasualisation at the port of London, and conflict over the use of the TUR as a ‘reserve pool’ were

Why Did Devlin Fuil? Casuulism und Conflict on the Docks 249

both manifestations of the employers’ inability to guarantee permanent and regular employment at a time when mechanisation was removing work content from the docker’s job and indeed from the docks themselves (to inland container depots or non-Scheme ports).

Equally, the inability of the industry to shed labour at a rate commensurate with the pace of technological change rendered more and more workers ‘surplus to requirement’. While both the number of registered dockers and those gainfully employed continued to decline, there was no commensurate decline in the number of ‘surplus’ men. Consequently, surplus labour (surplus menhegistered men) increased to over 9 per cent in the 1970s compared with around 7.5 per cent in the 1960s, and in the early 1980s reached almost 15 per cent. In short, insecurity lived on, and this ‘stultified the Devlin reforms‘ (Wilson, 1972: 307).

In addition to the overall rate of technological change, however, there are two further dimensions to be considered. First, mechanisation not only reduced the labour content of dock work, but also removed it from Scheme to non-Scheme ports. Dockers did not anticipate the restrictive definition of ‘dockwork’ and ’the vicinity of the port’ which was applied by the courts when they attempted to establish jurisdictional rights over the work involved in ‘stuffing and stripping’ containers, and thus much container work was transferred to ‘inland’ container depots and the growing non- Scheme ports, especially in the South-East. The growth of non-Scheme ports ( N S ) must therefore be considered alongside mechanisation as a factor likely to cause dissension among Britain’s registered dockworkers.

Second, the difference between GROSS and NETdisputes (Figure 1) can be attributed, in part, to the problems created by new technology and associated issues of ‘right’ such as the definition of, and jurisdiction over, ‘dockwork’. As these disputes were largely ‘unanticipated’ by Devlin, the NET figures can be taken as the trend based on a projection of Devlin’s analysis, where technology is given and the decasualisation and modernisation o f the industry eliminates the plethora of strikes associated with piecework, bonus payments, manning levels, work practices and the like. In contrast, the GROSS figures highlight the importance of inter-port solidarity in the face of technological change in order to combat growing competition between ports and to defend dockers’ exclusive ‘rights’ to ‘dockwork’. Analysis of the GROSS and NETfigures should therefore allow a further means of discriminating between the four hypotheses and explaining why decasualisation failed to bring industrial peace to the docks.

4. Empirical analysis

To determine empirically why Devlin failed, the hypotheses proposed by Durcan et al. can be tested by developing the analysis reported in Table 1. Seven additional independent variables can be added to the model as follbws:

250

PS, = a0 + a l S L R , + a2M, + a3E, + a4EV,

British Journal of Industrial Relations

+ aSPERMS, + u,RP, + u7ENr + a8DEN, + a9GP, + a l o ( T U R + SWR) , + a l l N S + u,

where PS. S L R , M, E , EV and u are as defined in (l), and PERM = the percentage of permanently employed men (pre-1967) R P

earnings EN = employer numbers D E N = the net decrease in the number of employers G P T U R = Temporarily Unattached Register SWR = Supplementary Workers Register NS

= the ratio of severance payments to dockers average weekly

= the ratio of guaranteed to actual weekly earnings

= percentage of total UK traffic handled by non-Scheme ports

Initial estimation of this model showed that neither CP nor NS was significant (the latter being incorrectly signed).

The results that were obtained when the model was re-estimated with these two non-significant variables excluded are reported in Table 3. As can be seen from the adjusted coefficients of determination (A2) reported in Tables 1 and 3, the extended model adds significantly to the explanatory power of the earlier model. The results confirm that Devlin’s central argument was correct: casualism was the principal cause of conflict on the docks. PERMS is significant, but the negative coefficient indicates that the greater the proportion of registered dockers on ‘weekly’ or ’permanent’ employment contracts before decasualisation, the fewer strikes took place.

This is clearly contrary to the argument made by Phillips and Whiteside. In fact, the group of men most committed to the free call and their right to pick and choose when and for whom to work were the ‘floaters’. These were casual workers who, either individually or more usually as gangs, were able to pick the most attractive jobs, confident that their skills and physical attributes would enable them to be selective (and be selected). The disenchantment of the ‘floaters’ or ‘kings of the river’ with Devlin’s proposals did not translate into general opposition to decasualisation based on a preference for casualism. The strikes that greeted decasualisation were therefore restricted to the ports of London, Liverpool, Salford, Hull, Birkenhead and Garston, and with the exception of Liverpool and Birkenhead all petered out within a week. A subsequent strike at London was confined mainly to the Royal Docks and involved only a third of London’s registered dockers. Wilson (1972: 190) described this strike as ‘the last kick’ from those still committed to casualism.

The R P variable, however, suggests that Devlin’s analysis was incomplete. Insufficient attention was paid to the problem of reducing the register and the conflict this engendered, even though after decasualisation this was done on a ’voluntary’ basis and usually on very attractive financial terms.’ However, upon closer inspection i t was found that R P achieves significance only in the early 1980s. In March 1983 the T&GWU registered its total


TABLE 3 Ordinary Least Squares Estimation of the Extended Model, 1955(1)-1989(1)

Dependent variable is PS; 137 observations used for estimation from 1955(1)-1989(1)

Regressor CoefJicienr Standurd error t-ratio

C O N S T A N T SLR M E EV T SDl SD2 RP PERMS EN D E N TLIR

R2 8 2 Residual sum of squares s.d. of dependent variable DW statistic

Tesi statistics

A: $erial correlation B: Functional form C: Normality

-10.4608** -13.5687**

0.0725* - 0.466 * * - 0.004S048' *

0.021 7' * 0.7687* * 1.0226*" 0.01 90*

0.0069300 * * 0.003541 8' O.OOlS38S' *

-0.23 18; *

1.8092 3.0926 0.0376 0.0195 0.0009402 0.0034679 0.2402 0.2486 0.0087996 0.0829 0.0023181 0.001 7664 0.0005722

- 5.7820 -4.3875

1.9248 - 2.3839 -4.7912

6.2669 3.1998 4.1130 2.1563

2.9895 2.0051 2.6890

-2.7942

0.5322** F-statistic F(12,123) 11.7537 0.4869 s .e . of regression 1.1404

161.2589 Meanofdependent variable -5.1610 1.5920 Maximum of log-likelihood -205.5621 1 ,9406 +

Diagnostic Tests

L M version F version

CHI-SQ (4) = 2.2620+ CHI-SQ (1) = 0.1693 CHI-SQ (2) = 3.4661

F(4,119) = 0.5037+ F(1,122) = 0.1522 Not applicable

A: Lagrange multiplier test of residual serial correlation. I3: Ramsey's RESET test using the square of the fitted values. C: Based on a test of skewness and kurtosis of residuals.

opposition to the continuation of the Special Severance Schemes for dockers and warned employers that no co-operation would be forthcoming from the unim in the administration of the schemes. Recursive coefficients of RP establish that the variable achieves significance only from 1983(IV) on- wards.'Thus, prior to 1983(IV) the dismissal of dockers from the register by means of voluntary redundancy has a positive but insignificant effect on strikes, which suggests that, while Devlin may have neglected the problem of reducing the work-force, this was not a major explanation for the failure of reform. On both counts, then, hypothesis (a) is rejected.

The argument that the implementation of decasualisation and modernisation exacerbated rather than lubricated the process of reform is confirmed by the positive and significant signs of both EN and DEN. Further support for this hypothesis is provided by the positive sign of the TUR ~ a r i a b l e . ~ SWR proved to be insignificant when TUR and SWR were estimated separately, which reflects the fact that the two variables are qualitatively

252 British Journal of Industrid Relutions

different, despite their both representing employment insecurity. The TUR affects existing RDWs and illustrates to others the insecurity of their employment. The SWR, in contrast, was a ‘peripheral’ group of non- registered men who might even provide greater security for the ‘core’ of RDWs by bearing the brunt of trade fluctuations. Thus, all three variables support hypothesis (c).

Further tests of hypothesis (c) are possible by testing for structural breaks in the model associated with the abolition of piecework between 1970 and 1972, by comparing the determinants of strike activity in the ports of Liverpool and London, and by considering whether Devlin ‘worked’ if NET as opposed to GROSS disputes are employed as the dependent variable. To test the effect of the general movement away from piecework in the early 1970s, a set of moving regressions were estimated for periods ending in each quarter between 1970(I) and 1972(1V), but there was no evidence of a breakdown in the model.

The general move away from piecework was also explored by utilising port-level data. First, as Liverpool adopted piecework at a time when other ports abandoned i t , and at the same time became Britain’s most strike-prone port, the strike variable PS was adjusted to exclude Liverpool strikes. However, re-estimation for the period 1955(1)-1988(11) left the results reported in Table 3 virtually unaltered.# Second, separate linear models for both London (1968(IV)-1985(1)) and Liverpool (1968(11)-1985(1)) were estimated, but in neither case was there any evidence of a breakdown in the model associated with changes to the payment system in each port.9 In neither case, then, is there evidence that piecework was the root of the industry’s strike problem, contrary to the argument made by both Mellish (1972: 134-5) and Wilson (1972: 295-6).

The final test of problems associated with the implementation of reform utilises the data on NET and GROSS disputes. Using quarterly data o n strike frequency (NET), the overall picture in terms of the signs and significance of the independent variables with IogNET as the dependent variable is broadly similar to the results reported in Tables 1 and 3. However, application of the stability test to the model leads to a massive rejection of the null hypothesis of parameter stability before and after 1967(III) (F(8,121) = 22.7331). In short, the Devlin reforms ‘work’ as far as NET strikes are concerned, confirming the argument that problems associated with decasualisation and subsequent modernisation, in particular the potential for inter-port solidarity realised after the 3970 national strike, were a major factor contributing to the continuation and exacerbation of conflict on the waterfront. This is confirmed by repetition of the stability analysis with GROSS disputes as the dependent variable, which provides only weak evidence of model breakdown in 1967(III).

According to these data, then, had implementation been planned and managed more effectively, the excessive conflict of the late 1960s and early 1970s might have been (partially) avoided. However, what these results also illustrate is the importance of considering a variety of measures of strike

Why Did Devlin Fail.? Cu~itulism and Conflict on the Docks 253

activity. It is well known that economic models of strikes perform better with strike frequency as the dependent variable than with eithei the number of workers involved o r the number of working days lost (e.g. Shalev 1980: 166). Qe results for equation ( 2 ) with PS, NET or GROSS as the dependent variable are broadly similar, despite the fact that PS combines all three dimensions of strike activity, namely frequency, breadth and duration. The Devlin Committee was itself concerned with more than just strike frequency, and in fact presented annual data on the average number of striker- days lost in disputes per 1000 employees as evidence of the registered docker’s greater propensity to engage in strikes (Devlin 1965: 4-5). In this context, then, PS is the more useful measure of strike activity.

Many strikes at this particular historical juncture, however, were ‘unavoidable’ inasmuch as they were attributable to ‘exogenous’ or ‘unforeseen’ factors. Put differently, if Devlin’s reforms might have ‘worked’ in the absence of any marked divergence between GROSS and NETdisputes, why did the difference bctween these two strike indices increase so markedly and so suddenly after 1968? Part of the explanation lies with the consolidation of the National Ports Shop Stewards’ Committee (NPSSC) following the strikes of the early 1970s and the stewards’ subsequent ability to organise multi-port disputes. The issues to which the NPSSC addressed itself also explain the growth of multi-port disputes, namely the definition of, and jurisdiction over, ‘dockwork’. Thus, if GROSSINET disputes represents a ‘sdidarity ratio’ - which indicates minimal solidarity as the ratio tends to unity (or at least indicates no multi-port disputes) and greater solidarity the higher the ratio; and if the divergence between GROSS and NETdisputes is attributable to technological change, then the ‘solidarity ratio’ should be pasitively associated with mechanisation. This is borne out when GROSSINET is employed as the dependent variable, as M has both a pasitive and significant coefficient. Further, the ‘solidarity ratio’ should act as a proxy for mechanisation in an equation with PS as the dependent variable if the divergence between NET and GROSS disputes is indeed attributable to technological change. Again, this is borne out when GROSSINET is substituted for M, with the ‘solidarity ratio’ displaying a positive and significant coefficient. These results therefore add further weight to hypothesis (d), because not only is mechanisation positively associated with strikes, but examination of the ‘solidarity ratio’ suggests that Devlin’s reforms would have met with more success in a world without technological progress.

5. Conclusions: the failure of institutional industrial relations reform

Although Devlin failed, it is possible with hindsight and statistical evidence to determine why. First and foremost, and contrary to expectations, deeasualisation and modernisation failed to excise insecurity from the industry. Surplus labour, the TUR, the steady stream of bankruptcies and

254

closures of small stevedoring firms, and large-scale and continuous redundancy programmes were all evidence of this. Each, in its different way, hampered the effective transition of the industry from casualism to permanency. But insecurity not only outlived casualism: it was now of a qualitatively different order - no longer the insecurity of the twice daily call, but the prospect of permanent idleness on the TUR or the official unemployment register. Under casualism there was always the chance of employment, even when surplus labour was high. Under ‘permanency’, the possibility of underemployment had been replaced by the prospect of permanent unemployment at only the guaranteed weekly wage. The root cause of the docker’s continued insecurity was mechanisation. Although total traffic passing through Scheme ports increased in the post-Devlin period, more and more of that traffic was unitised. Consequently, employment declined dramatically, and at a rate in excess of the industry’s ability to shed surplus labour. In short, within the remit of Durcan et al.’s third and fourth hypotheses lies the explanation for Devlin’s failure.

With more thorough planning, then, and in the absence of technological change, Devlin’s reforms might have brought industrial peace to the waterfront. But closer inspection of the character of dock strikes following decasualisation and modernisation indicates a more fundamental failure to reverse the industry’s strike pattern. While Devlin noted the dockers’ ‘exaggerated sense of solidarity’ and acknowledged that, as casual workers living in constant fear of unemployment, such solidarity was even more vital to them than to the ordinary worker, the Committee nevertheless con- demned such attitudes as ‘irresponsible’ (Devlin 1965: 8-9). It was this ‘irresponsibility’, when combined with defective institutional arrangements, that the Committee believed to be the cause of greater dissension on the docks. Decasualisation would thus establish a more stable collective bargaining relationship, ‘by which the frozen fronts of industrial conflict are thawed’ (Dahrendorf 1959: 260), and this in turn ‘should improve the dock workers’ sense of responsibility’ (Devlin 1965: 8). It is in this context that the Devlin reforms had much in common with the Donovan Report (1968) of the same period, where again strikes were (largely) attributed to the inadequacy of institutional arrangements for resolving points of conflict without overt industrial action.

The ‘typical’ dock strike prior to decasualisation was a refusal by small groups of men to start work on a new task for which conditions in some way differed from those within their previous experience, on a piece rate they regarded as inappropriate. As Turner (1969: 22) noted, these stoppages ‘represent not so much a strike in the conventionally understood sense as an interval for bargaining the new price’. In other words, grievances which in most industries would be resolved through collective bargaining or other institutional procedures led to overt conflict on the docks, and therefore it was essential both to regularise employment relationships and to reform or establish institutions to contain industrial conflict. The abject failure of decasualisation and modernisation to effect such changes is illustrated by the

British Journal of lndustrial Relations


nature and character of dock strikes themselves, which changed little after 1967-72. Thus, the vast majority of wage disputes were still concerned with ‘job or special rates’, for example where a cargo is badly stowed, work is impeded in the hold, the cargo itself is dirty or dangerous, or weather conditions such as snow, ice or rain merit additional (‘one-off) payments (in the dockers’ view). Furthermore, dock strikes were still predominantly short-lived, generally lasting just one day or less. In short, ‘bargaining intervals’ were still commonplace on the docks.

Clearly, decasualisation and modernisation could not transform the nature of dockwork or the problems that arose over payment for dirty, dangerous or simply ‘different‘ cargoes; nor could institutional reform alleviate the problems that led to disputes over manning, allocation or working methodskonditions. ‘Frictional issues’ such as these were in fact the daminant ‘cause’ of dock strikes both before and after decasualisation. Inevitably, the nature of the ‘wage-effort bargain’ on the waterfront led to conflicts of right and reward as the ‘frontier of control’ was renegotiated on a daily basis. Dockers would strike not because they were ‘irresponsible’, but because they had genuine grievances, many of which the Devlin reforms exacerbated rather than resolved, as the empirical results of Table 3 aptly illustrate.

For the docker, striking was a natural extension of trade union ethics and collectivist values developed through the system of gang working and imbued in the wider dockland community. As Hugh Clegg, a prominant member of the Devlin Committee, has argued elsewhere, for such workers ‘striking can be something of a habit’ (1979: 280). But in this case the cause of industrial conflict did not ‘lie more in the methods of bargaining than in the issues’ (p. 281). Casualism provided a context in which striking was more likely, and in many respects was part and parcel of a discontinuity of work which was normal on the waterside (Phillips and Whiteside 1985: 238). But whether dockers were employed on a casual or a permanent basis, trade (and consequently employment) still fluctuated, cargoes were still dirty, dangerous or different, and pay still fluctuated on a day-to-day basis. The Devlin reforms could not solve the ‘strike problem’ of the docks because they did not address the root of the troubles of the industry, namely the competitive, unplanned nature of port transport and the chaotic structure and conditions enforced on it by outside interests such as the shipping companies. Furthermore, Devlin handed the control of labour back to the employers to a considerable extent, which was strongly resented and resisted by many dockers. Decasualisation was always recognised as a necessary but not a siificient condition for industrial peace and efficiency on the docks, but those sufficient conditions were never met. Grievances cannot be allayed by a change to the status of employment while employment conditions themselves remain (largely) unchanged. As the data illustrate, conflict and insecurity both outlived the Devlin reforms.

256 British Journal of Industrial Relutions

Notes

1 . The other major causes of dissension were, in effect, the ‘by-product’ of this insecurity and instability. Thus, foremen could exploit their power at the twice daily ‘call’ and indulge in preferential treatment or favouritism towards their ‘shiny eight’ or ‘blue-eyed boys’; with an unstable relationship between employer and employee there was little ‘responsibility’ or ‘reciprocal obligation’ displayed by either casual workers or casual employers; dockers would engage in ‘time-wasting practices’ in order to maximise both employment and earnings, while employers substituted piecework payment systems for effective super- vision and control of the work process; inadequate welfare amenities and poor working conditions served to sour industrial relations still further; and even overtime working and inter- and intra-union difficulties were attributable, in part, fo the casual system of employment. (Or more precisely, the dockers’ apparent obligation to work overtime under the provisions of the NDLS, and the union’s uneasy position as ‘champion and judge’ of the work-force through its participation in the administration of the Scheme, were persistent causes of dissension; see Devlin 1965: 5-35.)

2. The live register includes all those workers actively seeking employment, and therefore includes those employed, those who are surplus to requirements and all absentees. It excludes all those who are sick or injured, on holiday or in dispute. The dependent variable therefore has a simple ‘probabilistic’ interpret- ation.

3. In our earlier study there was no evidence of significance between W a n d strikes over the period 1955(1)-1985(1) (Sapsford and Turnbull 1990:35), despite experimentation with a variety of measures of earnings irregularity. E V is defined as the square of the lagged first difference in earnings, but with quarterly data a more appropriate measure of earnings irregularity would be the within- quarter coefficient of variation calculated from weekly wage data. Over the longer period 1955(1)-1989(1), EV achieves significance, but only after 1980(II) (1955(1)-1980(II) t = 0.284,1955(1)-1980(111) t = -2.1858). The last remaining vestiges of national wage bargaining were abandoned from 22 September 1980 (i.e. 1980(III)), which may transpire to be more than sheer coincidence. Again, however, it would be inappropriate at this stage to make further conjectures without more adequate data.

4. A major problem when interpreting the effects of policy changes is to determine whether the policy influences the values taken by the explanatory variable(s) of a model or the responsiveness of the dependent variable to the explanatory variable(s) in question. On both counts, however, Devlin appears to have failed. Surplus labour rates, for example, actually increased after decasualisation.

5. Further support for this argument was obtained by using the number of dismissals from the register (i.e. disciplinary dismissal plus voluntary sever- ances) as an independent variable to replace RP. Only annual data were available for voluntary severance, but by multiplying the data by 0.25 and substituting for RP the result was again a significant and positive coefficient. The quarterly R P data are preferred because they reflect periods when employers were actively seeking to reduce the register and not simply periods when dockers ‘chose’ to ‘volunteer’ .

6. For the period 1955(1)-1983(111) the t-value is 1.65 (non-significant) while

Why Did Devlin Fail? Casualism and Conflict on die Docks 257

regression over the period 1955(1)-1983(IV) gives a t-value of 1.7038. which is significant at the 5 per cent level on a one-tailed test.

7. The combined variable ( T U R + S W R ) achieved only marginal significance (1 = 1.8).

8. The only strike during 1988(III) was at Liverpool, which therefore gives a revised national strike total of zero for this quarter. As IogPS would be minus infinity, the model was estimated for the (slightly) shorter period 1955(I)-

9. Wage data were available only to 1985(1). and as London experienced problems associated with the introduction of decasualisation the data for the early part of 1968 are incomplete. The detailed results for these two ports are available on request from the authors.

1988( 11).

10. These results are available on request from the authors.

References

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Aldington-Jones (1974). Final Report of the Joint Special Committee on the Ports lndirstry. London.

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Chow, G. C. (1960). 'Tests of equality between sets of coefficients in two linear regressions', Economerricu, 28: 59 1-605.

Clegg, H . A. (1979). The Changing Svstem of lndirslrinl Relations in Britain. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Dahrendorf. R. (1959). Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

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Mellish, M. (1972). 7he Docks After &din . London: Heinemann. Phillips, G. and Whiteside, N . (1985). Cusuul Lahour. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sapsford. D. and Turnbull, P. (1990). 'Dockers, Devlin and industrial disputes',

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why did devlin fail? casualism and conflict on the docks

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