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50 YEARS AGO |
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The recent attack by CHH on watersiders has revived memories of the 1951 waterfront lockout, the largest and most widespread industrial dispute in New Zealand history. Ironically, February 2001 marks the 50th anniversary of the 1951 waterfront lockout. Well, some things don't change; 50 years on and it's still class war on the waterfront as capitalists yet again try to smash the Watersiders Workers' Union.
police state
After the entire waterfront workforce was dismissed, the then National government declared a state of emergency, curtailed freedom of the press by making it illegal to publicise the workers point of view, curtailed free speech by incredibly making it illegal to even voice an opinion in support of the locked out workers, and made it illegal to hold street protests or support or aid locked out workers and their families.
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CONTENTS
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Three thousand soldiers were drafted in to do the jobs of watersiders on the waterfront. Union bureaucrats of the FOL sided with the government against the locked out workers. The Labour Party did not support the locked out workers, giving implicit support to the police state that existed in 1951 in New Zealand.
syndicalist influenceIn the end the WWU was defeated, but only after a long and bitter struggle. The militant sections of the union movement were smashed, introducing a lull in class conflict that lasted nearly 20 years.
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In the early 1950s militant unions such as the WWU were strongly influenced by syndicalism, a close cousin of leftist anarchism which aims for democratic, revolutionary unions not controlled by union bureaucrats but controlled from below by ordinary, rank and file workers. Jock Barnes, then president of the WWU, has written "the Waterside Workers' Union, particularly the Auckland branch, had a strong syndicalist philosophy"(see Jock Barnes and the Syndicalist Tradition in New Zealand, Thrall #14 July/August 2000). This exposes the myth that many right-wingers and even leftists believe today, namely that the WWU was strongly influenced by the Communist Party of New Zealand (who were Stalinists).
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The WWU was fiercely independent of CPNZ influence. Although the WWU did not claim to be a revolutionary union, it did have many syndicalist features. It had an active rather than passive rank and file. WWU meetings were very well attended and elections were regular. The syndicalist influence on the WWU made it a militant, fighting union that could hold out for so long in the face of a combined attack from capitalism and the state. We dearly need today unions like the WWU of 1951. Reunions are being held in Auckland and Wellington. There is a free exhibition of the 51 lockout at the Film Centre in Wellington from early March to late May. Further reading about the '51 lockout:
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Eight thousand wharfies and 12,000 supporting strikers were locked out of their jobs for 151 days (or five months) from 15 February to 15 July 1951.