Former dock worker Colin Ross, of Tower Park, Hullbridge, has spent the last year and a half writing a book about his experience of the dockers strikes.
THE FIGHT for fair pay and conditions by the dockers of East London has been told from a first-person perspective in a new book.
Former dock worker Colin Ross, of Tower Park, Hullbridge, has spent the last year and a half writing a book about his experience of the dockers strikes.
Thousands of workers caused chaos in Britain’s ports after the Government announced plans to abolish “jobs for life” for more than 9,000 dockers.
In 1947, the Labour Government introduced a scheme to give dockers the legal right to holidays, sick pay and pensions.
Any employee that was laid off was also entitled to a £25,000 payout or had to be hired by another firm - essentially giving them a job for life.
Dock workers at the Port of London staged strikes as well as action at ports in Bristol and Glasgow.
Mr Ross, who was chairman of the London shop stewards committee, wrote the book called A Century of Struggle.
He said it begins with the great dock strike of 1889 - known as the Dockers Tanner strike.
“It portrays the hardship and poverty that went with the job.” Mr Ross explained.
The book goes on covering the struggles and the terrible working conditions that existed right up to the late sixties.
Mr Ross added: “I gradually move on through the early part of the 20th century and again the working conditions and the pay were still no better.
“The book highlights all the struggles that the men had to endure to gain a decent wage and much fairer working conditions.
“It moves on to when the very same employers then started to open up container bases using cheap labour outside the docks.
“This led to us taking action to try and recover our work but forces were against us.
“The book tells of life in the East End and the characters that worked in the docks.”
His inspiration for the project came after meeting with other dockers at a 125th anniversary event to mark the great strike in 2014 and, of course, his own experiences.
Mr Ross started his job aged 20 working for 15 years before leaving in 1981.
He said: “In 1965 holiday pay was £11 a week, there was no death benefit, no sick pay, the conditions were bad when I worked there.
“In 1967 they decasualised it, they made everyone permanent for the first time.”
Mr Ross, now 70, said he wrote the book as he feels all the old dock workers are slowly disappearing.
He said: “Most people from the East End have now moved out of London, to the suburbs, to Essex. This East End now isn’t as it used to be.”
But writing his book wasn’t without it’s problems. Mr Ross admitted he wasn’t as good with the technical side of things and accidentally deleted all of the work and research he had done while he was partway through the book.
Undeterred, he started again from scratch and managed to finish the book within six months.
He said: “I had to start all over again. I was that determined I wanted the story to be heard to the generation now because they take everything that they have for granted. When you see the struggle we had and how the employers treated us, the story has to be heard. “
- The 232 page book “A Century of Struggle” is available now on Amazon for £6.95
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