Dock Workers

This study provides the opportunity to compare the hiring and employment practices, within the context of local conditions, as they exist in five major ports. It tells how efforts at regulation are influenced by the various institutions and by market constraints and describes the impact of the differences emanating from the industrial relations systems of each of the countries in which the port is located. In all these ports, the basic problem, to a large extent, is still that of casual employment and the author describes the repeated attempts to achieve a solution and analyzes in detail the efforts that failed and those that succeeded.

Workers who loaded and unloaded ships have formed a distinctive occupational group over the past two centuries. As trade expanded so the numbers of dock labourers increased and became concentrated in the major ports of the world. This ambitious two-volume project goes beyond existing individual studies of dock workers to develop a genuinely comparative international perspective over a long historical period. Volume 1 contains studies of 22 major ports worldwide. Built around an agreed framework of issues, these 'port studies' examine the type of workers who dominated dock labour, their race, class and ethnicity, the working conditions of dockers and the role of government as employer, arbitrator and supporter. The studies also detail how dockers organized their labour, patterns of strike action and involvement in political organizations. The structure of the port city is also outlined and descriptions given of the waterside environment. These areas of investigation form the basis for a series of 11 thematic studies which comprise Volume 2. Drawing on the information provided in the port studies, these essays identify important aspects and recurring themes, and explain how and why particular cases diverge from the rest. The final chapter of the book synthesizes the various approaches taken to offer a model which suggests several configurations of dock labour and presents suggestions for future research. This major scholarly achievement represents the most sustained attempt to date to provide a comparative international history of dock labour. An annotated bibliography completes this essential reference work.

An analysis of conditions of employment in the port of Manchester, this 1956 study is based on enquiries conducted in 1950-51.

Dockworkers have power. Often missed in commentary on today's globalizing economy, workers in the world's ports can harness their role, at a strategic choke point, to promote their labor rights and social justice causes. Peter Cole brings such overlooked experiences to light in an eye-opening comparative study of Durban, South Africa, and the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Path-breaking research reveals how unions effected lasting change in some of the most far-reaching struggles of modern times. First, dockworkers in each city drew on longstanding radical traditions to promote racial equality. Second, they persevered when a new technology--container ships--sent a shockwave of layoffs through the industry. Finally, their commitment to black internationalism and leftist politics sparked transnational work stoppages to protest apartheid and authoritarianism. Dockworker Power not only brings to light surprising parallels in the experiences of dockers half a world away from each other. It also offers a new perspective on how workers can change their conditions and world.

Since the publication of my books Elements of Shipping and more recently Economics of Shipping Practice and Management, both selling in over 130 countries, I have received numerous requests both from home and abroad for a companion volume on seaports. This book has been written to provide a practical, overall under standing of the elements of port operation and management of a competitive,~profitable port authority. It reflects the author's many years of experience in port and ship management, international trade and education. It deals in simple language with the role and function of seaports in a trading pattern, port investment criteria, port tariffs, free ports and free trade zones, port traffic control, budgetary control and marketing, port management structure and dock labour, computerization, cargo-handling equipment, the eco nomics of port design, the role of port cargo-handling organiza tions, the economics of international trade, finance of international trade, and many other aspects of this extensive subject. The import ance of complete professionalism in all areas of port practice as a means of providing the viable, high quality service required to sustain and expand international trade cannot be overemphasized. This book will help towards establishing that professionalism. The material assembled here is intended not only for students preparing for seaport examinations, but also for persons employed in port authorities. In short, it is an aide-memoire to those engaged in the industry throughout the world and may be regarded as 'the porr executive's handbook'.