| Book Review | Labour History, 90 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Colin Davis, Waterfront Revolts: New York and London Dockworkers, 1946–61, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill., 2003. pp. x + 246. US $39.95 cloth.

Comparative labour history has advanced considerably with this new book by Colin Davis. He makes clear in his 'Introduction' that American history scholarship needs to break out of a parochialism characterised by fear of being subsumed under global history while claiming to take a more internationalist approach. He also criticises the 'culturalist turn in historical studies of recent years' that 'has downplayed the paradigm of union, employer, and state conflict' (p. 4). This shift, in his view, has led to a down-grading of union histories in particular. This has certainly been a major tendency in historical scholarship and publication, but one might argue that there has been a distinct counter-trend in recent years in the other direction among historians of labour movements and the working class, whether in North America, Europe, or Australia / New Zealand. Davis is part of this counter-trend, bringing a distinctly internationalist, institutional, and social movement-oriented paradigm to the fore.

Waterfront Revolts in fact melds together the history of workers' culture on the job in the ports of London and New York with the institutional history of their labour organisations, both formal (officially recognised trade unions) and informal (rank and file movements and organisations). The first section of his book is distinctly cultural in the broad sense, focusing on who the workers (all men) were, in terms of religion, ethnicity, class fractions, and even language and mode of dress; what they did on the job, and the misnomer that their work was unskilled, when experience and diversity of cargo made the work semi-skilled, and at times skilled; and how the distinct workers' culture of each port related to the men and their work. One might argue that Davis has not adequately dealt with issues of gender and the role of women in terms of support networks (where they existed) for these male workers, but it is better to take this book on what it says rather than what is not said given its relative brevity and research complexity. He deals with reality, and the reality was that these were entirely male workforces in a strategic industry.

The research that Davis did for this work is of the highest order and indicates a trajectory in his scholarship. His first book covered the national US railroad shopmen's strike of the early 1920s, and his next work was on Alabama coal miners' struggles. His newest book continues his focus on workers within a particular industry and their efforts to organise despite the obstacles of unresponsive union leaders, belligerent employers, and anti-union government interventions. For the dockworkers of London and New York, he has covered the most relevant archives in Britain and the United States, from union archival records to oral histories (including ones he conducted himself) to official government archives (including presidential archives). He also has covered all the relevant secondary literature to produce a comprehensive history of immediate post-war workers' movements on the docks in the two major ports.

'Estrangement', the title of chapter three, moves into the realm of union organisation on both sides of the Atlantic, providing the first major contrast in his comparative history. The ethnic composition of the workers varied to a degree, particularly in terms of African Americans and Hispanics in the port of New York; the work itself had some variations, such as continuation of casualisation (the 'shape up') in New York, in contrast to decasualisation and government regulation in London; but it is in union organisation and politics that the big contrasts emerge. The London dockworkers had three unions covering them, with the largest of these, the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) dominating. The New York dockworkers, on the other hand, had a single union, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). The ILA was organised on an industrial basis (only longshoremen belonged), was dominated by conservative and corrupt union officers, and had links to gangsters (with some locals actually run by them). The TGWU, in contrast, was a general union that had other sectors beyond the docks; was not gangster ridden, even though its top officers were bureaucratic and did not tolerate democratic unionism; and had strong ties to the Atlee Labour government of the late 1940s. These contrasts are the heart of the story for those interested in better understanding comparative labour movements.

The second section of the book focuses on the 1948 strikes in London and New York, where the details of these organisational differences in the unions and the workers' movements emerge. These two chapters highlight the role of the state – for the UK the Atlee Labour government; for the USA the Truman administration – in halting the strikes that year in each port, but in cooperation with employers and top union leaders in each country. The commonality of these strikes on opposite sides of the Atlantic were that they were driven by rank-and-file revolts against established union leadership, in New York the gangster-allied ILA of president Ryan, and in London, the conservative, pro-Labour government TGWU of president Deakin. The contrast is in the nature of the leadership of the rebellions in each port. Opposition within the ILA came from a diverse group of outsiders, in particular activists from the West Coast-based International Longshoremens and Warehousemens Union (ILWU), a union with strong Communist Party connections, and anti-Communist labour priest Father Corridan, who had ties with the Catholic labour schools. Both Father Corridan and the ILWU activists stood up to gangster thuggery backing the Ryan regime, but they did so from outside the ranks of the ILA and the workers who belonged to the ILA. In contrast, opposition within the TGWU came from within, led by union local officers and union stewards who could no longer tolerate the National Dock Labour Board (NDLB) regulations that penalised workers who refused overtime or violated other strict rules laid down by the Labour government-backed system supported by Deakin's TGWU leadership.

The Cold War environment of the late 1940s influenced government policy toward waterfront labour relations in each country. In Britain, stoppages on the docks threatened food shipments, but also were seen as a Communist plot to sabotage the Marshall Plan. In the US, stoppages were viewed as threatening the profitability of the port of New York and also as a Communist threat, though in a more nebulous way than in Britain. In each case, Davis provides documentation that the 'Communist threat' was highly exaggerated and even discounted by security agencies. Deakin and Ryan, in their respective unions, nevertheless played up the 'Communist threat' game to try to undercut and destroy the rank-and-file movement, and to deflect from their anti-worker policies.

The final section of the book highlights the common theme 'Rivalries' to demonstrate the remarkable contrasts between the failure of rank-and-file movements on the New York port docks and the continuation of a viable rank-and-file movement (with organisation and a publication of its own) on the London docks. Continuing with his analysis of Communists in the dockworkers' movement, Davis shows how the openness and independence of London-based Communist local leaders earned them the support of workers, while the secrecy and paranoia of New York-based ILA workers isolated them from the average worker but also from other comrades in their own organisation. Communists were few in number in both ports on the waterfront, but they were far more effective in London than in New York.

Davis demonstrates an excellent appreciation of differences in both countries between rank-and-file Communist Party members and CP leaders outside the industry, and the astounding contrast in styles and methods of organising within the CP hierarchy. At the same time, his analysis implicitly indicates that the long history of class solidarity within the London movement, with religious and ethnic differences virtually disappearing by World War II, stands in marked contrast to the fractured, ethnically divided, and racialised environment in New York that prevented genuine class cohesion in the long run. Confronting gangsters like Anastasia within the New York ILA also would have been far more difficult than dealing with the pro-Labour, anti-rank-and-file allies of Deakin in the TGWU that were a legal threat but not a constant physical threat. Even when key leaders of the TGWU workers' movement were arrested by police on conspiracy charges, the London dockworkers' ability to fight in the courts and to simultaneously mobilise thousands of workers in support of the charged leaders indicates a far better labour environment – despite the clear oppression instigated by the Labour Party leaders – than existed in New York's corrupt union and political system where dissenters could be beaten by mobsters who had paid off crooked cops.

The concluding section, which in part encompasses a brief analysis of efforts to breakdown racist hiring practices against African Americans and Hispanics in waterfront New York, addresses the problem of what eventually happened to the waterfront workers' movements. As the economy changed, and with it the ports, the unions declined and the power of waterfront workers vanished. The familiar labour history of terms of 'solidarity, power, and courage' are stated as part of the legacy.

The evidence provided in this remarkable comparative history indicate that the analysis could go further, perhaps incorporating or developing theory that might explain the major contrasts in the movements in a deeper way. It is, after all, the contrasts that stand out and make us wonder why workers from the same industry in two different countries had such different outcomes in their rank-and-file movements for union democracy and economic justice. What was decisive? Was it the contrasting political systems? Contrasting union structures and relations? Contrasting histories of class formation, solidarity, and class consciousness? Contrasting acceptance or rejection of radicalism, including political radicalism, within the labour movements and among workers in this industry?

We no doubt will learn more along these lines in Colin Davis's future writing. For now, his work on the London and New York dockworkers provides a solid empirical foundation on which we can move forward to expand our understanding of comparative, international, and global labour history.


Flinders University	DAVID PALMER

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