The Great London dock strike, 1889 - New General Megathread for the 14th of August 2023
A huge and powerful strike of British dockers against low pay, unsafe conditions and casual, precarious employment contracts which, with international solidarity, won nearly all its demands and marked a turning point in UK working class history.
The dangerous nature of port work, combined with low pay, poor working conditions and widespread social deprivation ensured that the workforce looked to their trade unions for protection. As a result, industrial relations were strained throughout the history of the port.
Until the late 19th century, much of the trade of the port was seasonal. Sugar
came from the West Indies, timber from the north, tea and spices from the
Far East. It was difficult to predict when ships would arrive since bad weather
could delay a fleet.
The number of ships arriving during a period of four successive weeks in 1861
at the West India Dock was 42, 131, 209 and 85. On some days there were many
ships in the docks, on others very few.
There was very little mechanisation - the loading and discharging of ships
was highly labour-intensive. Demand for men varied from day to day because
there was very little advance notice that a ship was arriving. The dock companies
only took on labourers when trade picked up and they needed them.
The 'call-on'
Most workers in the docks were casual labourers taken on for the day. Sometimes
they would be taken on only for a few hours. Twice a day there was a 'call-on'
at each of the docks when labour was hired for short periods.
Only the lucky few would be selected, the rest would be sent home without
payment. The employers wanted to have a large number of men available for
work but they did not want to pay them when there was no work.
The dock strike began over a dispute about 'plus' money during the unloading
of the Lady Armstrong in the West India Docks. 'Plus' money was a bonus paid
for completing work quickly. The East and West India Dock Company had cut
their 'plus' rates to attract ships into their own docks rather than others.
A trade depression and an oversupply of docks and warehousing led to fierce
competition between the rival companies. The cut in payments provided the
opportunity for long-held grievances among the workforce to surface.
Led by Ben Tillet, the men in the West India Dock struck on 14 August and
immediately started persuading other dockers to join them. The Dockers' Union
had no funds and needed help.
The support they needed came when the Amalgamated Stevedores Union, under
Tom McCarthy, joined the strike. Not only did they carry high status in the
port but their work was essential to the running of the docks.
Support from the stevedores
The stevedores' union issued a manifesto, entitled To the Trade Unionists
and People of London. This called on other workers to support the dockers
Other workers followed the lead of the stevedores, including the seamen, firemen,
lightermen, watermen, ropemakers, fish porters and carmen. Strikes broke out
daily in factories and workshops throughout the East End.
The port was paralyzed by what was in effect a general strike. It was estimated
that by 27 August 130,000 men were on strike.
The dockers formed a strike committee to organize the dispute and decide on
its aims. The main strike demand was 'the dockers' tanner' - a wage of 6d
an hour (instead of their previous 5d an hour) and an overtime rate of 8d
per hour.
They also wanted the contract and 'plus' systems to be abolished and 'call-ons'
to be reduced to two a day. They also demanded that they be taken on for minimum
periods of four hours and that their union be recognized throughout the port.
The Strike Committee organised mass meetings and established pickets outside
the dock gates. They persuaded men still at work and 'blacklegs' to come out
on strike.
During the strike the port was at a standstill and the dock companies were
losing money. Despite this, they believed that giving into the dockers' demands
would set a dangerous precedent.
From the beginning of September however money poured in from Australia. The
first instalment of £150 was sent by the Brisbane Wharf Labourers' Union.
In all, over £30,000 was raised by the
Australian dockers and their allies. It arrived at just the right time and
meant the end of worries about feeding the strikers and their families.
The dockers could now face a longer strike and the leaders knew they could
now concentrate on the picket lines. Defeat through hunger now seemed very
unlikely and the dockers scented victory.
On 5 September, when the strike was in its fourth week, the Lord Mayor of
London formed the Mansion House Committee.Its aim was to try to bring the two sides together to end the strike. Ben Tillett and John Burns represented the dockers at the negotiations.
The Mansion House Committee persuaded the employers to meet practically all
the dockers' demands. After five weeks the Dock Strike was over. It was agreed
that the men would go back to work on 16 September.
After the successful strike, the dockers formed a new General Labourers' Union.
Tillett was elected General Secretary and Tom Mann became the union's first
President. In London alone, nearly 20,000 men joined this new union.
The success of the Dockers' Strike was a turning point in the history of trade
unionism. Workers throughout the country, particularly the unskilled, gained
a new confidence to organise themselves and carry out collective action. From
750,000 in 1888, trade union membership grew to 1.5 million by 1892 and to
over 2 million by 1899
Remember nerds just like in the old site, no current struggle session discussion here on the new general megathread, i will ban you from the comm and remove your comment, have a good day/night :meow-coffee:
flips chair around and sits on it backwards, "You know, I keep hearing kids today talking about their pronouns, but what I think they need to talk more about?
Twitter guy saying that the CCP hates to be seen as silly or light hearted but like a solid 60% of all accounts branded Chinese State Media on Twitter literally post nothing but silly animals and faithful pets helping their owners.
put my hand up for another job internally in my company, which i really fucking wanted and needed because staying in my current role was cratering me mentally
felt shit that sciatica seemed to be going backwards since getting off prescription meds, went to physio in a real sour mood and he could tell
was sore that night and the following day
that following day, i was having an interview for that internal job at 10am
had a breakdown at 9am because i was thinking about
CW
suicide and planning it out again
ugly cried until 9:30am
got myself cleaned up, did the virtual interview at 10am
smashed it
had therapy that night, told my psych about everything and he literally said if i need to, I should quit my job because it's clouding and ruining everything else I like about life
feel better for the weekend, still kinda sore though
log on today, have sudden meeting request for 10:30am
there was a tagline telling me to read something called naomis trans research document or something. it went away before i could click it, and when i googled it all that came up was stuff by a terf named naomi
anyone know what this was? is there an easy way to search the taglines?
The accusations that we are bots makes negative sense when you pause and think for a moment (impossible I know). Why would China and Russia put hundreds to thousands of posters on their payroll for three years to do nothing but talk between themselves? Do libs think we are really Manchurian candidates that got activated right when we federated? lmao
why are so many of these lemmy peeps trying to recreate the place they just fled from? If you browse all sorted by new there are so many posts from coms like "what could go wrong" and "mildly infuriating." Like they know it's still there right? It didn't actually die
I just had a striking thought. CW: discussion of sex
spoiler
People think Furry cons are weird because they think that furries got to cons to have a lot of sex.
But what they've forgotten, or never knew, is that people have gone to cons to have a lot of sex since conventions were invented.
Like why do they think all the toilet paper dispenser salesmen in the country flew out to Chicago or Vegas or whatever once a year? To talk about toilet paper dispensers? Hell no, it was to get absolutely obliterated and engage in Olympic level marital infidelity. You only got to see Brad from Scranton once a year at most, you weren't gonna waste your weekend paying attention to the sales presentations!
So zoom is gonna use your face and voice as training data for AI or something, perfect every zoom call I'm on I will now look as femme as possible and use my deepest baritone to fuck up their data a little lol
Time for the epilogue. This journey was all about people, so let’s close the book on some of them for now.
First, the new friends. Australia took off for Amsterdam. She’s an insanely hot skateboarding, surfing, ayahuasca taking whale biologist and probably the coolest person I’ve ever met. Self-loathing, especially related to body image, is easily my biggest problem in life so meeting her should have sent me on a negativity spiral. But Australia is a feminist and instead we bonded over the shared struggle for beauty and how unjust it all is. We both have eating disorders. She’s anorexic. I binge eat and brought a fucking bathroom scale on a hiking trip. It was nice to meet someone who’s also been through it. I will miss standing in solidarity against the patriarchy with her.
Belgium for sure had a crush on me, and we’ve got a lot in common, but he’s also ten years younger than I am. As a millennial who hangs out exclusively with zoomers this is the burden I must carry. It’s not going to happen, but I have a ton of admiration for him and it was honestly moving that he got teary-eyed saying goodbye to me. We’d only known each other for two days! The power of the Camino.
Old friends. London has been chugging along for days despite his age and foot injury. I only got to walk with him twice (though we drank together a dozen times or so) but he’s been sending me encouraging texts for a week. He was instrumental in pulling me out of my bipolar depressive episode. I sent him a picture of the pilgrim certificate I got in Santiago to remind him that it’s all worth it. Literally. He wanted to know if it’s worth the 3€ lol.
Quebec. She’s been back in Montreal for weeks already since she was never doing the whole thing, but we’ve stayed in touch and it’s absurd how much her presence was missed on the back half of the pilgrimage. She told me that just seven days on the way was enough to reframe how she views relationships, including friendships. I feel like I was just a tiny weird little blip in other people’s experiences but it sounds like that isn’t true. Quebec was a true friend to me and she saw me the same way. It’s humbling. Why do all these cooler and prettier women keep liking me? What do I do with all these strong female friendships??
Brazil. What can I say?
Prior to yesterday I had convinced myself that Brazil didn’t really like me that much, or that he had abandoned me to walk with Brighton and Iceland and the other college guys. I was sad and confused about his decision to enter the city ahead of me instead of together. Even Quebec was confused about this development and she’s in Canada.
I still don’t really know why he did that but it doesn’t matter. He tracked me down in the city right away yesterday morning and then joined me and Australia/Belgium for dinner and drinks at night. We had a terrific time and it was amazing seeing friends from the start and end of the Camino come together.
I was going to leave Santiago early this morning until Brazil invited me to attend Pilgrim’s Mass at the cathedral. He’s very religious but in a good way where he also hates the Catholic church as an institution, so much so that he’s often skipped visiting cathedrals. Whatever the reason, he wanted to attend this time and he wanted me to join him.
This was indeed a special Mass, for we were able to experience the swinging Botafumerio, a massive urn of frankincense that brothers of the church propel through the air with ropes. Usually they only swing the Botafumerio during special events so this was a rare and magnificent thing to witness. I broke into tears. The Camino doesn’t have any one clear dramatic ‘end’ moment like climbing Katahdin, unless you’re a big fan of walking around a corner and seeing the front of a big building. But this? THIS was what I walked for. Watching that urn swing in front of St. James’ sea scalloped tomb to swells of music as the priest offered his blessings for “our return to the Camino of everyday life” had me bawling. I saw Brazil take communion for the first time this whole trip. We were both sobbing. We were together for the big finish after all.
Saying goodbye was difficult. Though we didn’t know each other at the time, he and I left Saint-John-Pied-de-Port side by side almost a month ago. He recently discovered that he even shows up in snapshots I took that day before we met.
We got breakfast in a coffee shop. He had something important he wanted to tell me. “You don’t like to be alone,” he said. “But you’re not. You never will be, even if you’re walking by yourself. You’re not alone because you have you and that’s enough.”
We hugged in the town square for over a minute. He left to catch a train. I’m sure he’s on his way back to São Paulo right now.
But me? I turned around, tightened my pack, and threw on some music. It was the same playlist I listened to on that morning out of Saint-Jean, just a day after being dumped by my friends and left feeling as lonely as I ever have. Brazil was walking right ahead of me that day. This time he was behind, going the other way. But it’s okay that I’m by myself. I’m not alone anymore.
Can someone please remind AOC that she called the migrant detention centers concentration camps and then ask her to give us an update on the progress towards shutting these facilities down? I'd hate for her to forget how rapidly she sold out
Gotta stop listening to music so loud. It's been really cathartic for me during a tough period but I think it's starting to damage my hearing. Why do I have such a hard time not doing shit that's bad for me? (This and drinking come to mind lol)
The friend group I left a few months back has made me hyper vigilant around white online liberal types. I'm so annoyed how quick they were to tell on eachother, cancel eachother or suggest therapy.
We went to a concert two days ago and there was this white girl who was ringing all the alarms, fake, could not not control the flow of conversation and just seemed overly desperate to hang out with my partner (for a very certain reason that is not polyamory lol.) I don't think she would be a good friend to us and she seemed like a spoiled pain in the ass.
I didnt practice yesterday, the guilt is tremendous. I downloaded and played Project Zomboid instead.
Scrolling past dick enlargement oils and creams on AliExpress and thinking "Why is this even allowed? Who is even falling for this? This is just sad that people are wasting their money on something they shouldn't be that worried about." Then opening ten more tabs, deep into a Google search on how to make my penis smaller.
My mom was telling me that my nephew was going to have his first child and I sent a message congratulating him. He replies and says thanks me and says something about his career and I'm like So I ask my mom what he's talking about and she tells me he's also becoming a cop
Was the fucking electric sheep a metaphor for suburbanauts being obsessed with their lawns? Because... because... a fucking lawnmower is a powered machine used to do the work of herbivores like sheeps and cows that would have kept lawns and commons mowed in the past!
Is this anything or have I just gone to the madness place in a moment of profound despair?
I'm so fucking over asking for the world to meet me halfway. I don't even want to be here any more but I can't do anything about that because of the pain it would cause my family so I'm stuck. I hate having to claw every semblance of stability from the cold rock of a fucked up world that will only get worse
The accessibility lift outside the grocery store has different opening hours to the store.
If you're disabled you can't buy groceries two hours before closing time.
This also raises the possibility of someone being in the store when they close the lift, so they can't get out. 🤔
having a really bad skin reaction to uh.. something. my face is really irritated rn. going to stop quite a few of my usual skin care stuff that may be causing it.
may be a good time to get more laser because it's been a few months and I'm starting to have to shave again regularly. still thinking about beginning electrolysis so I never have to care about facial hair again but it's such an exhausting process versus laser.
Remembering a class in university where they emailed us literally five hours before the final exam to tell us that you could take in a computer with full internet access. All the questions could easily have been googled even if you hadn't been on the course and there was plenty of time to do so. Don't own a laptop? Bad luck I guess.
cool, my dad lied again and I feel stupid for maybe thinking this time around, he will stop drinking again for a while. he said he will stop no excuses, and then today and yesterday he has excuses to why he needs to drink. at this point maybe I should shut up and stop getting really hopeful. but I want to be hopeful because I want to think he will stop. and I want to trust and believe in him. so it just hurts. also I think that janitor job ghosted me so fun! but tbf it's only been like 5-6 days? but I have feeling they did.
cw: talking about self harm and suicide, mainly just venting about shit until therapy time comes later this week
spoiler
I also broke my like I think 7-8 months long streak of not self harming. so good job me, high five! I'm surprised I didn't break it sooner when my mom died months ago. maybe I should've looked at that dbt sheet I was given again, but too late now. not like it really matters anyways since Im not sure if im gonna mention this to my therapist or not. and my dad not gonna give a shit because my family doesn't really care about me.
since like for example, when I tried to make an serious attempt at suicide a few years ago, the staff told him how my dad needed to get rid of the thing I used to make an attempt. anyways when I was released, guess what was there, sitting where I tried to make an attempt!? either way after I got home, my dad then fucked off to go to some party. and I had to do the smart and responsible thing and get rid of it myself, despite like a part of me really wanting to keep it. at least when I visited my mom, she sort of cared? except she made it about herself going "why would you do this to me!? how could you!?" when like okay. sorry mom for trying to kill myself because I wanted to stop the pain and suffering and just wanted peace. I wasn't like.. I wasn't trying to do that her.
anyways I also kind of hate self harming because like. I'm an adult, meanwhile lots of materials about it, are just targeted towards teens and it feels really degrading and shit. as if adults don't do forms of self harm at all! anyways I really wish I could like drink alcohol, have weed or something. but I don't because I know im gonna abuse the hell out of it and I have to do the smart and responsible thing and avoid it all. but I wish I could just indulge and just stop feeling and not think. that would be really nice
also learning I might have borderline/bpd from my therapist, isn't really fun either since at times I already feel like a bad person, but reading more about it. esp from other people, I even feel more like a bad person. also I recently learned about splitting and I think I might had an episode of that not too long ago? I think it was splitting? I'd have to ask my therapist. Anyways I think I started doing that towards one friend because she did something that bothered me and that not helping with feeling like one the worst people out there. well past friend. I did remove her because it started to feel like she really just really secretly hates me and doesn't really give a shit about me, and I should just ditch her. at least in the moment. except this time around I wasn't really able to ignore those feeling and thoughts and push it away this time.
and like I hate it because she was someone I was more easily able to ignore those thoughts and feelings about when they arise, compared to other people. and now I have ruined probably one of my most stable friendships I had. it was also a long friendship to that lasted 4-5 years and rip to that now. I dunno, I know that is my fault here. and now that im out of that moment, it just. I dunno awful.
Whatever, guess ill talk about some of this stuff to my therapist, except the self harm part. I'm going to sleep now and pretend I don't exist, unless if I get more bad dreams again, fun! be nice if my dad would stop drinking because it does send me into a spiral each fucking time now since I dont think I can handle it at all much anymore. since it makes me worry extremely about him, and also about the future to feeling like if he dies, I'm fucked. either way everything just awful and I wish it would just stop since im tired of like all of all the constant worry, the dread, the despair, the pain, the loneliness, the hollowness/dead inside feeling and the all of it.
Is cultural nihilism a thing? I wanna escape foundational myths , norms, values, heritage and all that. They’re not really worth a lot to me, especially since the local fare is cornball yee haw bullshit.
The total disassociation I’m most comfortable with rote large . Grey skies forever. No wannabe cops hanging over my shoulders trying to force me to get emotionally invested in things I can never be emotionally invested in. That’s what I want.
My reaction after arriving in time to my uni after an hour long bus route only to arrive to an empty classroom and reading the message in g classroom from the teacher saying class will start next week
Just got covid for the first time, I largely suspect because of boomers who hid they had it but didn't want to cancel plans and tell anyone about it and "spoil the fun".
There's a few things I love about Americans, I love that they will talk at length about things they don't know anything about - that's not sarcastic or whatever, I really like that confidence and agreeableness and talkativeness. I do like the average American's optimism, even the doomers are still pretty optimistic lol. Also the total lack of propriety is cool.
I'm deeply into Counter Strike right now and I heard some rumours/fear mongering that China might tax people's Steam inventories since you can have hundreds of thousands of dollars in CSGO skins. I don't know if they will but it'd be hilarious for China to go full and piss off the gamers by crashing the colored pixel economy.
bad bad very bad sunburn on my feet. ouchy hurts very big blister. have not moved in hours don't want to. in other news my pikmin run is down to 12 days
What's a good sports team to say when someone asks me what my favorite sports team is, solely for the social benefit of looking cultured and interesting when I don't want to say I don't have a favorite sports team?
today I rowed so hard that a blister formed and popped under an already thick rowing callous but it's okay I rowed through it then did a bunch of hip stuff, stretches, pushups and other shit, I'm a fuckin' machine!!
what if there were actually a US civil war between blues and reds with no more extreme policy on either side? like literally joe biden and trump, and instead of libs telling you to vote they're demanding you go die in the war
i don't know esperanto but i tried to do a Hexbear-user plural for a bit. came up with 'Sesursoj'---is this acceptable? places that ended in o got the j ending. and i thought hex- from hexagon & ses- from seslatero, not perfect because it's like 'sixbear' but idk how else to do it.
Feeling really handcuffed to a job that is very stressful. Been looking for new jobs but haven't even had an interview in over a month. The so-called "economy" can suck my ass
Going to the bank tomorrow and opening an account. Going to make a gofundme for mr. softie once I get a debit card, his skin is all messed up, all he does is itch and it's red and inflamed and scabbed.
Had a nightmare about my mom dying last night. It wasnt realistic but it was unnerving. First she passed and then everything lost color and became dark grey and then I think I lost the rest of my family, i dont remember if they died too or if they just left me alone. I got stuck inside a very tall building with a lot of filing cabinets, but it wasn't an office. There was also a huge pillar of glass that ran through the center of building filled with very dark water that was hard to see into. I remember thinking was something inside the water but I couldn't see it. I remember very specifically that all of this stuff existed because of my mom dying, like her death created it.
Funniest thing about being friends with a guy as he's discovering his sexuality and battling internalised homophobia: first he came out to me as gay, and then way later as a bottom
I went to a tiny museum in a very out of the way town in the countryside (museum was actually very good) and in the visitor book was none other than Bob Odenkirk. Apparently he visited a couple months ago. I could have seen Saul if I was there
The only way to truely hide from your shadow is to be completely in the dark. This is why I secretly want to live in a giant robot's ass and control it with wires and buttons.
I forgot I subscribed to Hasan's channel a few years back and it's annoying as fuck. Every other title of his video is some variation of "TRUMP IS FUCKED NOW. FACING LIFE IN JAIL." Been seeing them for the entire year.
Least favourite part of federation: liberal will come in and explain what a linked article actually says (something hexbears are allergic to), but then fully pivot into anticommunist propaganda (something hexbears are deathly allergic to)
Once again in the Caribbean. This one is easy if you, like me, got curious about Haiti's economy nowadays as the news mega was focussed on it last week and said "Holy shit, that's a lot of clothes." I swear to god I don't run tradle and am purposefully putting up relevant countries.
I wish I could gather the unicode people all together and ask "so why is Linear A in unicode, but Welsh orthography isn't included - but Roman numerals are?" Cause if you're gonna allow XII to be it's own thing and not just borrow the Latin alphabet, then why does Welsh have to make do with ll being borrowed from the Latin alphabet and why include Linear A at all??? It's a dead indecipherable language, why implement it in unicode but not stuff like proper Welsh orthography???
My quest to catch the Perseids this year has been a complete bust
Two nights ago, I was at the place I usually watch them at only to remember they had installed more streetlights in the vicinity so there was a ton more glare. There was also a lot of mist close to the ground which reflected that glare so it was pretty hopeless. I tried to stick around but then a bunch clouds came in and I left.
Last night I rode out farther to a dirt road between two fields. No lights nearby, perfect. Or it would have been without the brightly-lit clouds covering the entire sky
I was so mad I decided to try one more night despite it already being past peak activity. Naturally, there's not a single cloud anywhere tonight and I haven't seen shit
I'm at the same dark road in the middle of some fields and earlier I saw a car pull off a main road and onto the dirt road. They turn a corner and start driving down the same path I'm on. They drive until me and my bike come into view of their headlights at which point the car stops for a moment. Then it slowly backed away and kept driving down the road it first entered until it pulled to the side and the lights went dark. 20 minutes later the lights came back on and the car exited back to the main road
Pretty sure I accidentally cockblocked some couple just now
I will say that hanging out in the middle of some wheat in the dead of night is a bit spooky
Still generally upset about a thread of some dumb shit some people from a country with a more conservative social climate were saying about the LGBT movement I saw like two days ago. Been mad for like the entire time. I hate having to weigh my own goals with others' boundaries and national sovereignty. Wish I could just bulldoze everything.
Fact of the matter is just neutering American conservatism wouldn't be enough for me. As long as there's conservatives out there anywhere on the planet, I'm in danger. They all need to go before I can let my guard down.
DES MOINES, IA— Hoping to initiate a casual chat with an average citizen during his campaign stop at the Iowa State Fair, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) reportedly said, “Ah, pissing, I love to piss,” this week when attempting to strike up a conversation with a voter. “Boy, do I just adore pissing. What a great way to use my penis,” said DeSantis, moments after seeing a stranger was in the men’s restroom, before unzipping his fly much too early as he walked up to a urinal. “Don’t you love to piss, also? I do it multiple times a day. If I drink a lot of water that day it’s pretty clear, but if I haven’t, it will be more yellow. Sometimes I like to call it tinkling, but there’s nothing more American than a good, hearty piss.” At press time, DeSantis also professed his love for shitting.
A realization I had last night: "One stormy night" was Mei and Gabu's safeword.
And if anyone missed this movie when it was on the hextube, watch it as soon as you can. The start has some odd tonal shifts. Power through them and watch the whole thing. It's so beautiful.
the gunsmith looking at me when he finds out the reason my shotgun magazine was malfunctioning is because it had been loaded with several hot dogs instead of shotgun shells
Dance Gavin Dance is probably the most important band in my life. The music has been a part of every part of my life. It sucks so much I learn about the new vocalist being a scumbag every time I google them.
Y’all know how always long for the good old days of where it was basically an ethnostate and necessities were affordable for
Do you think people were less atomized then and ya know, actually talked to one another? Or am I imagining a utopia that has never existed. Because it just seems so weird to me that so many people can be out in public at the same time but also be in their own bubbles
Argued with some contrarian today who said inflation will calm down because “the market will self correct”
Wages have stayed the same while everything else has gone up. And Americans in particular are too propagandized/overworked to do something about it, so what exactly leads these people to believe this shit
China's economy has missed expectations and they are fiddling with interest rates. What, are they more conservative than your average Keynesians there? Invest directly, give money to workers to start worker-owned businesses. WTF, do socialism!
Chapter 7 of Fire Emblem: Binding Blade is the biggest bullshit. So many reinforcements all at once and your units are complete ass missing 97% of the time and doing single-digit damage when they do manage to hit something.