Subject: One By One

Last Update: November 9, 1997

One By One Pontius Pilate came to our town Up to the dockyards to see the picket line We asked him to help but he just turned around He's the leader of the union now Leader of the union All of our questions he ignored He washed his hands and he dreamed of his reward A seat in the House of Lords One by one The ships come sailing in One by one The ships go sailing out We live for words and die for words Principles we can afford When all our Brothers turn to Lords Whose side are you on? You tell the world your hands are tied History three times denied A sea of changes three miles wide Whose side are you on? One by one The ships come sailing in One by one The ships go sailing out This conspiracy of shame Murder by some other name Play up and play the game Whose side are you on? If any ask us why we died We tell them that our leaders lied Sold us out down the riverside Whose side are you on? One by one The ships come sailing in One by one The ships go sailing out

Dedicated to the striking Liverpool Dockers who are taking on the Merseyside Docks Harbour Company and the British State without 'official' union support - to all workers who take on bosses...and to those who fight with them. + "Fellowship is heaven, and a lack of fellowship is hell; fellowship is life, and a lack of fellowship is death; and the deeds that ye do on earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them." William Morris - The Dream of John Ball + "Scabs are scum" Traditional + "The dockers are represented by the Transport and General Worker's Union, one of Britain's biggest trade unions, whose leaders have maintained that because the dockers' action was technically against the law, the union cannot make the dispute official. But had the TGWU launched a national campaign challenging the circumstances and the justice of the dockers' dismissal along with casualisation, it is likely that the battle would have been won there and then. As it turned out, the union's failure to act unceremoniously closed more than a century of struggle to achieve civilised working conditions on Britain's docks. Moreover, the company is clearly delighted with its "good relationship" with the union and boasts that it runs 'the only unionised port in Britain'. "We show the TGWU far more respect than the (sacked) men." It is hardly surprising that, at Transport House, the TGWU headquarters in Liverpool, the dockers use a bust of Ernest Bevin, the union's pre-war General Secretary and pillar of the right wing of the Labour Party, as a coat-rack. For much of its history, the TGWU has been, as one labour historian wrote: "an encrusted, complacent, bureaucracy" which, in containing the anger of its ordinary members at the injustices imposed on their working lives, has served the aims of the British establishment." John Pilger, excerpts from They Never Walk Alone (Guardian article on the Dockers, November 1996) + "When I see an actual flesh and blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to say which side I am on." George Orwell + "Over the past months I have discovered many things about myself and about the laws of this land which I have been led to believe was the finest legal system in the world. But now I can only fear for the working class people of this country. If a mighty trade union can be fined a vast amount of money, and then building workers arrested, tried and sentenced for picketing, will the day come when it will be a crime in itself to be a member of a trade union? Who can tell? The sentence passed on me today by this court will not matter. My innocence has been proved time and time again by building workers of Wrexham whom I led and indeed by building workers from all over the country who have sent messages of support to myself, my family and my colleagues. Messages have in fact come from many of the very Lumpers whom I picketed during the national stoppage and I thank them all, each and every one, for their moral support. I know my children, when they are old enough, will understand that the struggle we took part in was for the benefit and interests of all building workers and their families because we really do care. One could complain of the methods used in this trial, of the identification by photograph. Just one bearded man on all the photographs, yet on my coach alone, beards were worn by at least half a dozen chaps. Statements were thrust on witnesses minutes before they entered the court to give evidence, whether they asked for them or not. Once again is this normal procedure in just an everyday criminal case? I think not. Police officers prompting and priming witnesses with what to say before entering the witness box. I would like to ask if the fantastic police enquiries and mammoth statements taken and the thousands of pounds spent on this spectacular are the usual diligent efforts used in an ordinary criminal trial? I look forward to the day when the real culprits - the McAlpines, Wimpeys, Laings and Bovises and all their political puppets are in the dock facing charges of conspiracy and intimidating workers from doing what is their lawful right - picketing." Eric Tomlinson, one of the building workers tried in 1973 for conspiracy to cause damage to a building site; he was jailed for two years. + "No more Bosses versus Workers. We are on the same side, the same team." Tony Blair, Labour Party Conference, Blackpool 1996 + "How could I indifferently stand by, and behold some of the very best of my fellow creatures cruelly treated by some of the very worst?" Richard Parker, Leader of the Nore Mutiny, executed 1797