1907 Belfast Dock strike
Encyclopedia
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
from May to August 1907. The strike, which began at Sailortown
Sailortown, Belfast
Sailortown was a working-class dockland community located in the Docks area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Established in the mid-19th century on partly reclaimed land, it had a mixed Protestant and Catholic population...
, beside the Docks
Port of Belfast
Belfast Harbour is a major maritime gateway in Northern Ireland, serving the Northern Ireland economy and increasingly that of the Republic of Ireland...
was called by Liverpool-born trade union leader James Larkin
James Larkin
James Larkin was an Irish trade union leader and socialist activist, born to Irish parents in Liverpool, England. He and his family later moved to a small cottage in Burren, southern County Down. Growing up in poverty, he received little formal education and began working in a variety of jobs...
who had successfully organised the dock workers to join the National Union of Dock Labourers
National Union of Dock Labourers
The National Union of Dock Labourers was a trade union in the United Kingdom. It was formed in Glasgow in 1889 but moved its headquarters to Liverpool within a few years and was thereafter most closely associated with Merseyside...
(NUDL). The dockers, both Protestant and Catholic, had gone on strike after their demand for union recognition was refused. They were soon joined by carters, shipyard workers, sailors, firemen, boilermakers, coal heavers, transport workers and women employed in the linen mills and factories. Most of the dock labourers were employed by powerful tobacco magnate Thomas Gallaher
Tom Gallaher
Thomas Gallaher was the founder of Gallaher Group, one of the largest cigarette manufacturers in the United Kingdom.-Career:...
, chairman of the Belfast Steamship Company and owner of Gallaher's Tobacco Factory. The Royal Irish Constabulary
Royal Irish Constabulary
The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police...
(RIC) later mutinied when ordered to escort the blacklegs and disperse the strikers. Order was eventually restored when British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
troops were deployed. Although largely unsuccessfully, the dock strike led to the establishment of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union
Irish Transport and General Workers' Union
The Irish Transport and General Workers Union, an Irish trade union, was founded by James Larkin in 1908 as a general union. Initially drawing its membership from branches of the Liverpool-based National Union of Dock Labourers, from which Larkin had been expelled, it grew to include workers in a...
.
Former Irish Labour Party leader Ruairi Quinn
Ruairi Quinn
Ruairi Quinn is an Irish Labour Party politician who has been Minister for Education and Skills since March 2011. He is currently a Teachta Dála for the Dublin South East constituency. He was Minister for Finance from 1994 to 1997, and leader of the Labour Party from 1997 to 2002.-Early...
described the Belfast strike as having been a "major event in the early years of the trade union movement".
Background to the strike
Belfast in the early 20th-century was a flourishing centre of industry with shipbuilding, engineering and linen-manufacturing the main sources of the city's economic lifeblood. Its skilled workforce of shipyard workers and engineers earned wages and enjoyed working conditions comparable with the rest of the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. For the unskilled workers, such as dock labourers and carters, it was a completely different story. They worked up to 75 hours a week in conditions which were dangerous and unsanitary, without holidays. The pay was low and employment was erratic and uncertain. The men who worked in the docks lived in Sailortown
Sailortown, Belfast
Sailortown was a working-class dockland community located in the Docks area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Established in the mid-19th century on partly reclaimed land, it had a mixed Protestant and Catholic population...
, a community adjacent to the docks which had a population of 5,000, excluding the transient sailors who swelled the numbers. This mixed Protestant and Catholic populace was packed into tiny streets of red-bricked terraced houses that were built between the docks and York Street. They were damp, airless, overcrowded and poorly-lit. Poverty, hunger and disease was rife. Women and teenaged girls were compelled to work long, arduous hours in the linen mills and cigarette factories. Most families in Sailortown had men who were merchant seamen; with boys as young as 14 going off to sea. The other men obtained unskilled work on the waterfront as dockers, carters and coal heavers.
By this time there were 3,100 dock labourers, 2,000 of whom were casual workers or "spellsmen" hired on a daily basis at low pay. Whilst Protestants and Catholics held the same jobs, the sectarian attitudes which dominated every aspect of life in Belfast ensured that Protestant dockers worked in the cross-channel docks where employment was more regular whilst Catholic dockers were made to work in the more dangerous deep sea docks. They were also the first to be laid off when labour cutbacks were required. Author John Gray in his book, City in Revolt: James Larkin and the Belfast Dock Strike of 1907 described the differences in wages earnings and the standard of living between the skilled and unskilled workers as "a yawning abyss, unequalled anywhere else in the United Kingdom.
It was into this environment and social milieu that trade union leader James Larkin (a Liverpool-born Irish Catholic) arrived in January 1907. He was sent to Belfast with the aim of bringing the dock workers and carters into the National Union of Dock Labourers
National Union of Dock Labourers
The National Union of Dock Labourers was a trade union in the United Kingdom. It was formed in Glasgow in 1889 but moved its headquarters to Liverpool within a few years and was thereafter most closely associated with Merseyside...
(NUDL). Addressing crowds of people on the steps of Belfast's Custom House
Charles Lanyon
Sir Charles Lanyon DL, JP was an English architect of the 19th century. His work is most closely associated with Belfast, Northern Ireland.-Biography:Lanyon was born in Eastbourne, Sussex in 1813...
, he vociferously articulated the grievances of the working classes. Due to his charismatic personality and considerable oratorial skill, Larkin succeeded in unionising the Protestant and Catholic workers.
The lockout
By April 1907, Larkin had recruited 2,000 workers into the NUDL union; in May the number had reached 4,500. In that same month, the massive wave of strikes commenced in Sailortown on the quay outside the premises of coal merchant Samuel Kelly. This was after he had dismissed union members from his workforce and Larkin called for the rest of the workers to go on strike. On 6 May, dockers working on the SS Optic owned by Belfast Steamship Company also went out on strike in protest at the use of non-union members. Most of the dockers in Belfast were employees of magnate Thomas GallaherTom Gallaher
Thomas Gallaher was the founder of Gallaher Group, one of the largest cigarette manufacturers in the United Kingdom.-Career:...
who owned Gallaher's Tobacco Factory and served as chairman of Belfast Steamship Company. Gallaher and Kelly were forewarned about the strike, and had sent to Dublin for 50 blackleg dockers and coal heavers
Strikebreaker
A strikebreaker is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who are not employed by the company prior to the trade union dispute, but rather hired prior to or during the strike to keep the organisation running...
to fill the strikers' places. After Larkin persuaded the dockers and coal heavers to return to work, the men discovered that they were locked out with the imported blacklegs working in their stead. The locked-out NUDL dockers and coal heavers proceeded to force the blacklegs away from the Belfast Steamship Company's sheds and the coal merchant's quay. Although Kelly gave in and recognised his workers' rights to union membership, when Gallaher sacked seven women for attending a meeting held by Larkin, one thousand female employees of his tobacco factory in York Street walked out of their workplace in a display of solidarity. Thomas Gallaher refused to recognise the NUDL and had hundreds of blacklegs working on Donegall Quay under the protection of the RIC and troops deployed by Belfast's Lord Mayor
Lord Mayor of Belfast
The Lord Mayor of Belfast is the leader and chairman of Belfast City Council, elected annually from and by the City's 51 councillors.The Lord Mayor is Niall Ó Donnghaile of Sinn Féin, while the Deputy Lord Mayor is Ruth Patterson of the Democratic Unionist Party, who were elected in May 2011.The...
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury, KP, PC, GCVO, CBE, was the son of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury and Lady Harriet Augusta Anna Seymourina Chichester , the daughter of George Chichester, 3rd Marquess of Donegall and Lady Harriet Anne Butler.-Family life:On 15 July...
. Larkin denounced Gallaher in speeches as an "obscene scoundrel".
By the end of June thousands of dockers were on strike, including 300 from the cross-channel companies, most of which were owned by powerful British railway magnates. As unrest among Belfast's workers grew, the strike soon spread from the docks and quays to the rest of Belfast with shipyard workers, firemen, sailors, iron moulders, and transport workers joining the dockers. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people turned out to attend the strike meetings that were held daily. The NUDL demanded an increase in wages along with union recognition and better working conditions. At this stage, however, the dockers' strike was hampered by the strong police and military presence on the quays. Larkin decided to lead the striking dockers in a march to Belfast City Hall
Belfast City Hall
Belfast City Hall is the civic building of the Belfast City Council. Located in Donegall Square, Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, it faces north and effectively divides the commercial and business areas of the city centre.-History:...
to put their case before the council chamber who were in session. According to a newspaper report, the dockers were "marshalled in a long column of fours, and headed by Mr. Larkin they marched in military order through the streets gathering an immense crowd at their heels". The politicians inside City Hall had to perforce admit a delegation of dockers to their meeting, but they refused to make any concessions.
The tide was suddenly turned in the dockers' favour when carters on the railway company quays refused to transport goods unloaded from the ships by the Dublin blacklegs. On 4 July after submitting a general pay claim, Larkin called all the carters in Belfast out on a sympathy strike
Sympathy strike
Secondary action is industrial action by a trade union in support of a strike initiated by workers in another, separate enterprise...
. Gallaher and the other employers had no means of getting their merchandise out of the port. The Belfast Newsletter commented on the situation with the following words: "It was remarkable to see the stagnation which existed from the Custom House to the Clarendon Dock. With the exception of an isolated van or lorry driven by the obvious amateur, there was scarcely a sign of life or movement". Soon afterwards engineers and boilermakers were striking. The strike escalated into bitter violence when shipyard workers burnt company vans and hurled rocks at the police. Blacklegs workers had to be billeted aboard a ship in the Belfast Lough for their own safety.
Solidarity between Protestants and Catholics
The strike was characterised by unrest in working class areas of Belfast and solidarity across the sectarian divide. On the Shankill Road, a Protestant area of the city and a regular scene of sectarian clashes, 100,000 workers marched in support of the strike in a parade that featured flute bands from both UnionistUnionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
and Nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
traditions, a very rare occurrence. The parade ended at a mass rally held outside City Hall, where 200,000 demonstrators had gathered.
Although it involved members of both the Protestant and Catholic communities the Irish Unionist Alliance establishment opposed the strike and subjected Larkin to a sectarian campaign of condemnation, aimed largely at coaxing Protestant workers away from the strike. Larkin did however secure the support of the Independent Orange Order
Independent Orange Order
The Independent Loyal Orange Institution is an off-shoot of the Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organisation based in Northern Ireland.-Foundation:...
, an offshoot of the mainstream Orange Order which at the time had close ties to the Protestant labour movement.
Police mutiny
The police mutiny broke out when the RIC were ordered to escort a convoy of motor wagons driven by blacklegs through the city. Blacklegs had been recruited to replace the striking carters and their wagons were routinely blocked by picketers. The RIC were enlisted to provide an escort for the blackleg drivers, who constantly came under attack. The policemen, however, received no extra pay for this hazardous duty nor for the regular breaking up of strikers' pickets, both of which threatened to alienate them from their own communities. Traction engines equipped with makeshift armour had been specially sent to Belfast for the purpose of breaking up strikers' pickets.On 19 July, RIC Constable William Barrett refused to sit beside the blackleg driver of a motor wagon who had been promised personal police protection by his employer. After flatly refusing to obey District Inspector Keaveney when the latter ordered him to accompany the driver, he was promptly suspended. In response, three hundred angry policemen attended a meeting at Musgrave Sreet Barracks and declared their support for the strike. A brawl instantly broke out inside the barracks when Barrett resisted attempts to arrest him. This led to another 800 policemen (about 70 per cent of the police force) joining the mutiny. They refused to offer any protection to the blacklegs, made no further attempts to disperse the strikers' pickets and formulated plans to carry out their own strike for higher wages.
British Army troops and cavalry were immediately deployed to Belfast to restore order; on 1 August nine warships sailed into Belfast Lough and martial law was quickly imposed in the city. On 2 August, the day before the police were due to go on strike, the leaders of the mutiny were transferred from Belfast; Barrett and six other constables were dismissed from the RIC. The police mutiny was effectively crushed.
End of the strike
The strike was ultimately ended on 28 August not by Larkin but by James SextonJames Sexton
Sir James Sexton CBE was a British trade unionist and politician.Sexton was born in Newcastle upon Tyne to an Irish-born family of market traders, who soon moved to St Helens, Lancashire. After leaving school he worked in a variety of jobs, including as a seaman and in a chemical factory, before...
, the overall head of the NUDL in Britain and Ireland. Sexton found the strike payments that had to be made to the dockers crippling high and, fearing that the union might be bankrupted, negotiated with the employers before agreeing to terms that amounted to capitulation by the NUDL. These separate negotiations left the dock labourers isolated.
In the weeks leading up to the strike's termination, the press had begun to employ scare-mongering methods to alienate the Protestant strikers from their Catholic counterparts by alluding to Irish nationalism and socialism. The Irish Home Rule Movement
Irish Home Rule Movement
The Irish Home Rule Movement articulated a longstanding Irish desire for the repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 by a demand for self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The movement drew upon a legacy of patriotic thought that dated back at least to the late 17th...
, which had been put aside during the lockout, once again emerged as a potential threat to Irish Unionists.
In mid-August during the course of a riot in the lower Falls Road, two Catholic men were killed by soldiers. This struck a serious blow to working-class unity. Despite the removal of the Army from the Falls Road area the following day, working-class solidarity was damaged beyond repair. The Belfast Telegraph as well as Unionist and Nationalist politicians quickly took the opportunity to exploit the centuries-old sectarian divisions and the two striking groups inevitably drifted back into their former sectarian camps.
Legacy
The defeat of the strike saw a move towards a more Irish-based trade unionism, with the Irish Transport & General Workers Union (ITGWU) established the following year in response to the events of Belfast. This also helped to ensure a significant increase in trade union membership amongst northern Catholics, who before the strike had tended to be less unionised than their Protestant counterparts. Such a move was seen as a problem by leading figures in the Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, not least the anti-socialist Cardinal Michael Logue who warned his flock that "socialism as it is preached on the Continent, and as it has commenced to be preached in these countries, is simply irreligion and atheism".
For Larkin the strike was seen as something of a triumph despite its unsatisfactory ending. He would move south the following year and found that the authorities were frequently loathe to confront him, given his tough reputation and the spectre of the police mutiny that had accompanied the Belfast strike. As a result Larkin enjoyed a high success rate in labour disputes until the Dublin Lock-out of 1913.
The industrial action attracted much attention, including that of John Maclean
John Maclean (Scottish socialist)
John Maclean MA was a Scottish schoolteacher and revolutionary socialist. He is primarily known as a Marxist educator and notable for his outspoken opposition to the First World War....
, a Scottish Marxist who came to prominence as a leader of the Red Clydeside
Red Clydeside
Red Clydeside is a term used to describe the era of political radicalism that characterised the city of Glasgow in Scotland, and urban areas around the city on the banks of the River Clyde such as Clydebank, Greenock and Paisley...
group. Maclean was in Belfast from 1 to 3 August along with Victor Grayson
Victor Grayson
Albert Victor Grayson was an English socialist politician of the early 20th century. A Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, his sudden and still-unexplained disappearance in 1920 is widely believed to have been the result of his intention to reveal evidence of corruption at the highest levels...
and he spoke before large crowds of striking workers. Maclean was impressed by what he saw in Belfast, feeling that the strike would represent the moment in which sectarian divisions were put aside in favour of working class unity in Ireland. Furthermore his brief time in Belfast reinvigorated his enthusiasm for the trade union movement. From his base in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
Maclean had become disillusioned with trade unionism as the Glasgow dockers' unions were small and made up only of highly skilled workers who adopted the superior attitude of a "labour aristocracy". However the Belfast unions had a mass membership and for Maclean this pointed the way forward for unions as instruments of real social change and as such he took up his pen in support of the Belfast strike. Maclean would later become an enthusiastic supporter of Irish nationalism, and in declaring his support for the First Dáil
First Dáil
The First Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 1919–1921. In 1919 candidates who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled as a unicameral, revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann"...
he suggested that it was the culmination of a new struggle that had begun with the 1907 Dock strike.
Former Irish Labour Party leader Ruairi Quinn described the Belfast Dock strike as having been a "major event in the early years of the trade union movement". There are statues in Belfast and Dublin commemorating James Larkin.