Twister_Ken
Well-known member
Here\'s something I never knew
If, like me, you remember the Rolling Stones before they started shaving, you'll also remember the incredibly militant dockworkers union. Right?
I thought at the time that they were just a stroppy bunch, but I'm currently reading a history of London Docks. What had never occurred to me is that the upstream docks were built in the days of sailing ships. Therefore, if there were days or weeks of easterlies, no ships could get up channel, and round the corner into the London River. Consequently there were times when the docks were deathly quiet. Then, when the wind went into the west, an armada of merchant ships would sweep up-channel and all park in London at the same time, demanding instant unloading. Consequently, the dock owners (private companies in those days), needed a 'flexible' workforce because they were competing fiercely with each other and trying to screw their costs into the floor. As a result, there were almost no permanently employed dockers. They used to have to turn up outside the dock gates in the morning and hang around to see if they would be choosen to do a day's work. Or even a half day's work, or an hour's work.
Not only did Channel winds effect activity in the docks, so did global seasonal weather patterns and harvests, so that Australian grain ships or China tea clippers for example wouldn't arrive throughout the year, but would be concentrated into one or two months of the year. Another reason for casualisation of labour. It was this uncertainty of employment which first made the dockers unionise.
The advent of steamships of course meant much more regular arrivals of shipping, and regularity of employment, but casuality by then suited the dock owners so well that they never considered employing a full time workforce, a situation that continued into the1960s when the London Docks were all but dead in the face of bigger ships (too big to get upriver into docks with 80 foot wide entry locks) and increasing containerisation.
Sorry to bore you.
<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>
If, like me, you remember the Rolling Stones before they started shaving, you'll also remember the incredibly militant dockworkers union. Right?
I thought at the time that they were just a stroppy bunch, but I'm currently reading a history of London Docks. What had never occurred to me is that the upstream docks were built in the days of sailing ships. Therefore, if there were days or weeks of easterlies, no ships could get up channel, and round the corner into the London River. Consequently there were times when the docks were deathly quiet. Then, when the wind went into the west, an armada of merchant ships would sweep up-channel and all park in London at the same time, demanding instant unloading. Consequently, the dock owners (private companies in those days), needed a 'flexible' workforce because they were competing fiercely with each other and trying to screw their costs into the floor. As a result, there were almost no permanently employed dockers. They used to have to turn up outside the dock gates in the morning and hang around to see if they would be choosen to do a day's work. Or even a half day's work, or an hour's work.
Not only did Channel winds effect activity in the docks, so did global seasonal weather patterns and harvests, so that Australian grain ships or China tea clippers for example wouldn't arrive throughout the year, but would be concentrated into one or two months of the year. Another reason for casualisation of labour. It was this uncertainty of employment which first made the dockers unionise.
The advent of steamships of course meant much more regular arrivals of shipping, and regularity of employment, but casuality by then suited the dock owners so well that they never considered employing a full time workforce, a situation that continued into the1960s when the London Docks were all but dead in the face of bigger ships (too big to get upriver into docks with 80 foot wide entry locks) and increasing containerisation.
Sorry to bore you.
<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>
