Page 190 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 190
plex Gateways
off, they returned to England at the end of 1979 (Gesamthafenbetriebs-
Gesellschaft 1979).
After some wildcat strikes in the early 1950s, mainly led by the com-
munist party KPD which demanded wage increases (Geffken 2015, 90), the
only major strike in which the union was involved occurred in 1978 and
was based on demands for wage increases for the increasingly qualified
skilled workers. In the narrations, the strike is never mentioned as an es-
sential action but rather as an anecdote. Most interview partners did not
remember or elaborate on the reasons, and there is no collective memory
of the strike. In the magazine Arbeiterpolitik, an anonymous contempo-
rary author dealt with the strike action controversially. Besides criticis-
ing the approach and attitude of the ÖTV, he explains the German dock
workers’ behaviour. In his statements, he critically comments on their
lacking historical awareness and class-consciousness, stating that con-
temporary dockers could rarely imagine the spirit ‘with which the work-
ers dared to paralyse the port in former times. […] If they go on strike
now, they mostly don’t know what it means. To them, striking means: not
going to work’ (N.N. 1978, 32).5 He further comments that this is not sur-
prising, as they lack experience compared to other European colleagues,
‘because after 1945 they had become used to being social partners instead
of class enemies. They, therefore, have little practical experience with sol-
idarity’ (ibid). This lack of practical experience is mirrored in my inter-
views, where the strike rarely appears as an explicitly chosen topic, and
interviewees mostly pick it up at my request. One interviewee points out
that strike-breakers were mainly among the permanent employees of pri-
vate companies. In a few narrations, the strike marks the turning point
in the organization of work and the rise of containerization. For Erwin
Meier, working as a bargeman back then, the strike marks a significant
juncture. Remarkably, in retrospect he combines the transformation and
incipient decline of traditional dock work with the major strike: ‘And
there we stood striking, six of us, and just before that a somewhat older
colleague had already said to me, “You, boy, if you ever get the chance, go
into the containers. This thing with the barges is no good”’ (Erwin Meier,
1949). In his further narrative, he criticises the strike’s organization and
positions himself as a follower rather than an activist.
5 An important point of reference in publications and narratives to this day remains
the Great Dockers’ Strike of 1896/1897, to which many narrators refer in order
to connect to long-existing actions, which, however, hardly ever occurred in this
form later on (Achten and Kamin-Seggewies, 2008).
190
off, they returned to England at the end of 1979 (Gesamthafenbetriebs-
Gesellschaft 1979).
After some wildcat strikes in the early 1950s, mainly led by the com-
munist party KPD which demanded wage increases (Geffken 2015, 90), the
only major strike in which the union was involved occurred in 1978 and
was based on demands for wage increases for the increasingly qualified
skilled workers. In the narrations, the strike is never mentioned as an es-
sential action but rather as an anecdote. Most interview partners did not
remember or elaborate on the reasons, and there is no collective memory
of the strike. In the magazine Arbeiterpolitik, an anonymous contempo-
rary author dealt with the strike action controversially. Besides criticis-
ing the approach and attitude of the ÖTV, he explains the German dock
workers’ behaviour. In his statements, he critically comments on their
lacking historical awareness and class-consciousness, stating that con-
temporary dockers could rarely imagine the spirit ‘with which the work-
ers dared to paralyse the port in former times. […] If they go on strike
now, they mostly don’t know what it means. To them, striking means: not
going to work’ (N.N. 1978, 32).5 He further comments that this is not sur-
prising, as they lack experience compared to other European colleagues,
‘because after 1945 they had become used to being social partners instead
of class enemies. They, therefore, have little practical experience with sol-
idarity’ (ibid). This lack of practical experience is mirrored in my inter-
views, where the strike rarely appears as an explicitly chosen topic, and
interviewees mostly pick it up at my request. One interviewee points out
that strike-breakers were mainly among the permanent employees of pri-
vate companies. In a few narrations, the strike marks the turning point
in the organization of work and the rise of containerization. For Erwin
Meier, working as a bargeman back then, the strike marks a significant
juncture. Remarkably, in retrospect he combines the transformation and
incipient decline of traditional dock work with the major strike: ‘And
there we stood striking, six of us, and just before that a somewhat older
colleague had already said to me, “You, boy, if you ever get the chance, go
into the containers. This thing with the barges is no good”’ (Erwin Meier,
1949). In his further narrative, he criticises the strike’s organization and
positions himself as a follower rather than an activist.
5 An important point of reference in publications and narratives to this day remains
the Great Dockers’ Strike of 1896/1897, to which many narrators refer in order
to connect to long-existing actions, which, however, hardly ever occurred in this
form later on (Achten and Kamin-Seggewies, 2008).
190
