I am old enough to remember being told about the scandal of casual dock labour.It was a system whereby men working in the docks had to turn up everyday and present themselves on the off chance that a ship had arrived, which needed unloading and which the dock employers needed labour to shift the load.
In 1946 the Labour MP Stan Awberry wrote that dockworkers “are taken on for short periods varying from a few hours to several days, and paid when the job was completed.......they are engaged day by day, either for a part of the day, a full day or for the full operation of loading or discharging a ship.
There is no continuity, and there is always the element of chance about what will be forthcoming on the morrow."
And that sounds very similar to one definition of the Zero Hour Contract I read “where the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours, while the worker is not obliged to accept any work offered.”
Much is made by some of the advantages of flexibility it gives both employees and employer. In the case of the worker they are freed up so the mantra goes to do all the other things which they may want to do, while for the employer it makes economic sense to be able offer paid employment only when there is a need to do so.
In that respect many employers are only echoing those in the docks in the 19th and early 20th centuries who argued that the “uncontrollable forces in the shipping industry, such as tides, wind and weather, which affect the regularity of the arrival of cargoes by ship and barge, [and] the seasonal trades in tea, timber, cotton, bananas, wool” made casual labour the only realistic way to operate.
All of which seems fine and dandy but doesn’t help the employee budget for a week’s food, rent, and
heating.
Nor does it offer any security.
So in the case of one of our lads who turned up for work as asked at 7 am only to discover that the situation had changed and he was not required till 11 that morning, leaving him to hang around, unpaid for the four hours.
All of which points to that simple observation that the relationship between employer and employee is not equal and in the absence of trade union representation the worker is pretty much isolated.
And at a time when Zero Hour contracts are becoming the norm in many areas of work it is no more realistic for the employee to go elsewhere than it was for those engaged as dock workers to entertain an alternative career as a brain surgeon.
Picture; unloading on the Thames, 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The Labour Problem S.S Awberry M.P, The Spectator December 1946, http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-december-1946/7/the-dock-labour-problem
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| Unloading after casualization had been ended |
There is no continuity, and there is always the element of chance about what will be forthcoming on the morrow."
And that sounds very similar to one definition of the Zero Hour Contract I read “where the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours, while the worker is not obliged to accept any work offered.”
Much is made by some of the advantages of flexibility it gives both employees and employer. In the case of the worker they are freed up so the mantra goes to do all the other things which they may want to do, while for the employer it makes economic sense to be able offer paid employment only when there is a need to do so.
In that respect many employers are only echoing those in the docks in the 19th and early 20th centuries who argued that the “uncontrollable forces in the shipping industry, such as tides, wind and weather, which affect the regularity of the arrival of cargoes by ship and barge, [and] the seasonal trades in tea, timber, cotton, bananas, wool” made casual labour the only realistic way to operate.
All of which seems fine and dandy but doesn’t help the employee budget for a week’s food, rent, and
heating.
Nor does it offer any security.
All of which points to that simple observation that the relationship between employer and employee is not equal and in the absence of trade union representation the worker is pretty much isolated.
And at a time when Zero Hour contracts are becoming the norm in many areas of work it is no more realistic for the employee to go elsewhere than it was for those engaged as dock workers to entertain an alternative career as a brain surgeon.
Picture; unloading on the Thames, 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The Labour Problem S.S Awberry M.P, The Spectator December 1946, http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-december-1946/7/the-dock-labour-problem
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