P&O fight: solidarity action by other workers is needed!

The left and labour movement should continue to support and build the protests and lobbying of the sacked P&O Ferries workers and their union RMT. (We should also argue for the RMT and wider labour movement to campaign for nationalisation of P&O.) But the best, most likely way to win their reinstatement is through solidarity action.

As we understand it, some Hull dockers and river pilots refused to do work allowing the relaunch of the Pride of Hull. However, the Pride of Hull has now launched. We don’t know about other P&O ships. Even if they all launch, there will presumably be dock labour necessary for them to return.

Dockers in the ports where P&O operates have immense potential power. So do workers in the ports P&O’s owner DP World operates in London and Southampton.

Reports say that dockers in France and the Netherlands have also said they will not work on P&O ships.

And in fact other workers less directly or not at all connected to P&O’s operations, particularly transport workers, have potential power here too.

We should learn from the 2005 Gate Gourmet dispute, the mass sacking of airline catering workers and introduction of a new workforce with worse terms and conditions. In that case Heathrow baggage handlers and ground crews walked out in a magnificent act of solidarity – but the union to which all these workers belonged, the T&G (forerunner of Unite), did nothing to support or develop the action, it ended quickly and the Gate Gourmet workers were left high and dry.

Solidarity action has been illegal since 1991; action without a ballot and a long notice period is illegal too. That didn’t stop dockers in Cheshire, Scotland’s northern islands and Kent from taking action despite the anti-union laws, without a ballot or notice periods and for political goals, or stop their unions from backing them up.

They felt confident because of the wide public discussion about Ukraine; and there is surely an analogy here, given the very high profile of this dispute and the very widespread outrage at P&O management's attack. The government would put itself in a difficult position if it attacked workers taking action in support of the P&O workers.

P&O’s chief executive has openly admitted to Parliament that the company broke the law when carrying out the mass sackings. Why should workers respect the laws introduced to prevent us from defending and fighting for our rights and from supporting each other?

We need the widest possible discussion in the labour movement about what is possible, urgently.