Making an Irish Free State City – Insights into the city’s dockers 1925

Buried perhaps in the closing week in a Cork Examiner newspaper column in December 1925 one hundred years ago, is a very insightful account of life as a docker in Cork. It was published on 23 December 1925 as a summary of a meeting of the Economic and Literary Society of the School of Commerce. James Hickey, Irish Transport Workers' Union, related his findings on the challenges of casual labour at the city’s north and south docks.

Mallow-born James Hickey (1866-1966), at the age of 27 found employment first with the Cork Steam Packet Company and later with John Daly & Co, then-manufacturers of Tanora. James joined the Labour Party about this time and became a trade union official. By the delivery of his 1925 lecture, he would have had over 20 years being as an official and would have ben about 59 years of age.

In time in 1938 he was elected to Dáil Éireann as an Independent and also became a four-time lord mayor of Cork (1937-1939; 1943-1944).

At his December 1925 lecture, James read a paper, which he titled Casual Employment at the Docks. He emphasised that casual employment existed in the shipping industry more so than in any other. Ships arrived intermittently and the demands for labour fluctuated with the requirements of each ship. It had been and was the practice of employers “to engage their labour each day as required and dismiss them the moment they were not wanted”.

However, the system required a surplus of labour to meet the full demands of the port on its busiest day. The men in this surplus were underemployed because it was impossible for all of them to find work on any one day except the busiest day. Each employer had his own surplus of available men sufficient to meet his requirements on his busiest day.

He noted: “The surplus was still further increased, for men would present themselves for work only at the stands of their usual employer. A man who presents himself on the north jetty will on no account get immediate employment at the south jetty.”

According to James’ research, the net result was that dock labourers forming the surplus were unable to earn a bare subsistence wage. As evidence of the excessive surplus of dockers available, Mr Hickey quoted the following figures of the number of men offering themselves for employment, and the number taken on on two dates in the winter of 1925.

Place - St Patrick's Quay; number waiting, 405; number taken on, 210. Place - Clontarf Street corner; number waiting 155; number taken on, 95. And on another date, Place – St Patrick's Quay; number waiting, 326: number taken on, 202. Place – Clontarf Street corner; number waiting, 195; number taken on, 180.

James described that in the shipping industry there were seasonal and day to day fluctuations. The shipping industry itself was not seasonal, but it suffered from seasonal depressions as in other trades. The day to day fluctuation was due to the irregular arrival of ships.

James quoted figures as evidence of the fluctuations taking place in four consecutive weeks and pointed out that the number of men employed on the busiest day (723), and compared with the numbers employed on other days, the percentage of employment was abnormally high. Even on this busiest day he assumed that more than 723 men offer themselves for employment, but “for the busiest day in the port was not necessarily the busiest day for each employer”.

On the matter of earnings, James had the greatest difficulty in obtaining correct information as to the earnings of dork labourers. Not only did they vary much from man to man, but the earnings of any particular man varied very much from time to time. All the Cork dockers, through the work of twenty men, were paid daily.

Reflecting on the fluctuating wages, James noted; “A docker's money is good when he is employed, and good money can be earned when men are able to get four or five days' work a week on piece-work rates. Those short spells of good paying work do the men no good in the long run – they break down the strongest young man and mako him appear aged at forty.”

James quoted the following figures given to him by a “docker of good standing”. In one month this docker earned £10 10s; the next month he earned £16 8s. In the five following months, £9 4s, £6 10s, £11 5s, £8 and £10 5s, and in the remaining five months his earnings were between £7 10 and £13 5s.

James also outlined that there were a number of dock labourers who earned on an average between £1 and 30s. a week. Life on this wage was hard, but it was much more difficult to manage a wage which may be 30s. this week and 6s. 6d or 9s 9d the next week.

James also spoke of how the dockers’ earning were supplemented. He highlighted since a very large number of men under the present casual system did not earn enough for subsistence, they had to rely on other sources, such as earnings of their wives and children and relief from charitable funds.

On inquiry of various charitable organisations, James ascertained that a very large proportion of the applications for relief come from the families of dock labourers. In one society, indeed, dock labourers were the chief class that applied for relief.

James suggested a number of remedies. He saw the most hope in a scheme of registration, such as has been practiced in many ports, one that was based on the control of labour by a joint committee of employers and workers. The employers would agree to “employ only men who are registered and by control of the register the joint committee were able to regulate the influx of casual labour”.

James noted that the payment of wages weekly at a central place was much appreciated by the men in other ports and that he would like very much like to see such a system of wages payment adopted in Cork.

James then went into details with regard to registration in other ports such as Bristol, Abermouth, Grimsby, Hull, Middlesboro and Plymouth. He saw no reason why in Cork, and in all Irish ports, some such system as this should not be adopted.

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers of the column!