aug 12, 1889 - The 1889 dock strike

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On 12 August 1889, unions issued a set of demands to the private dock companies that included minimum 4 hours’ work when taken on “without favouritism” at call-on times fixed at 8am and 12 noon. The demand for increased rates of pay to be 6d or ‘tanner’ (around £2 now) per hour for day work with 8d per hour overtime resulted in the strike being referred to as the ‘dockers’ tanner’. The inevitable refusal by the employers to concede resulted in a walk out across the port. Within days, skilled stevedores and lightermen unusually joined their unskilled brethren in the strike and, with up to 75,000 dockers refusing to work, the port was completely paralysed. As the world’s shipping queued in the River Thames unable to discharge its valuable cargo, London’s pre-eminent reputation as the “warehouse of the world” was at risk.

Source: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/1889-london-dockers-and-tailors-strikes-docklands

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