ABSTRACT
The 1889 London dock strike began on 12 August with a dispute over the method of piece-work payment at one of the port's dock systems. The 1889 dock strike provides a classic case of mass unionism springing directly from mass strike action, and possessing as a consequence an inherent instability. The fact that the direct impact of the great strike was largely confined to the waterfront meant that its contribution to the expansion of unionism was of a rather impermanent nature. The shut-down of the country's largest port was a major event by any standards, but the interest the strike aroused in the nation at large did not derive solely or even mainly from its magnitude. The commitment to general unionism, characteristic of many of the New Unions established at the end of the 1880s, resulted in part from the view taken by their founders concerning the nature of the labour market.
