ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on labour market organisation, social conflicts and strikes, and on special aspects of industrial relations, whereas there will be only some short remarks on the social structure of the workforce and on living conditions of dock labourers. It explains patterns of conflict and organisation, and analyses aspects of the dock workers' work culture and the effects that labour law and jurisdiction had on their occupational lives. The chapter argues that the dichotomy between skilled and unskilled labour that many other scholars have used in their research is an inappropriate approach to explain workers' behaviour. It discusses an effect of casual labour that has been neglected in scholarly writings on dock labour so far: the strong influence casual labour had on the high accident rate in the port of Hamburg. Any researcher on Hamburg's workers and on the labour movement during the Kaiserreich must consult the rich haul of material collected by the local political police.
