ABSTRACT
The Rotterdam dockers lived scattered throughout the city, interspersed with other workers, although some districts did house more casual workers than others, due to differences in status and style of living; dockers also changed jobs between the different trades open to them, inside and outside the port. The workers in the grain sector in Rotterdam met these requirements exactly, and they indeed had their small-scale and specialised unions, that were doomed, however, to disappear after the strikes against the grain-elevators were lost. Formal tenure for the casuals in Rotterdam, introduced in 1955, was certainly stimulated by these Onafhankelijke Bond van Bedrijfsorganisaties actions, but the credit was given to the Scheepvaart Vereniging Zuid and the Centrale Bond van Transportarbeiders. As a port of international importance, Rotterdam was rather new: it grew with the same speed as the German Ruhr area, by far the most dynamic industrial centre of Europe since 1880.
