ABSTRACT
Collective action by dockers was based on traditions of populist protests, which entailed organised public protest. The 1889 Liverpool strike had been a series of work stoppages on the waterfront, initiated along sectoral lines, without a uniform schedule of demands. Although dockers frequently developed strategies to ensure employment within a casual labour market through tactics of exclusion, they also developed a strong sense of justice, which valued an equal distribution of work among longshoremen, and an elimination of favouritism. As governments urged a rationalisation of the industry through mechanisation and job reduction and dockers' unions promised increased wages as the benefits of streamlining, longshoremen frequently resisted the anticipated elimination of jobs through job actions and unofficial strikes. In Mombassa and Tanga, pilfering-especially the dockers' public display of pilfered clothing-indicated a contempt for a racist structure based on white monopoly, and reflected African workers' resistance within the rigid confines of their work place.
