ABSTRACT
The first trade union locals of Finnish dockers were established in the 1890s and the Union of Finnish Dockers was founded in 1905. International studies of dock work have brought out the impact of the environment and its role in emphasising the casual and temporary nature of the work. The dockers emerged as an independent group in Turku fairly late. The shipowners' organisation, which had changed its name to the Baltic and International Maritime Conference, succeeded in fomenting a price war between stevedoring enterprises in many Finnish harbours during the 1920s, but in the port of Turku stevedoring activities remained mainly in the hands of one company. The Turku dockers went on strike in the summer of that year together with dockworkers in a number of other harbours. The strike became politicised in the climate prevailing after the Civil War, and it ended in the utter defeat of the workers.
