By Andy Warnock-Smith, retired RMT Officer NW region
Regretfully Jimmy lost his fight for life on April 15. He was the convenor of the Liverpool dockers employed by Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in the 1990s, when they were dismissed for refusing to cross a picket line after a dockside company called Torside sacked five workers. Under Jimmy’s leadership, the dockers refused to cross the Torside picket and the company then sacked them all.
During their two-year campaign for reinstatement, the Liverpool dockers built huge international support from port workers around the globe: from Europe, America, Africa, India and Australia, who in solidarity boycotted ships from Liverpool.
However, the leadership of their own trade union, the Transport and General Workers Union, refused to support them, claiming they were taking unofficial ‘wildcat’ action. Jimmy quite rightly accused his General Secretary, Bill Morris, of betrayal and told him, “You can go rot so you can keep your offices, your chauffeur-driven cars and your mobile phones”.
At the end of 28 months of strike action, the dockers pooled their settlement money in setting up the Initiative Factory which Jimmy chaired and the Casa bar on Hope Street in Liverpool.
The Initiative Factory offered help, information, legal advice, debt advice and support to groups and individuals to fight against injustice and discrimination. The RMT moved our NW Regional Office into the Casa and we had many a conversation with our good friend Jimmy over a pint or two, of course after our working day.
Jimmy was humorous, excellent company, and had a close connection with the RMT and was a great friend and comrade of the late General Secretary, Bob Crow.
His principle was never cross a picket line.
Jimmy was a socialist and a trade unionist of the old school who understood the class struggle as an internationalist.,
A statement on Jimmy from the US International Longshore and Warehouse Workers union (ILWU) can be found here and from the Maritime Union of Australia here. More photos of the Liverpool dockers’ struggle can be found in a new book of photographs by Dave Sinclair, details here.
Jimmy always said that when we are united we are strongest.
RIP Jimmy Nolan
