Dockers were a race apart, and the Ports depended on them more than any other group of workers. Dock work tended to attract unskilled men who were prepared to work hard in return for higher than the average wages. Much of the dock work involved hard physical labour, skill and experience was also needed. Traditionally dock labourers was ‘casual’ employment and did not have a contract with a shipping line, but were hired according to the amount of work available.

Typically, a docker would come to the dock before 7.00am and present himself at a `stand`. Here the employer would pick those he needed for the mornings work. The same would happen around 1.00pm for the afternoons work. So, a docker did not know if he was going to work that day, but still had to turn up twice. Employers tended to pick the strongest or most skilled men, as they could expect them to work most efficiently. They might avoid those regarded as troublemakers, including men devoted to their trade union. There were Dockers that preferred the casual labour system.

They could present themselves when they chose to work, and take time off when they liked. The disadvantage was that a docker who was injured, sick or just too frail to carry on a physically demanding job would not find work. He and his family could easily fall into poverty.

There was absolutely no security of employment. Dock workers gained a reputation for not keeping to rules. Because of casual employment, they had no reason to be loyal to an employer. In turn, the employers had little loyalty to the individual docker.

The Dockers work was hard, and the hours were long and the working conditions were difficult and often dangerous. Despite this, many men would work on the docks for all their working lives, as their fathers and grandfathers had done before them and as their children would do.

End of Era - On September 25th 1995 the men who worked for Torside Shipping Company (a private contractor) were ordered to work for a disputed overtime rate. They refused. The following day all 80 men were sacked. They mounted a picket and the Mersey Dockers refused to pass it. The 329 men of Mersey Docks and Harbour Company were sacked, within 24 hours their jobs were being advertised in the local press.