1911. A more prolonged struggle took place at Liverpool, where Mann organized the dockers and carters so effectively that essential food supplies could pass through the port only with a military escort or by special licence provided by the strike committee.
Pelling, A History of British Trade Unionism

Photo: Regent Street, North Liverpool

1950s. You'd have four hours in the boiler, then crawl out for your break. You couldn't afford to go to a café; and then you'd go back in for another four hours.
Joe Cubbin, quoted in Bill Hunter, They Knew Why They Fought.

Photo: Nelson Street, Bootle

Q: Do you think you can win?
A: Oh without a doubt. We've got lads going all over the place, doing their utmost. They're working a damn sight harder than this Mersey Docks and Harbour crowd, which they always did do.
Q: Some people think you made a mistake, refusing to cross a picket line.
A: I wouldn't know how to cross a picket line. We always prided ourselves we didn't have to put up picket lines.
Micky Tighe, interviewed by Nerve.

Photo: East Float, Wallasey

1989. When we had to go back in 1989 we marched back. That was something we had never done before and something we had picked up from the miners. We found that there was a lock on the shop stewards' cabin.
Larry Cavanagh, quoted in Bill Hunter, They Knew Why They Fought.

Photo: Regent Road, north Liverpool

The great dock strike of 1889 showed up enormous stagnant pools of misery and degradation which society and the Trade Union leaders had both forgotten.
The demands of the dockers were meager enough. They were for a minimum wage of sixpence an hour, the abolition of contract work (the source of the worst sweating) and some minor reforms. The dock companies refused even to discuss them, being confident that creatures so degraded as the labourers had no staying power and would rapidly be defeated.
Cole & Postgate, The British Common People

Photo: Morpeth Dock, Wallasey