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Irish Trades Union Congress & The Titanic
By FRANCIS DEVINE 2002
At the 1912 meeting of the Irish Trade Union Congress in Clonmel - most famous
as the Congress that, in effect, created the Labour Party - G.W. Hayes of
Waterford, one of four delegates from the National Sailors' & Foremen's
Union, moved the following resolution -
'That we, the representatives of the organised workers of Ireland, are of the
opinion that the time has arrived - and it has been duly demonstrated by the
Titanic disaster, whereby there was a great loss of life - when pressure should
be brought not only by trade unionists but also by the general public,
upon the Government to take immediate steps to bring about an efficient manning
scale both for the deck and the stoke-hold.
That this Congress considers that as the Titanic disaster, and the terrible loss
of life occasioned thereby has clearly demonstrated to the whole world the
insufficiency of boat accommodation in case of accident, and that want of a
sufficient number of skilled seamen, we call upon the Government to take
immediate action to see that a sufficient number of efficient seamen are engaged
for the proper manning of all British ships to ensure the safety of every
passenger and every member of the crew.'
Hayes said that in 'an accident like ... the Titanic, the millionaires and the
goldbugs got the fighting chance for their lives but the passengers in the
steerage were locked up and allowed to go down with the ship.'
Emotions at Congress were high and Hayes' remarks were greeted with 'loud
applause' as they shared his anger at the treatment of the crew and steerage
passengers. J. White, Sailors' & Foremen's delegate from Newry, in seconding
the motion, complained of inadequately trained crews. He claimed that 'he saw
but three weeks before a man taken straight from the plough and placed on board
ship as an A.B.'
Cries of 'shame' greeted this remark. James H. Bennett, long a Sailors' &
Firemen and later National Union Of Seamen (NUS) Official in Belfast, Dublin and
Waterford, added farther detail about working conditions on board ship,
suggesting that there 'there were cases of men committing suicide in the
stoke-hod on account of the ship being under-manned ... on a Cross Channel
steamer on which he had crossed on the preceding Friday, there were only six
boats for 1,000 passengers and crew. The lives of the men who manned and the
passengers who sailed on their ship were evidently not much thought of by some
of the ship-owners.'
Delegates shouted 'hear, hear' and some thought that the motion did 'not go far
enough' but it was adopted unanimously.
The Irish Trade Union Congress Annual Report 1913 stated that the matter of the
'Manning Of Ships & Life-Saving At Sea' had been drawn to the attention of
the 'responsible Ministers of the Crown and to the Board Of Trade'.
They had also lobbied the Labour Party and Irish political parties. John
Redmond, Irish Party, had promised support and Labour would back a
'well-considered scheme' that would 'alleviate the disastrous loss of life and
privations to mariners'.
James Bennett, speaking to the report, noted that the;
'Irish Party were deserving [of our] condemnation in reference to their
inactivity on the question of life-saving at sea. They did nothing in the
matter.'
That was the last the Irish Trade Union Congress heard of the Titanic or indeed
Maritime safety for some time.
Parallels with today's Flags Of Convenience
vessels, inadequately trained crews working in virtually slave conditions and
the threat to the future of Irish and European Union seamen on the Irish Sea
would indicate that few lessons were ultimately learned from the Titanic. Profit
and free enterprise would still come ahead of genuine concern for passenger,
crew and environmental safety.
©Francis Devine 2002
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