THE GMB will use the setting of this week’s Labour Party conference to vow to secure justice for the Cammell Laird 37 — the largest group ever jailed for trade union activity in modern British history.
 
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the occupation of the Cammell Laird shipyard in Merseyside. The yard had employed 20,000 workers at its height in the 1940s, but by the early 1980s, this had dwindled to just 2,000 as the Thatcher government pursued a policy of deindustrialisation and the privatisation of British Shipbuilders in 1983.

When a further 800 redundancies were announced in the summer of 1984, the workforce — recognising that the yard now faced an existential threat — took drastic action and occupied an oil rig and blockaded the gangway of the Royal Navy Destroyer HMS Edinburgh.

The occupation was buoyed by support from the local Cammell Laird Occupation Support Group, city council workers and fellow trade unionists, including striking miners.

But it was ended in September when the occupiers, threatened with the prospect of the police storming the site and running low on drinking water, were forced to vacate the yard.

Thirty-seven workers were charged with contempt of court for refusing to abandon their occupation to attend court proceedings instigated by management and locked up alongside murderers and violent criminals in the high-security HMP Walton. All were subsequently fired, stripped of their pension and redundancy rights and blacklisted.

My late brother Chris was jailed in the dispute, and I have campaigned for official papers relating to the dispute to be made public during my time as Birkenhead’s MP from 2019 to 2024. For me, there has never been any doubt that this was a politically motivated prosecution.

Nobody should be jailed for fighting to save their livelihoods. These were peaceful trade unionists whose real crime was standing up to a right-wing government that was intent on smashing the power of the unions.

The parallels between the Cammell Laird dispute and the contemporaneous miners’ strike were clear to see. While the Thatcher government was leveraging all its power to break the will of striking miners, it was also trying to undermine the credibility of the Cammell Laird 37.

Attorney-general Michael Havers even visited HMP Walton to promise that any occupier who apologised for their actions would be immediately released. Billy Albertina, then a Cammell Laird shop steward and leader of the strike, recalls his and his comrades’ unambiguous response: “Everyone said: We’re not saying sorry. We’re fighting for our jobs. No way.”

Albertina and I believe that the full extent of the government’s complicity in the jailing of the striking workers has yet to be revealed.

There have been glimmers of hope for the Cammell Laird 37 over the course of their long campaign for truth and justice. After tireless campaigning by one of the strike leaders Eddie Marnell and the GMB, in 2006, then-prime minister Tony Blair signalled his support for the campaign and in 2014, the European Parliament’s petitions committee urged the British government to issue an official apology and make public government papers from the time of the dispute.

And in 2023, Harrow West MP Gareth Thomas led a debate in Parliament calling on the government to commit to a public inquiry into the jailings.

But today, the workers’ convictions still stand, and key documents remain hidden from public view. And with many of the 37 having passed away, there are fears that time is running out.

This adds a sense of urgency to a panel being hosted by the Committee for Justice for the Cammell Laird 37 during this week’s Labour Party conference.

Jobs not Jail: 40 Years Since the Cammell Laird Dispute will take place at 5.30pm today, Monday September 23, at the Quaker’s Meeting House on School Lane, Liverpool.

GMB general secretary Gary Smith will use the opportunity to restate his union’s commitment to having the 37 convictions quashed. He will be joined on the panel by members of the Cammell Laird 37, who will share their first-hand experiences of the occupation and their time in prison with attendees, as well as the MP for Liverpool West Derby Ian Byrne, and Chris Peace, representing the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.

In a statement, the event’s organisers said: “We’re inviting anyone who’s in Liverpool this week for the Labour Party conference to join us on Monday evening.

“There have been times in our 40-year-long campaign when it’s felt like we would never get the justice we deserve. But as the success of the Shrewsbury picketers — whose convictions were put aside by the court of appeal after nearly 50 years — has proved, you can’t ever quit.

“The story of 37 striking workers from Merseyside has lessons for the whole of the labour movement — about the importance of standing together, refusing to surrender to threats and intimidation, and never giving up in the pursuit of truth and justice.”

Jobs Not Jail: Justice for the Cammell Laird 37 will take place on Monday September 23 at 5.30pm in the Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane.

Mick Whitley is the former Labour MP for Birkenhead.