Dockers (film)

Dockers is a 1999 British feature-length television drama produced for Channel 4 about the struggles of a small group of Liverpool dockers who were sacked and subsequently spent nearly 2 and a half years picketing during the Liverpool Dockers' Strike of 1995 to 1998.

Although the credited screenwriters for the drama were Liverpool screenwriter Jimmy McGovern and Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh the drama was largely written by sacked dock workers and previous union members under the supervision of the two screenwriters. This unusual writing method was considered an experiment in 'democratic television' and was documented in a separate Channel 4 documentary, Writing the Wrongs.

Dockers dramatises the real-life story of the 1995–1998 Liverpool dockers' dispute. The film begins when a small group of dockers are sacked after refusing to accept unfair changes to their overtime conditions. In a show of solidarity, hundreds of their fellow workers refuse to cross the picket line in an act of collective resistance, resulting in all of them being dismissed by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company.

At the centre of the story is Tommy (Ken Stott), a veteran docker, whose son Andy is among the five men whose dismissal triggers the strike. As the strike unfolds, friendships and loyalties are tested, while families face eviction and marriages are put under pressure. Tensions escalate when Macca (Ricky Tomlinson), a friend and fellow docker, becomes a scab when he crosses the picket line and returns to work, fracturing long-standing relationships.

As the dockers fight on, they find themselves abandoned by once trusted institutions. Their union leadership refuses to support their action and allies in the Labour Party remain silent. Former trade union leader Bill Morris is portrayed as a traitor who undermines the strike both publicly and internally.

A group of dockers held regular workshops with the production team^[2] over a period of 14 months. Once a week, they met with Jimmy McGovern and Irvine Welsh, who were both supporters of the strike and who contributed towards developing the script. Around 200 of the dockers were also employed as extras.^[3][4]

When choosing locations for the film, the Transport and General Workers' Union refused to allow filming to take place within their premises, with former dockers being removed from the building at one point when actor Robert Carlyle came to offer support in a scripting session.^[5] The union later described the film as "an insult".^[4]

Writing for the Liverpool Echo, reviewer Peter Grant, who came from a family of dockers, described it as a powerful story that shows the writer's skill at using conversation to demonostrate life's unfairness.^[6]

• Dockers at the British Film Institute
• Dockers at IMDb