The National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) was a trade union in the United Kingdom. It was formed in Glasgow in 1889 but moved its headquarters to Liverpool within a few years and was thereafter most closely associated with Merseyside. The union retained a strong presence in a number of Scottish ports but closed its Glasgow branch in 1910 and was replaced locally by the Scottish Union of Dock Labourers, which was formed during the seamen's and dockers strikes of 1911. In Ireland, the NUDL was largely replaced by the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union after 1908.
The NUDL, by this time renamed the National Union of Dock, Riverside and General Workers in Great Britain and Ireland, joined the Transport and General Workers' Union before the end of 1922, although its membership had originally voted not to join the amalgamation earlier in the year. It was therefore not actually a founder member of the TGWU, although it is often falsely credited as being one.
Famous quotes containing the words national, union, dock and/or labourers:
“Just so before we’re international,
We’re national and act as nationals.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived.”
—Bernard Devoto (1897–1955)
“I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the box house hills and cry.”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 9:37.
Jesus, on the lack of proselytizers to the multitude, before sending out his apostles endowed with healing powers. Also in Luke 10:2, “The harvest truly is great ......”