Miners' strike
BRITAIN expanding areas like telecommunications; and to contract out services in the hospitals and the municipalities to private firms.
The report gave trenchant advice on the necessity of strengthening both the capacity of the police to intervene and giving the courts sufficient legal powers most serious challenge yet to Thatcher to outlaw an effective response. Leaving nothing to chance however, the report also advised that the weakest sections should be taken on first - steel, British Leyland, train drivers - and stronger sections such as the waterworkers and the
The fight of British miners against pit closures is the most important workers' dispute yet faced by the Thatcher government.
stakes involved in the strike are reflected in the massive police operation against the miners and a press campaign of unabating ferocity.
As the strike moves into its third week its effects are beginning to be felt throughout the economy and more and more miners are joining the
The lack of practical support given to the strikers by the leaders of the
Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, the central trade union confederation, underlines the need for rank and file solidarity and international labour movement action.
Steve ROBERTS
The miners' action began on March
12 and as it entered its third week had shut down three-quarters of the National
Coal Board's (NCB, the management board of the wholly-nationalised deepmined coal industry) 176 pits and involved 120,000 of the industry's 183,000 workers.
The strike began in the biggest coalfield in Britain, South Yorkshire, after an announcement by NCB chief lan
McGregor that 20 pits would close in the next financial year with a loss of 20,000 jobs and a wage offer of only 5.2 per cent.
The immediate flashpoint was the Cortonwood colliery in South Yorkshire which was served notice of closure within one month without any consultation with union representatives.
Over 27,000 jobs have already been lost through the closure of 36 pits in the period 1979-
1983.
The left-wing president of the miners' union, Arthur Scargill, warned that the
Coal Board eventually aimed to close down a total of 95 pits in a claim which was widely ridiculed at the time. Now concede that he was commentators probably correct.
The massive pit closures are an essential part of Tory Party strategy.
The
Tories suffered major defeats at the hands of the miners' union in 1972 and in 1974, the latter strike eventually bringing down the government of Edward Heath.
While in opposition, the party - under the new leadership of Margaret Thatcher - thought carefully about the balance sheet of this experience.
The result was a confidential report named after its author, current minister of transport Nicholas
Ridley.
The Ridley Report saw the principal politico-economic problem faced by a new Tory government as being the large nationalised and public sector. It represented a political problem since many of the most strongly organised groups of
International Viewpoint 9 April 1984
The political workers were employed there. High on the list of potential opponents of the Tories were British Leyland car workers, rail workers, the waterworkers and, of course, the miners. Economically, the public sector was singled out for treatment because of the drive to shut down unprofitable sectors of the public sector and open up profitable ones to capital seeking new avenues under crisis conditions.
The strategy arrived at was to initiate a large-scale closure programme in industries such as steel, rail and coal; to privatise and abolish the state monopoly in miners should first be given concessions and then encountered directly.
This was the battle-plan put into action by Thatcher after her election in 1979. British Leyland workers were taken on in a series of disputes that decimated rank and file organisation in factories such as Longbridge in Birming. ham and Cowley in Oxford. The defeat of the steel workers in 1980 meant that 100,000 workers eventually lost their jobs. The civil service unions suffered a humiliating defeat in 1982, resulting in the whole principle of union organisation in the state apparatus being threatened. Now the Tories are taking on the miners and the coal industry.
Britain's coal industry is the largest in the European Economic Community alongside West Germany's. In common with all coal industries in Europe it is being run down. This process is presided over by Ian McGregor, a Scots-Canadian businessman, originally "headhunted' from the board-rooms of North America to carry out a ruthless run-down operation on Britain's steel industry. After
Violence has erupted on picket lines (DR)
having largely fulfilled Tory objectives in this industry, he was then appointed to implement the same type of operation in
McGregor's strategy for the mines has been to end state subsidies to the industry, close uneconomic pits, channel investment into new 'super-pits' and then, as left-wing Labour Party leader Tony Benn has charged, to sell these pits to the oil industry. The result is that subsidies to British coal are now the lowest
Another reason for the switch away from coal production is Britain's nuclear programme which is due to expand by 500 to 800 per cent by the end of the century. This switch is ditficult to justify on economic grounds, but government policy is to reduce Britain's energy dependence on the miners and transport workers on the one hand and the politically unreliable oil states on the
The miners case against McGregor is widely-known and accepted throughout the labour movement and also in the anti-nuclear and ecology movement. miners argue for a return to the policy whereby pits were only closed when the coal ran out or when they became unsafe
They admit this may mean certain pits making a loss, but argue that the industry as a whole can be viable with adequate investment, arguing that state subsidies should support the industry to the same type of level as in the rest of the EEC. (See table)
Subsidies in support of current coal production (Em) 1979 1980 1981 1982
France 18.0 15.6 12.5 17.2
Belgium 34.0 28.9 24.9 17.7
West Germany 14.9 12.6 10.8 8.6
UK 1.5 1.4 3.6 3.2
Arthur Scargill, the current president of the National Union of Mineworkers, was elected overwhelmingly three years ago on a platform of militant industrial action to defend the industry. His victory meant the defeat of the right wing that had dominated the national union for decades, and the ascendancy of the militant leadership developed in South Yorkshire, South Wales and Scotland during the 1970s.
The beginning of the fight against closures began at the same time with the spectacular victory of the South Wales miners in 1981 imposing a reverse of the run-down programme. However, consistent with its policy of biding its time, the government did not make a wholesale retreat but waited for more favourable circumstances.
In 1983 South Wales again appealed for national strike action against pit closures in their area in 1983. The call went out but, in a national ballot, was supported by only 39 per cent of the union, despite flying pickets being sent 10 throughou fol when min receive even regional fight against redundancies. ience are present str began last
19-week to reduce national was unive divisions began to develop when the South Yorkshire area called for national support for its action against the new pit Divisions among miners
Much of the responsibility for the divisions in the union must be laid at the door of the media, who have characterised Arthur Scargill nationally and internationally as a totalitarian figure who refuses to allow his members to vote on their action. This press campaign has consistently ignored the fact that the policy of the union has been to give and ask for national support to those areas who want to take strike action without forcing them to first obtain the sanction of a national ballot. Areas which are taking strike action have voted by large margins, 86.3 per cent in the case of Yorkshire, to take industrial action.
Scargill has been correct not to call for a national ballot so far. If such a ballot had been called, the press and media would not have hesitated to spend millions of pounds trying to influence the direction of the vote. Such a propaganda ground in areas of the coalfields, like Nottingham, which for geological reasons are not faced with the immediate prospect of
This unevenness of the miners' response has been exacerbated by the heritage of the right-wing leadership which, in 1977, negotiated area-by-area productivity deals which seriously divided the union, reversing the trend towards national action around pay claims which had marked the previous decade.
The correctness of Scargill's policy has been proved in practice. At the beginning of the strike on March 12 the number of pits closed by industrial action stood at 90 out of 176. By the next day the figure had reached 133 and after the first week 142. A partial ballot held in moderate areas during this week showed that nearly a third of miners - 65,000 - were against the current action or wanted a national strike ballot. However, despite this, the strike continto remain solid with only 38 pits working normally by March 27. On that day areas like the Midlands, which had voted against strike action, were rejoin-
As John Lloyd, the industrial editor of the London Financial Times, explained with an air of stupefaction: the South Celynen colliery voted once against striking and twice for a national ballot: yet these same men later went off to picket pits in Staffordshire and Leicestershire? (Emphasis in original).
Of course, a key role in these develop ments has been played by pickets. For many of these young workers it is the first time they have been involved in a full-scale industrial battle, but they are continuing a tradition of the miners union which first introduced the term 'flying picket' into the British political dictionary at the famous battle at Birmingham's Saltley coke depot - the deciding point in the 1972 miners' strike.
While the pickets have openly shown their anger to those miners who are crossing picket lines to go to work in areas like Nottingham, the responsibility for the violence that has left one miner dead, scores injured and hundreds ar rested, lies with a massive 8,000-strong police operation mounted to smash the the Nottingham area alone over 3,000 police have been deployed at the cost of £550,000 a day in the single biggest police operation ever seen in
(Comparable figures are 1,340 police in the 1983 dispute involving print workers in the National Graphica Association, 1,192 in the 1980 steel strike in South Yorkshire and 800 at the Saltley coke depot in 1972.) The operation is coordinated from London from a centre first established in 1981 after the uprising by black youth in Britain's
One of the police actions has been to arrest pickets to prevent them travelling to other areas in case they might com-
These draconian measures have been denounced by civil liberties organisations and prompted miners in Kent to take their case to the High Court to seek an injunction against the obstruction to their freedom of moveCourts threaten union
State action has not been confined to the police. As in the recent print workers shire NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) have been threatened with unlimited fines and sequestration of their £7 million assets if they persist in trying to picket other areas of the coalfield. Court action is still pending, but on March 19, one thousand Yorkshire miners, fearing that court officers would seize union assets,
La human wall to defend their headquarters.
While the state has thrown all its resources behind the employers the response of the leaders of the British labour movement has been pitiful. The Parlia mentary Labour Party, while claiming to support the miners' case has, in practice joined the chorus of condemnation of supposedly violent pickets.
Neil Kinnock, the new leader of the Labour Party said in Parliament, law does not prohibit people trying to people become violent in the course of
International Viewpoint 9 April 1984
picketing I condemn it.' This was correctly characterised by the Tory leaders as 'ritual hand-wringing'. While Kinnock has condemned police tactics this has not required much courage, since similar statements have been made by leaders of the Social Democratic/Liberal Alliance, the other main opposition party in the House of Commons.
Kinnock's vacillating performance has been in sharp contrast to that of Tony Benn, recently convincingly re-elected to parliament in a by-election in Chesterfield in the mining area of north Derby-
Benn has spent his time visiting pickets in his own area and elsewhere, speaking at miners' support meetings and completely associating himself with the strike and with the Scargill leadership.
The Trades Union Congress leadership achieved the truly remarkable feat of not even discussing the strike on its leading bodies for two weeks after it started! The reason is that, while the TUC at its last conference took a sharp turn to the right, the ranks of the movement have consistently embarrassed their leaders by refusing to follow them in passive acceptance of the government's policies. Thus, in a day of action grudgingly called by the TUC in protest at the government's anti-union actions, nearly one million workers took some kind of industrial action in a response which surprised union leaders and government alike.
Part of the reason for the slowly growing mood of resistance is the upturn in growth in the British economy of 3 per cent, not large by international standards, but fairly spectacular in recent British terms. Secondly, an ongoing row has been simmering in the TUC leadership about the failure of the right wing majority, led by general secretary Len Murray, to back trade-union action deemed unlawful under the government's anti-union legislation. (See International Viewpoint, No 47, February 27, 1984).
This division has been reflected in the attitude to the miners' strike. The Transport and General Workers Union has pledged its 1.6 million workers to back the miners' strike. But power station workers, dominated by the right-wing leaders in union, have been told to work normally.
has been decisive in making the miners'
Support has also come from the National Union of Seamen. Seventy lorries carrying strike-breaking coal were turned back at Zeebrugge and Calais and similar action has been pledged at the main Channel port of Dover.
Domestic supplies have been tually halted in some areas except to the old, sick and hospitals.
The press has tried to create against the strike'-type movements in the mining communities. have enjoyed only a fleeting existence. More enduring have been organisations like the 'Yorkshire Miners Wives' Action Group' which has established four advice centres in the south Yorkshire area to families on financial
Joint action between the Labour Party and miners is also growing with the decision of miners to join actions called by the Labour Party on March 29 - Democracy Day' - to protest against Thatcher's bid to abolish local councils in the despite this flowering solidarity action, the only way the strike will be won is if the trade union leadership uses the whole power of their movement in support of the miners.
Socialist Action, a revolutionary socialist paper published in London, expres sed the demands of the majority of miners when it said in its March 23 issue:
'Now is the time for the union leaders to act. In conjunction with miners' pickets at power stations, coke and coal depots, and at the rail yards, the other unions could make sure that no coal is
This means that the coal turned out in the scab pits would simply be
"The left trade-union leaders must also make it clear that if the government attempts to use the army to shift coal, then they will call an all-out stoppage. This strike can and must be won. But to win it means that the unions must join alongside the NUM in openly defying the government and its laws.
"The Triple Alliance and TUC must organise the blacking of all movement of
Unconditionally pickets at the pits and power stations. No recognition of Tebbit's antiunion laws! practical support for the miners and
Name a day for solidarity action with the NUM!'
Undoubtedly with this sort of action the strike could be quickly won. However, the consequences would be to fatally wound the Thatcher government or bring it down. The Labour and TUC leaders are more frightened of such an outcome than they are of the consequences of a Tory victory over the
The miners have no choice howIf they had refused this fight, their union would have been virtually dismembered and the way opened for half of the workforce to have been sack. ed over the next decade. working class would lose its vanguard. high, there is a real need for international have a fine record of supporting other workers internationally in struggle. tants throughout the world can aid the British miners by monitoring the move. ment of all coal suspected of being used
Coordinated action can be taken with British transport workers and to stop strike-breaking coal being imported into Britain. Messages of support and financial contributions can
While the miners' strike could herald a long-overdue rise of serious resistance to the Tory government and pave the way to real political advance, a defeat could herald the reverse. Not only the British working class, but all those workers fighting austerity in their own country have a staké in making sure this does not
(For further information IV readers can contact Socialist Action, 328 Upper
London NI 2XP, 359-8180 or directly contact the National Union of Mineworkers, St. James House,
Lane, Sheffield, telephone 700-388.)
for the miners has come from the activation of the Triple
RENTLEYNUM unions in the rail, steel and coal industries who have pledged to
THE WORKERS UNITED offer mutual support in the event of any member union taking action.
WiLL NEVER BE darity is key because, although the coal employers boasted of massive coal reserves before the strike began, in practice fuel is already running out at big steel mills like that at Scunthorpe on the east coast, where half-time working has been
Members of steel workers' unions at the plant have joined miners to stop coal being imported from Spanish-registered
On the railways, too, workers have risked being sent home for refusing to move coal. The action of railworkers
International Viewpoint 9 April 1984
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