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5 AND MINERS The Story of Coalville during the 1984/5 miners’ strike United against the Tories
A Socialist Action pamphlet 50p
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Contents
Things can be changed, Roy Butlin 3
The fight goes on, Malcolm Pinnegar 4
Railworkers and miners, foreword 5
The Coalville Story 9 Plan for closure Coalville moves out Solidarity comes to Coalville The case of the ‘insane’ signalman Taking strike action What we’ve learned
Challenging the future 15 Leaders and misleaders Transforming our unions Unity Changing the Labour Party Political Unions The shape of things to come
In brief 23
Paul Southwood, Coalville member
THIS PAMPHLET is written by activists in the rail unions, the Labour Party and the Labour Party Young Socialists who support the weekly newspaper, Socialist Action. For further information contact: Railworkers c/o Socialist Action, PO Box 50, London NI 2XP. June 1985.
For more copies of this pamphlet: one copy is 50p plus postage, 10% reduction for 10 copies or more, post free, normal bookshop rates. Typeset by Lithoprint Ltd. (TU) 01-249 7560 | Printed by Black Rose Press, 30 Clerkenweli Close, London EC1 |
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‘Things can be § changed’ E by Roy Butlin, : Coalville NUR leader S
FOR 49 WEEKS during the miners’ strike, our rail depot at Mantle Lane in Coalville refused to shift the thousands and thousands of tonnes of scab coal that was mined in our area. Only 30 miners out of Leicestershire’s 2,500 miners joined the strike. So my members were under enormous pressure to go with the tide. We all knew that if we backed our union and supported the ‘Dirty Thirty’, as they proudly call themselves, then we’d suffer. We faced financial hardship and we’d have problems with our families, friends and neighbours — all of us had links of one kind or another with Coalville’s miners.
Our decision to stop all movement of coal was difficult, but it was clear cut. Work at our depot is dominated by coal. We depend on the pits for our jobs, and the mining industry depends on the railways to transport the coal to power stations. We recognised that our futures were tied to the miners’ fight for jobs. It was a big decision, especially since there was only a handful of strikers locally. But we saw what was right, and we did it. Today there’s a bond between us and the ‘Dirty Thirty’. It was forged in struggle and will be there forever.
Our experience at Mantle Lane has many lessons. This Socialist Action pamphlet will be very useful for union activists in other industries who face similar problems. It reveals how devious management can be. They can’t tolerate any pockets of resistance, and our depot is very well placed strategically. Our action tied up mountains of coal that were desperately needed at the power stations. Management doesn’t want anything like that to happen again. Well worked-out plans have been drawn up to prevent any repeat.
On many occasions during the strike, | warned that we’d be punished. Just six weeks after the miners’ return to work, I] redundancies were announced at the depot. Because of our action, we’re in a stronger position today to fight these redundancies and the closure plans we know are in the pipeline. We’ve learned lessons for the next round.
Above all, we’ve learned that we can’t rely on anyone but ourselves. And
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that includes our union leadersfap. Wo web oie sid Oi support trom the ranks in our industry — and beyond tt. We forced the e leadership to call action to support us, although it was limited action. Some members become disillusioned when there’s mention of the union, because of the leadership. But our experience, and the miners’ strike, proved that things can be chanved. [tll bea long fight, but lam confident that we can transform our union so it fights for the members instead of blocking any actions we might take.
OOKSON ‘The fight goes on’
PHOTO: ¢ by Malcolm Pinnegar, Dirty Thirty leader AFTER TWELVE months of bitter struggle, the miners strike has ended and the National Union of Mineworkers has returned to work without achieving the victory it so courageously fought for. Thatcher’s attack on the labour movement goes on relentlessly. But we still seem unable to grasp the simple fact that our strength lies in unity across the class. The strike illustrated clearly that the Tories still use the ‘divide and rule’ tactic with devastating effect. We must not tolerate traitors in our own ranks who enable this divisive factor to be used against us. The introduction of scab unions are not new, but they should be fought against with the utmost vigour.
During the strike the emergence of hundreds of support groups, the prominent role played by women and the fantastic monetary support from both home and abroad shows just what can be achieved if we set our minds to it. Yet — as many brothers and sisters know — tragically, there were only thirty miners on strike in the Leicestershire coalfield. These men came out on strike in support of their comrades in other areas and in support of a national union. We believed then in one union, and even though the strike was not successful, we still resolutely believe the same today. We continue to fight for one industry, one union and one rule book.
The ‘Dirty Thirty’ as we became known, found out through bitter experience exactly what enemies apathy and self interest are when you make a principled stand, especially in a scab coalfield. However, even to striking miners and their families who themselves endured severe hardships, certain acts of solidarity stand out and will never be forgotten. None more so than the action taken by members of the National Union of Railwaymen and ASLEF, the train drivers union, at the Coalville rail depot, in support of the NUM. A mark of their remarkably successful action is that these railmen were harassed and persecuted in the same manner as the striking miners. From our national union, we pay tribute to these comrades. And from the Dirty Thirty, we say there are none better. Call upon us anytime.
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FOREWORD Railworkers and miners
THE MINERS STRIKE of 1984/85 will be remembered for the unparalleled heroism and determination of the miners, their wives and communities who faced the most savage and unrelenting attack on British workers seen for decades. Five miners died, countless were seriously injured 80 to 100 were jailed and thousands more cases are still to be heard. Over 700 have lost their jobs so far. Miners lost hard won belongings and were driven to the depths of poverty. But their struggle for the basic right to work was understood and applauded by millions here and around the world who sent messages and money.
This moral and financial support was vital to the maintenance of the strike, but victory depended on the mobilisation of the tremendous industrial strength of the working class. The movement of coal to power stations and the rest of industry had to be stopped. This threw the transport unions — rail, road and sea — to the fore. To their everlasting credit, these unions all decided to honour the NUM picketlines. But the struggle to put muscle behind that policy was another question. Among other things they came right up against the anti-union private hauliers who queued for miles at pitheads to grab their £500 a day. Scab miners, their greed having no bounds, even freelanced as drivers after finishing their shitt at the pit. ‘Told here is the story of railworkers in Coalville’s small freight depot who, in the heart of the scab areas took action to support the striking miners. Inspired by their struggle and especially by the Dirty Thirty — the handful of Leicestershire miners and their families who remained loyal to their national union — the Coalville workers became a symbol of strong trade union principles on the railways. They became a symbol of resistance to the attacks by the bosses on jobs.
But Coalville is important on other counts. The way these railworkers organised to defend themselves against management’s sinister tactics, and to pressure their union leaders into calling action, has many lessons for working people and socialists. The outcome of the miners strike makes these lessons even more urgent.
The Tory government spent over three years making the plans and stockpiling the coal to prepare for its eventual confrontation with the miners. Around the world other governments are trying to solve the economic crisis by driving down wages, slashing social benefits and mass unemployment: trying to maximise profits through fewer people doing more work. This solution, at the expense of working people, is at the root of the drive to war in places like Central America today. It means that the main line of defence of working people, their trade unions, have to be crushed or hamstrung by undemocratic laws. In Britain this meant that the miners, the most militant section, had to be taken on and defeated. In the eyes of the bosses, then groups such as railworkers would be less likely to struggle.
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The Labour Party and trade union leaders At the crack of dawn on Tuesday 5 March 1985, tens of thousands of miners and their families throughout Britain’s coalfields joined other working people and marched back to work with union banners flying high. Their union was weakened but it had survived. An organised retreat had been forced on the NUM.
Its president, Arthur Scargill had done everything possible to appeal to the ranks of the labour movement directly, to try and force other leaders into aiding the miners. Learning from the 1982 sell-out of the drivers’ union, ASLEF (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen), he correctly refused to let the Trades Union Congress take over, but he knew he couldn’t ignore the Willises and Kinnocks. On their own the miners weren’t strong enough to win.
Scargill’s team saw that victory would come through mass pickets, industrial solidarity, demonstrations and mass rallies, not by relying on shady deals with the National Coal Board. They responded to the solidarity offered by thousands of Labour Party members, by women, by the black community, by youth and by the gay and lesbian organisations. One of the most profound achievements of the strike was the way that the women of the mining communities established themselves as leaders: in the soup kitchens, on the picket lines and on the platforms of solidarity rallies throughout the country and abroad. They got organised for the first time not just to support, but to fight alongside the union. In their travels they linked up with and declared their backing for the women at Greenham Common fighting the siting of Cruise missiles, and for the women organising for their rights in the unions and the Labour Party.
The miners insisted that real democracy was based on working class principles. While the media shrieked about the ‘almighty’ ballot the miners answered firmly that no worker has the right to vote to put another on the dole queue. Those threatened by pit closures must be the ones who decide to fight or not, they argued. The miners defended another kind of democracy — the direct democracy of workers at mass meetings and on the picket line: the democracy of our class.
But finally, these methods and firm class principles weren’t enough. The miners and their friends were simply not strong enough to take the fight to victory. Unity across the labour movement is the only way to defend jobs, a strong lead from the Labour Party and TUC officials would have made the problem of the divisions in the NUM less grave. These sections of the NUM who broke with their union and went after regular wage packets — mainly from the ‘super-pits’ of the Midlands mistakenly thought their interests lay with the NCB. Some are already finding that their scabbing is not saving their pits. The Tories are loyal to profits not people.
At the end of the day, responsibility for the defeat of the NUM must rest with the disgraceful failure of the trade union and Labour Party leaders to mobilise the vast power of the labour movement. The battle continues As Arthur Scargill has said many times since the strike ended, ‘The strike is
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over, but the battle continues’. Every single industry is facing the same attacks which led to the strike.
The conditions under which the NUM returned to work are the most favourable given the situation. It refused to sign an agreement, refused to become complicit in pit closures. Scargill won’t police the run down of his industry like Bill Sirs did in steel. How successful the Scargill team will be in holding the line depends on a number of things. As The Miner, the NUM paper, put it: ‘It’s class war’.
This war at home goes hand in hand with the escalation of war in Central America, in South Africa, in the North of Ireland and wherever workers in the cities and countryside try to resist the bosses’ attacks. The stakes are high in every class battle today. And there have been serious setbacks. For example, in 1983 the Grenadian government which working people put into power was overthrown, opening the door to the US invasion. That’s why workers have to be more aware, more organised and have a leadership that will stand and fight.
The miners’ strike was a watershed in British politics. There will be many more like it in coming years. Working people in Britain will never be free from the attacks of the capitalist class until we have a government as loyal to the working class as Thatcher is to hers. A government that genuinely promotes and defends the interests of ordinary working people. Right now that means organising a fightback against all the attacks on the working class and using that organisation to fight for control over the unions and Labour Party against the bureaucrats who mislead the movement today. This will centrally involve the fight for a party that will lead working people and their allies to take political power from the ruling class. Only a party committed to taking the fight through to the end can provide a strategy for a new and different kind of society that will be based on need not greed, making full use of people’s abilities. Such a society, socialism, will be forged as a product of the day by day fight against capitalism.
Coalville and the miners strike has enriched our understanding of the political framework for this fight, which centres squarely on the struggle for solidarity, union democracy and independent working class political action.
PHOTO: PAUL MATTSON by Women showing spirit that made "ey, a Sire sre them leaders of solidarity action.
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JOBS. TILLS DOLE THE FISK STEELMEN
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The Coalville story WHEREVER you stand in Coalville you can see a pithead and a few minutes walk brings you to the edge of one of the biggest open cast mines in Europe.
The 135,000 tonnes of coal brought out every week are taken by train from the Mantle Lane freight depot to three important power stations, Rugely, Drakelow and Didcot. This is the main job for over 160 railworkers who also move stone from two local quarries and Speedlink vehicles on the branch line which connects the two main lines in the area.
When the Coalville railworkers answered the call from the Federation of Rail Unions on the 3rd of April not to move coal or cross NUM picket lines, they effectively blocked the transport of coal by rail from the whole of the Leicestershire coalfield which continued to work throughout the strike. And as the strike went on, vast mountains of coal grew on the horizon from the area’s 2,500 working miners, despite the day and night movement of lorries hauling it away.
Management reaction to Mantle Lane’s decision was swift. Within hours three train guards were sent home for refusing to move coal and fellow NUR members walked out and picketted the depot. This was repeated on four following days until a compromise was reached on the 10th of April when the NUR branch reluctantly agreed to work trains from the private open cast site.
As a result, an average of three trains a day ran. In exchange the surplus men were used for other work and not sent home. This compromise was forced on them because the NUR national leadership instructed them to end the walkout. And without a strong national lead from their union, the local branch of ASLEF took several weeks to take a firm stand. In addition the NUR members were only being given £1 a day dispute pay — a situation which was to go on for three months.
This uneasy situation went on for two months until the 7th of June. The regional operating manager, completely misreading the mood of the depot, called a snap meeting of the LDCs (shop stewards) and told them to get back to normal working as from Monday the Ilth. Both ASLEF and NUR branches met at the weekend and decided to stand firm and not to move any coal anywhere. For the next two months management retaliated by sending men home daily. The Annual General Meeting of the NUR on the 25th of June finally gave backing to its members by increasing the dispute pay to £11 a day.
Unlike Coalville, other depots in scab areas split down the middle and they paid for it. For instance, workers at Shirebrook which serves the Nottinghamshire coalfield faced much harsher treatment. From mid-July they were locked out, denied all payments and for tax purposes treated as if they PHOTO: GMI COOKSON were on strike. Management also violated union agreements by singlemanning trains and putting unqualified people into signal boxes. Anti-strike posters were put up and leaflets distributed showing lorries moving coal and miners returning to work. Management went so far as offering to take railworkers to power stations to see lorries bringing in coal. They harassed people in their homes. Workers were further intimidated by police occupying their depot with horses, dogs and riot gear, using it as a base against local
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striking miners. In contrast, where the miners strike was solid, alternative work was offered to railworkers.
Angered by the treatment of the Coalville workers, the Derby branches of ASLEF and NUR threatened a twenty-four hour strike for the 24th of August which was only called off when management gave an undertaking for further talks. The national leadership, ignoring Coalville, didn’t move until the 28th of September when it circularised members saying that industrial action would be called if the vicitimisation at Shirebrook continued. The same day that this circular was received, NUR and ASLEF LDCs at Coalville were called together. The new area manager flung a five point closure plan at them to be implemented unless there was an immediate return to work to work on the Ist of October.
Plan for closure The plan was outrageous! It included: thirteen trainees to be sacked right away because they weren’t protected by the three month trial period; all noncoal traffic to be transferred; every manual signal box on the Coalville line to close; redundant men not to qualify for nationally agreed redundancy and resettlement benefits. Despite the frightening implications the ASLEF and NUR branches stood firm against the blackmail — and management backed off Later the area manager was to accuse the unions of inventing the closure story.
But that wasn’t all! The same day as the closure threat, British Rail police raided the homes of seven railworkers. Three were sacked. One of them ‘guilty’ according to management of possessing railway property worth £4.
Amazingly, the national union denied any connection between the police raids and the refusal of the Coalville men to shift coal. As a result, many members felt let down by the union leaders. Eventually even the action over Shirebrook was called off and the defence of the membership was left to the local branches. The divisional officer for the area visited Coalville twice in the first eight months. NUR general secretary Jimmy Knapp never went and ASLEF’s Ray Buckton visited when the strike was nearly over.
When there was a burning need to get 100 per cent solidarity from their members, Knapp and Buckton fell short. The stand of railworkers on the front line would have been strengthened if these leaders had constantly toured the depots in the working coalfields; organised regional or national rallies; filled Transport Review and Locomotive, the union papers, with campaigning material and made clear that sanctions would be taken against those who broke the Federation’s instructions. But this didn’t happen.
Therefore, rank and file leaders like Roy Butlin, his fellow LDC members and Tommy Doyle at Tinsley freight depot in South Yorkshire were forced to organise their own defence. Doyle pushed for a meeting at Shirebrook when the split in the depot threatened to collapse the solidarity action in the Midlands. Knapp and Buckton spoke and got positive results. They reversed the situation so that two thirds of the workers refused to handle coal. Unfortunately this wasn’t followed through by further visits and motivation. Management stepped up the police presence in the depot, increased the
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pressure and men drifted back into working normally. This pattern was repeated at Toton, Westhouses and at other depots. An appeal for help from Immingham depot carried in Transport Review went unheeded.
Coalville moves out In late September, socialist railworkers in London, alarmed at the isolation of their comrades in the freight depots, contacted the Coalville leaders offering help in getting the message out to other railworkers. The offer was taken up with both hands. The LDCs quickly recognised the benefits. Messages of support from within the industry would lift the morale of their members. By telling the Coalville story and that of other depots in similar conditions, fellow trade unionists would bring pressure on the national leaders to give stronger backing. Finally, by explaining how industrial action in solidarity was vital, others would be encouraged to take a similar road helping to shorten and win the strike.
At this point all the ingredients of the Coalville campaign came together. Based on the alliance that already existed with the local striking miners, the Dirty Thirty, a search for new allies was embarked upon which was to get a tremendous response.
The alliances between miners and railworkers were not unusual. In solid areas like Yorkshire, they go back to the strikes of 1972 and 1974. As soon as the 1984/5 strike was on, the NUR at Tinsley freight depot in South Yorkshire contacted the NUM, to help them pinpoint areas of the railway that they could picket. They spoke at miners’ meetings and began weekly meetings with the NUM branches at all the local pits. Joint socials were organised. These weekly meetings culminated in a conference taking place in Rotherham of all the unions affiliated to the Rotherham trades council. A miners subcommittee was formed with railworkers and power workers from the Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham area. This body planned factory gate meetings and visits to all major engineering and steel works in the area. It also reported to the South Yorkshire Association of Trades Councils to help widen the area in which miners could get to other rank and file workers.
Any alliance with local forces beyond the Dirty Thirty wasn’t possible for the Coalville workers. The area was solidly controlled by working miners and their supporters. There was hardly a pub or miners welfare where they were welcome. The local trades council and Labour Party lined up with the scabs. So just as the Dirty Thirty moved out to organise striking miners in the scab areas of the NUM and became the backbone of the Leicester Miners Support Committee so the Coalville railworkers moved out.
They rose above a narrow trade union approach and spoke wherever they could get a hearing. Roy Butlin, accompanied for a while by Malcom Pinnager, a leader of the Dirty Thirty, toured the main line rail depots in London as well as small ones. They went to miners support committees and to their surprise found themselves sharing platforms of mass London rallies with Tony Benn, Arthur Scargill and Peter Heathfield. Coalville became synonymous with solidarity action that really counted. Messages of support and donations for the campaign poured in.
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Solidarity moves to Coalville Throughout the dispute, the Coalville leaders consulted, discussed and when necessary argued with their members about the issues. To show them the depth of support outside the depot they,invited other railworkers to come to Coalville for an open meeting. On Sunday the 4th of November, delegations from depots stretching from Tinsley in South Yorkshire to Brighton passenger depot on the south coast arrived to express their solidarity. The platform included the secretaries of Shirebrook ASLEF, Tinsley NUR, Newstead NUM in Notts, as well as US woman miner Kipp Dawson and Malcolm Pinnegar. The national leadership did nothing to build the rally but as support grew it couldn’t afford to turn down the invitation to speak. Tony Donnaghy brought fraternal greetings from executive of the NUR as well as from the Federation. While he was welcomed he faced a stormy reception from members wanting action not fine words.
The message was clear. Butlin spelled it out. “Our fight is not just about the miners’ strike. I's about solidarity, working class loyalty, standing up for what you believe in and pursuing it to the bitter end?” He went on, “No threat, no intimidation and no aggravation will deviate us from what we are doing. Because it’s right. It’s right to support the miners, and see it through to ultimate victory — victory which will benefit all the working class?’
The case of the ‘insane’ signalman Signal boxes control the movement of trains from one section of line to another. In mid-December, signalman Edwin Hampton decided to support the union directive and refused to let coal trains past his box at Moira in Coalville. By changing his mind, Hampton became the only barrier on the afternoon shift to trains moving from Bagworth pit to Drakelow power station. This was doubly important because the NCB were in the middle of a great effort to get miners back to work in the New Year. It would have been a tremendous propaganda coup to get the coal blockade in the Midlands lifted.
As they couldn’t legally suspend Hampton, management resorted to ‘dirty tricks’. He was summoned to Derby on December the 17th and replaced. From then on a small amount of coal was able to move via two signalmen from outside the area. Management offered a bribe: paid special leave as long as he stayed away from the depot. He refused. Summoned to Derby again, the manager declared him ‘mentally unstable’, unfit for work and ordered him to report for a medical the following day. There was no medical — then or ever. He was offered a job sweeping platforms at Burton-on-Irent station, seventeen miles from Coalville until a medical could be arranged in the New Year.
Later, infuriated by a management statement in Rai/ News, BR’s paper, that there had been no harassment he wrote a letter to the NUR’s paper. In it he said he and his tamily were ‘considerably distressed by the whole affair’. It was the continual pressure from management and the upset at home that made him reluctantly agree to move to another signal box quite a distance from Coalville which did not involve him in making decisions about coal movement.
The full facts were handed to the president of the NUR, George Waken-
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PH OTO: GM COOKSON Tony Donnaghy, NUR NEC presenting Roy Butlin with miners’ lamp contributed by rank and file members, shaw, and members of the NEC by Butlin in person. He was given assurances that it would be taken up immediately with the General Manager of the Midlands Region. But a lot had to happen before the union leadership took any action.
Coalville NUR viewed the situation so seriously that it issued a call for a lobby of the Rail Federation scheduled at the NUR headquarters, Unity House, in London on the 8th of January to demand industrial action to defend its members.
On the day, striking miners from Kent, South Wales and Leicestershire with lodge banners flying, joined railworkers on the steps of Unity House on- = ly to be told that the meeting place had been changed. The organisers had not been told in advance and neither was the request of the Coalville leaders to speak to the Federation meeting granted. Finally an assistant secretary of the NUR along with some other NEC members met the lobby. The meeting was stormy. But so was the Federation meeting. Out of it finally emerged a call for regional strike action based on eleven depots, ironically including some of those who were already on the front line of the fight.
Taking strike action In bitterly cold weather throughout Britain, railworkers at eleven depots put up picket lines in defence of their comrades. Unofficial action was taken by
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two main line stations in London at St Pancras and Waterloo. Willesden depot walked out at nine o’clock in the morning provoked by a report that British Rail was going to sue the unions for loss of revenue during the strike. Roy Butlin appeared on break fast television to explain the case for Coalville.
In ~13°C at Coalville the Mantle Lane picket was joined by railworkers from Bescot and Saltley. Naturally the Dirty Thirty and the women of their communities were there. They were joined by striking miners from Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire. Finally in a moving moment, down the road came a huge delegation all the way from South Wales. With the Maerdy lodge banners held high, the last pit in the Rhondda Valley sent its people to back the fighting railworkers. Speaking at a huge mass rally that night in East London, Roy Butlin declared to a standing ovation, ‘““They can slander us, sequestrate us, injunct us, screw us from every angle possible, even commit us to a lunatic asylum — but we shan’t move coal until the miners win”
While the Coalville leaders had wanted national strike action, they viewed the limited action as a big step forward. Management backed off again. The campaign however continued and when the strike ended a few weeks later plans were being laid with the Kent miners’ wives committee for an anniversary celebration of the first national miners’ wives demonstration which significantly had taken place in Coalville a year earlier.
What we've learned Ata Socialist Action rally in Aylesham, Kent a few weeks after the end of the strike Roy Butlin summed up on his experiences of the year long struggle. He said: “There’s three lessons been learned from the miners’ strike at Coalville: one by management and two by ourselves. The management’s lesson is don’t let a small group of true trade unionists block off a working coalfield. They’ve learned a lesson about geography and planning traffic flow. We’re going to suffer for it. ‘We've learned two lessons. One is that we can’t rely on our NUR national leadership. When we had our strike in January there was a lot of trouble and pain to try and get them to do anything. So we're disillusioned with our own leadership, both in the NUR and the TUC. Our strike cost the Railway Board £300,000 in lost revenue. They haven’t taken ASLEF or the NUR to court under the new legislation. They won’t — because they’re scared to. The regional manager had me in. He said ‘Roy, I hold you personally responsible for the loss of £300,000 because of your lobbying? And I said, ‘T’ll pay it? He says, ‘You what?’ I says: ‘I’m quite willing to pay it. Stop it at SOp a week’ “The other lesson we’ve learned from the miners’ strike is about fighting. At our depot the miners’ struggle throughout the coalfields was an inspiration. We’ve learned how to fight, how to lobby, how to campaign. We've learned how to be a pain in the arse to everybody — management, the union leadership, the lot. When we’re locked into our next fight — it’ll be a bigger one than we had during the miners’ strike because it’s our livelihood we're talking about — PIl know I can rely on the NUM”
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Challenging the future SHORTLY after the strike ended Arthur Scargill commented: ‘The central issue remained the same throughout the strike. We weren’t fighting for better wages and conditions we were challenging the very right of an employer at the stroke of an accountant’s pen to destroy a pit or community:
Such a challenge went to the heart of the matter. The argument was not about exhausted pits (which the NUM has never insisted should remain open), but whether they were ‘economic’. The miners strike showed how political that judgement is. It rests on how ‘profitable’ pits are in the eyes of the NCB. Whether every single pit can or should be profitable is never questioned. Neither are the astronomic costs and unacceptable dangers involved in nuclear power, the alternative energy source the Tories favour. So-called ‘economicclosures reflect society’s priorities and values. The NUM refused to accept these values and the NCB hit list put the NUM on one side and the Tories on the other.
This challenge involved a confrontation with the government — with its media, the police, and the courts. But the miners found that their values met a response with workers at home and abroad who saw their right to work stripped away in the name of ‘profitability’. Railworkers certainly knew what the miners were talking about. They had suffered the closure of 200 stations and thousands of miles of line closures under the 1963 Beeching Report, and they daily experience the implementation of the Serpell Report through the back door.
The NUM’s challenge and the government’s reply exposed in graphic detail the two conflicting forces in society today: on one hand the need of the owning class to increase its rate of profit whatever the cost in human suffering and on the other the desperate need of the working class to defend jobs, wages and working conditions. Everybody faced the same question: which side are you on?
Polish miners organised in their banned trade union Solidarnosc extended a hand while their government broke the coal blockade. In recent months thousands of black miners in South Africa have fought running battles with the apartheid state out to defeat their industrial action and smash up their trade union. Despite this repression they did not forget their brothers in Britain and sent financial aid and messages of solidarity.
Welsh farmers gave milk to the miners rather than dump it as the EEC demanded. Young people sprang into action through the miners support committees and through their local Labour Party Young Socialists. Black organisations took up the miners cause — over £3000 was raised at the annual black festival in Notting Hill. Labour Party members organised street collections, benefits and many even joined picket lines for the first time in their lives. And of course the women of the mining communities, trade unions and peace movements came to the front of the solidarity movement.
The bosses’ organisation, the CBI, considers that British society is more split, more polarised than two years ago. Some working people look for a middle road, for class peace and turn to the SDP/Liberal Alliance. But there
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is no middle road. The international economic crisis must be paid for by the working class if capitalism is to recover.
Already in Britain, four million can’t get work, hospitals are closing, roads crumbling, with vast shortages of housing and overcrowded, illequipped schools. Living standards are plummetting for those at the lowest end of the scale. Thatcher’s review of the social services will slash even further the conditions of the poorest. Railworkers are a case in point. They needed a 30 per cent increase in 1985 to bring them to 1975 wage levels. Only a fundamental change will answer this situation, where working people take governmental power away from the owning class and use it in the interests of the vast majority instead of the tiny majority.
It is possible. Most of the world’s population now live outside the capitalist system. And what can be achieved when working people take the reins in their own hands can be seen in Nicaragua for example. In 1979 the workers and farmers of this small country in Central America, overthrew a cruel dictatorship. Within 14 months of the new government, illiteracy had been reduced by 60 to 10 per cent, unemployment halved, prices of basic foodstuffs stabilised and for the first time, health and education was made available to the workers of the field and factory. The ruling class understands this, and fears it.
Reagan justifies his war against Nicaragua by claiming he is ‘fighting communism’. And Thatcher supports him. The imperialist powers aim to overthrow this government which working people in Nicaragua see as theirs. That’s what is behind the miilions of dollars spent on the contra armies, Reagan’s decision to impose an economic blockade, and the current preparations for a full-scale military invasion.
The last year has convinced many people that a dramatic change 1s necessary but not how to do it. It’s clearly not enough for workers to fight a bit harder, nor limit themselves to putting a cross on a ballot paper every five years. To form a government that is loyal to the working class needs a coherent strategy that guides the thinking and activity of militants. Such a strategy rests on an overall view of what socialists should do in the trade unions, Labour Party and Labour Young Socialists. In this we can be guided by three basic principles: the fight for working class solidarity, union democracy and action independent of the ruling class.
Leaders and misleaders Coalville’s railworkers were guided by these principles in their fight for jobs and against victimisations. The fighting slogans used by the socialist agitators who built the unions sprang into life from the banners carried on the solidarity demonstrations: Unity is Strength; United We Stand-Divided We Fall; An Injury to One is an Injury to All. The thing about Coalville railworkers was that they acted on the slogans. Most full-time leaders of the rail unions elected or appointed for life are happy enough with the slogans as long as they remain on decorative banners or for fiery speeches at the annual conferences, But when the real battles start they run for cover.
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PHOTO: MEARK SALMON i
eww i Rieht, Mick Richmond, co-leader of the Dirty Thirty
Look at the facts of the Coalville fight: @ when the first guard at Coalville was sent home for obeying the union instruction tn April the Federation should have called an all-out national strike. Instead Coalville workers were oblived to work trains from the private open cast site. @ when the victimisation at Shirebrook and Coalville gathered pace the head offices of both the NUR and ASLE-V decided to treat the three workers sacked for possession of railway properly as isolated, individual cases for the unions’ legal departments. They should have been treated as viclimisations for supporting union policy. @ NUR General Secretary Jimmy Knapp never went to Coalville.
ASLEF’s Ray Buckton paid a visit when the strike was all but over. But when they both visited Shirebrook they got positive results. @ finally there is hardly a raitworker in the country who wouldn't agree that the 1984 pay settlement for 4.5 per cent after a claim for 25 per cent was a shameful stab in the back for the miners. The opportunity to open a second front against Thatcher was thrown away.
Transforming our unions There is a long history in the NUR of dictatorial leadership under Sidney
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Green and Sidney Weighell. Many railworkers hoped that the overthrow of Weighell and the election of Jimmy Knapp would mean a more responsive, democratic and militant union working together with ASLEF in the newly formed Federation of Rail Unions. They way that Weighell was booted out for gross violation of union democracy and replaced by Knapp was a victory for democracy itself and for the left in the union. The right wing and the head office machine were weakened and discredited. But faced with the first test of leadership, both Knapp and Buckton failed.
A new leadership across the labour movement can’t be built by more radical, militant or left individuals gradually replacing the existing leadership. On election Knapp was immediately surrounded by the very same head office machine that had been built up by Green and Weighell for the sole purpose of collaborating with the British Rail Board and the government of the day at the expense of the membership.
But more fundamentally, he became part of a distinct group in the unions and Labour Party with its own privileges and interests. It wants to protect its expenses, union cars, fat wage packets and so on. It doesn’t want to rock the boat. Its members aren’t simply workers who’ve ‘made good’. Their lifestyles have changed so much that they forget who put them there. But they wield enormous power in the movement. They control the levers of union and Labour Party power. This bureaucracy finds its best support from relatively privileged workers who mistakenly think they have a stake in the system and who think they’re safe from the bosses’ attacks. This power and the way it is used was shown graphically during the miners strike.
In the end, Thatcher’s most decisive ally was the labour bureacracy as a whole. Only a handful of labour leaders, such as the Campaign Group of MPs or leaders like Jim Slater of the National Union of Seamen, joined the rail unions in giving elementary solidarity to the miners. In doing so, they were responding to enormous pressure from the rank and file.
Unity We hear too often union leaders blaming the membership if there’s no fight. The Coalville leaders had a different approach. They weren’t without problems in their ranks. But they based themselves on the hard core which was 100 per cent loyal to the union. Then they reached out to the rest of the movement for support to both convince the waverers in their own depot that they weren’t alone, and to force the union head office to call supportive action. The same choice faces all leaders.
In his campaign for the presidency of the NUM, Arthur Scargill demanded ‘no pit closures on economic grounds’. In office, he campaigned for strike action to fight NCB and government policies on closures. When the strike got underway, he led it with firm class principles and methods of struggle. He kept the allegiance of the vast majority of his members and was able to inspire them to great heights of struggle, not because of promises but because he had already been tested in the local 1969 pay battles in Yorkshire and in the national pay battles of 1972 and 1974. In the rail unions we also need leaders who have proven themselves in struggle. That was another lesson of Coalville.
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Fighting to change the Labour Party But the NUM, let alone the leaders at Coalville, can’t form the next government. The working class has fought over the years for its own independent political party. The Labour Party with its strong organised links with the unions, is seen by the vast majority of workers as theirs, just as the Tory party is seen as the bosses’ party. Therefore the return of a Labour government is correctly viewed as essential.
However the experience of the last Labour government was a disaster for working people. Living standards dropped drastically, cuts in the welfare state were widespread. Unemployment figures climbed. That’s what lay behind the so-called ‘winter of discontent’. And it’s why many activists who correctly support the return of Labour are quick to add, ‘But we don’t want another Callaghan government’.
The miners strike again showed the contradictions of the Labour Party.
While tens of thousands of members in the unions and constituencies actively backed the miners, the record of the central leadership (with the exception of a few MPs like Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner) was total capitulation to Thatcher. Nationally the Labour Party produced one leaflet in the whole of the dispute. Party leader, Neil Kinnock, took 10 months to get onto a picketline and never went into a soup kitchen despite his ‘roots’ in the mining community of South Wales. But worse, he lined up with Thatcher at every crunch point during the strike. He piously denounced violence on the picket lines by declaring he was against ‘all’ violence. What breathtaking hypocrisy from someone who backed Thatcher in her Falklands adventure and who supports British troops in the North of Ireland!
Miners are not violent people. They and their families lived peacefully until the police started to occupy their villages, and they became victims of unprecedented para-military operations on the picket lines and in the communities. Should they have turned the other cheek while their democratic rights were totally destroyed? When militant young miners dared to fight back in self defence, Kinnock joined the Tories and their press and attacked the miners. Yet again the victim is blamed for fighting back.
Kinnock lined up with the Tories because the programme of the Labour Party, its methods and its leadership are committed to the maintainance of the capitalist system. At best it seeks to reform this system. But in reality the Labour Party organises the political activity of working people in a way which reinforces the capitalist system. It’s no wonder the bosses see the Party as a way to control the working class.
The links with the organised trade union movement give rise to continuing battles in the Labour Party, as workers try to force it to genuinely promote and defend the interests of the working class and the oppressed. It’s no accident that the new left current in the labour movement which focussed on the need to get control over Labour MPs and to make them accountable to the labour movement, had roots in the fight of the low-paid against the betrayals of the Wilson/Callaghan years. These workers didn’t want another Callaghan government. They joined with women and black people looking for political solutions along with gay and lesbian rights groups. All these
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forees drew closer to the Labour Party to effect a change.
They united behind the contest of Tony Benn tor leadership of the Labour Party and were only narrowly defeated. There was a victory for the campaign for the right to reselect MPs and the electoral college to elect the Party leader. But in the process of the campaign it became even clearer that it is within the unions that the character of the Labour Party and future Labour governments will be decided. Benn was supported by the vast majority of Constituency Labour Parties but rank and file support in the unions wasn’t fully registered because the union block votes remained in the hands of the union leaders. The block vote has to be brought under rank and file control so that the workers determine the policies and people that will be supported. The Labour Party has to be shaken up from top to bottom and the trade unions have the power to do that.
The involvement of the unions at every level is essential. The NUM has organised its delegates most extensively. In some areas of Yorkshire, they caucus regularly before meetings to ensure that their interests are given priority by the management committees. [ts obvious that in the Midlands the fight to regain control of the miners union itself will be closely linked to an enormous battle in the Labour Party, to remove MPs like Don Concannon and replace them with new young leaders who will stand and fight. Equally, rail union activists have a special role to play in bringing Charles Turnock to order. This right-winger who is currently the Assistant General Secretary of the NUR also chairs the Labour Party’s NEC Organising Committee, the body which is demanding that general committee members take a loyalty oath if their constituency has agreed to recognise black sections.
This puts special responsibility on the NUR to campaign for black sections and to support the actions of the black movement such as the campaigns against police harassment and so on. It will give us better conditions to bring Turnock under control and it will strengthen our union, with its many black and Asian members, in the process.
But the level of involvement of the unions in the Labour Party won't occur spontaneously. A strong political lead — by organised socialists steeled in struggle and with authority in the movement — is essential. The fight to bend the Labour Party to the will of the unions is a central part of our longer term strategy for socialism.
The youth are key to this kind of change in the Labour Party. The Labour Party Young Socialists face an enormous challenge in the wake of the miners strike. Young militants in the NUM saw the methods and policies needed to take on the government and the strike inspired broader lavers of youth to join the struggle. Unlike the Party itself, the LPYS as a whole can be won to a programme and methods of struggle to break with capttalism,
Political unions Many unionists become frustrated and angry with low attendance at branch meetings. Knowing the problems which have to be confronted, they start blaming everything on the absent rank and file. However the road to mass in-
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volvement in the daily life of the unions is a long and bumpy one, absolutely locked in with the fight to make them more democratic, More political and more accountable.
Women, Asians and blacks are not in any way properly represented in the unions and the Labour Party. Yet they do the most lowly-paid jobs and are the most exploited sections of the working class. Breaking down the divisive racist and anti-woman attitudes in the workplace and unions, which exclude them from involvement in the movement, can only strengthen the fight against the real enemy — the capitalist class. The fight to make our unions more democratic and under the control of the membership ts totally bound up with the formation of policies of positive discrimination and for equal opportunities on the job and in the union. Our unions will be stronger if they support every struggle which promotes solidarity among all (hose who are exploited and oppressed.
For example, the NUM at the 1984 Labour Party conference supported Black Sections in the Party; the demands of the Women’s Action Committee for positive discrimination for women at all levels of the party and the cleetion of the women’s section by the women’s conference; the demands of Labour lesbians and gays. So too must our unions become active in the struggles which will find us new allies for the battles ahead. This means backing the anti-apartheid campaign; promoting a woman’s right to choose against Enoch Powell’s anti-abortion bill and the Gillick ruling which denies young women contraception without parental consent; resisting the deportations and racist attacks on black and Asian communities; for British troops out of Ireland, and so on.
Blacks and women have the right to organise separately as they see fit. To those who oppose the setting up of black sections we must say, did the separate organisation of women during the miners’ strike aid or hinder the cause? It massively aided the miners, their union and it brought into political activity tens of thousands of women.
The potential strength of our unions worries the bosses. They use everything at their disposal to weaken working class organisation, and break the ties between the Labour Party and the unions. Throughout this year, every major union is forced by law to ballot its membership to see if the political fund can exist. Tebbit’s anti-union laws oblige unions ~ under threat of court action and sequestration of their funds — to ballot before industrial action is taken and for the election of union officers.
Hiding behind the banner of ‘democracy’, the Tories are really trying to undercut the political power the unions have. Trade union members are forced by Tory laws to say whether their union can donate to the Labour Party, yet the Conservative Party is quite happy to accept huge amounts from big business with no accounting to anyone. And when is Margaret Thatcher up for re-selection by Tory party members?
This drive to weaken the unions is also behind the media campaign which forced the Transport and General Workers to hold a new election for general secretary. This union has been the victim of gross interference in its affairs, designed to weaken it. The Tory press claims to be upholding ‘democracy’ but
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it really wants to see another docile union leadership — like Hammond in the Electricians Union and the Duffy leadership of the Engineering Union.
These unions which are quick to agree to no-strike clauses in their agreements are the model of democracy as far as the bosses are concerned.
The shape of things to come Given the scale of the attacks on the working class, the situation cries out for an organised class-wide response led by real class fighters. The miners strike has shown us many thousands of activists who are willing and able to struggle, to give leadership to the class in action. Many big class battles are coming which will consolidate the achievements so far and go further. The conditions will arise for a new form of mass movement capable of developing the programme, strategy and tactics necessary to throw out the present misleaders of the labour movement in order to confidently confront the capitalist class.
We caught a glimpse of such an organisation in the 1920s. More importantly we saw the great class events which shaped such a body. It was called the National Minority Movement and united militants in all the major trade unions around policies on the big political and economic issues of the day. It declared that ‘the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves’; it was for the overthrow of capitalism and for the working class to take power.
At its peak it represented 600,000 workers drawn from 38 unions, 10 Cooperative Guilds, 34 trades councils. It was born in the wake of some of the most profound experiences British workers have ever been involved in. The war-time shop stewards movement had exploded into being under the impact of the Russian Revolution. Women in their tens of thousands were organising for the right to vote. Forty thousand troops had mutinied in the south east of England. Revolution was in the air both at home and in Ireland. The postwar boom had collapsed and the bosses were trying to get the workers to bear the brunt of their crisis. This movement was led by the revolutionary young Communist Party which was rooted in all the major unions. It also had links with the developing left wing movement in the Labour Party at the time — called the National Left Wing Movement — although it failed to firmly consolidate these links. Finally, it became a victim of the crushing defeat of the 1926 General Strike which had such a profound effect on all working class organisation.
Such a movement didn’t arise spontaneously. Massive class forces came into action combining with the leading role of the Communist Party, before that Party finally deteriorated under Stalin. Class wide organisation of this type can only develop with leadership from those already politically organised around a programme and practice drawn from the historic national and international experiences of the working class and oppressed. Today Socialist Action is the newspaper for militants in the trade unions and Labour Party committed to a programme, practice and organisation which is indispensable for taking the class forward.
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In brief BIG BATTLES are coming in the rail industry. For Thatcher and her big business friends the railways are a running sore. They don’t like it that the bulk of the industry remains nationalised and therefore out of reach in their search for profits. They want to restructure it from top to bottom to make railworkers pay for the economic crisis through low wages, longer hours and worsening working conditions. To do this they have to tackle the rail unions. Today British Rail management is introducing the proposals in the Serpell Report in a piecemeal way. This infamous report includes plans to shut down a full 80 per cent of Britain’s railways.
For two years running, the BR Board has been forced to separate its ‘productivity exercises’ from wage increases, for fear of industrial action. But they can’t afford to put off these measures for much longer. The principle of the eight-hour day has already been lost with the introduction of flexible rostering. The ‘Open Station’ concept is spreading rapidly, as thousands of platform staff jobs go by the wayside. Now the Board wants to push ahead with ‘Driver Only Operation’ on both freight and passenger lines. The abortive one-day rail strike on London underground lines in May will have given BR management more confidence to do so. The entire grade of guard is at stake, threatening 12,000 jobs in the NUR’s most militant grade. But no grade is safe. For instance, the extension of single manning agreements which management wants will threaten drivers’ jobs. To date, the workshops have been the hardest hit. Entire shops have disappeared already, and 10,000 of the remaining jobs are at risk, In short, railworkers face daily a massive attack on jobs, working conditions and union organisation. They are confronted with many of the same problems that the miners faced. By 1990, BR hopes to chop 30,000 jobs throughout the industry. BR bosses urgently need to defeat the railworkers in struggle. That’s what union activists have to prepare for today because our union is in no shape to take on Britain’s bosses.
This involves a long-term fight to make our unions more political, more united, more democratic — in short, better able to defend the interests of working people. In coming months, activists have a great deal to educate, agitate and organise around including: @ The defence of the Coalville depot against job loss and closure. Coalville has been targetted for one single reason — it loyally backed the Federation during the miners strike. @ The campaign for amnesty for the sacked and imprisoned miners and for the maintenance of their families. @ Full support for any fightback against productivity measures including Driver Only Operation. Scottish workers gave a magnificent lead in their united stand against job loss — in the Springburn workshops and through Driver Only Operation on the Strathclyde Region — when they brought the railways to a standstill. @ Support to working people world-wide who are fighting for the right to determine how they want to run their country. A trade union conference in solidarity with Nicaragua is scheduled for 3 November, 1985. Preparations for a full-scale invasion of that country are underway. Support for the conference and a commitment to fill a container-load of material aid has never been more urgent. Closer to home, there is a job to do in getting the rail unions committed to a policy of Troops Out of Ireland Now. @ The campaign for a ‘yes’ vote in the political fund ballot is a top priority for tailworkers. It can be used to strengthen the links between the unions and the Labour Party by getting branches affiliated and electing delegates to the local parties, @ Above ali, read, sell and write for Socialist Action! Join us in our fight to transform our unions as a central part of our longer term goal of a socialist society.
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