ON MONDAY evening Arthur Scargill spoke at a THE GOVERNMENT is now the NUM. JOHN ROSS looks at how these moves are connected.
The fight over the NGA at lne stockporl Messenger showed that these laws could be used Workers hollere deserted against small groups by the TUC. But the use of these laws around dispute зOCaI newspaper group thing. Using Inchl agalist the dockers, car workers, or miners is quite a different thing.
It was because he dia understand this difnot terence that the government. stepped in sharply Ian MacGregor's against attempt to use the courts at the beginning of the strike obtained a High Court ruling that the picketing carried on by the Yorkshire NUM was illegal. The Yorkshire NUM refused to back down. MacGregor dropped his action Exactly the same line was pursued the government over the blockade of steel plants in July.
Steel's management was advised by the government not take legal action against the NUM. The successful writs taken out against the South Wales NUM were gained not by British Steel management but by small independent road hauliers.
1 nis government rejecagainst the NUM throughout the was spite of constant calls for legal intervention David Owen and the more fanatical layers of Thatcher such as Paul Johnson in the Daily Mail, the editorial writers of the Times.
The reason for the refusal to back any decisive legal ac tion was obvious. legal attack on the NUM must succeed, it is the government's last throw. If the NUM successfully defeats or detes, an all out legal attack on it, then the government's entire position will crumble both on ine strike and on lne alli union laws.
That is why the government persuaded Macuregor io back aown March. The cabinet reckoned, rightly, that legal attack on the Yorkshire NUM at that time would have been successfully defeated. It would have created more support for the miners not less. That calculation is why the government was forcea to rely on tae mel "back to work' movement throughout the summer.
with this legal assault? Because Thatcher is prepared to match every escalation with an escalation of her OWN.
Three weeks ago the government hoped the strike would be defeated because the TUC would refuse to support the NUM's action stations. The government was activel drawing up plans for of millions tons of coal from the striking pit heads to the power stations. cessions tracted from the government Knows policy can't work. There will be a fight to impose TUC policy the power stations. But moving millions of tons of coal to the power plants, amid huge physical violence at the pits to stop it, getting power workers to use it, is just not on in the new situation today. Therefore the government must find another way to break the strike before it wins.
chosen weapons are the TUC and the courts. The government is first trying to get the TUC, , and other unions such as NACODS, to impose a 'compromise' settlement, in reality a defeat, on the NUM. That is her chief policy today. But after that there is anothe THE alternative - and another government tactic.
Frank Chapple, Eric Hammond, Lyons and the other right wingers have been explaining thei strategy for defeating the right the beginning. The bureaucracy must first isolate the NUM - as they tried to do at the TUC. Then the government can step in with massive repression the seizure of the funds of the Yorkshire NUM. Cover should be given to the entire operation through propaganda about ballot The right wing wil then block ant solidarit action to defend the NUM other unions on the grounds unions can't take action when the NUM is denying its members unt "right to vote'. It is this strategy the government is now considering.
For Thatcher was not bluffing whel she said again last week that there can be no compromise for her over the central issue of the dispute pit closures. The Tory govern. ment from this autumn on is going to face the biggest round threats policies which it has ever confronted.
Local government authorities, teachers, car workers are just some of the groups in line for the biggest battles with the If government fer a defeat, or even be forced make an unsatisfactory compromise, at the hands of the miners then the situation rapidly become disastrous.
government must defeat the miners if it is to retain its credibility.
And on that Thatcher calculating that if the TUC cannot impose 'compromise' on the NUM it can be counted on THEOLOGICALLY SOUND ON to desert it if the courts step in She estimates that TUC will back off from a confrontation that literally would be on the scale of 1926. Because. .of course, if the trade unions did not back off then any move to use the courts against the NUM would result in disaster for the government For the first time in this dispute there is now a real risk - not a certainty but a definite. risk that the government s adopt a legal attack on the NUM its central strategy stake NUM LOUSI repressior and rely or the TUC to block any response. If she does no do that Thatcher faces the danger of a slow and inevitable slide to defeat.
The next weeks are the most vital of the entire The knot the power stations has to be tightened by implementing TUC policy The financial aid to the NUM stepped must But prepare for a legal the an ovenet assault on the NUM The demands must be clear. Only massive response by industrial action will roll back the scale of legal attack the govern. ment would contemplate to break the NUM. Such action has come not. This means • A declaration by the Genera Council of the TUC that any legal attac on the NUM will be me with a general strike. • Pledges by key groups of workers and unions Fleet Street printers, dockers, transport workers, car workers that any legal attack on the NUM, any seizure of its assets or other similar moves, will be met with all out sympathy strike ac LON •CORMAC
----- pull-quotes -----
track' strategy for dealing with the miners' strike. On the one hand it is trying to force the TUC to im- pose a compromise on the miners. On the other hand it is threatening massive legal action to try to smash
fundamental dilemma has existed for the govern- ment over whether it can try to use its new anti- union laws against the NUM.
using the courts tion of
pursuing a 'twin Right from the beginning of the miners' strike a
She Tory sincement That situation ere to sur