split in the NUM The defeat of the miners' strike has had bitter consequences in the coalfields and throughout the trade union movement. During the strike the 'new realist' right wing of the TUC was on the defensive; now it is regrouping and making its plans for the consolidation of scab trade unionism. JANE KELLY, BRENDAN YOUNG and PHIL HEARSE ask: can the left halt the retreat? THE SPLIT in the NUM is now a fact, and the Union of Democratic Mineworkers is consolidating itself. Inside the NUM leadership the left is beginning to split up, with rew "soft left', semi-Kinnockite grouping beginning to challenge Scargill on the executive. It would be foolish to underestimate the gravity of the situation and the depth of the retreat. Without openly facing the facts of what has happened the left will not be able to elaborate a strategy for a fightback. The split in the NUM The defeat of the strike has been used by the NCB to speed up the closure of pits and the redundancy programme. At least 20,000 jobs have been lost since the strike began in March 1984. The Board has closed pits not on criteria of 'profitability' but on an overtly political basis. The closing of the most militant pits is both a revenge against those who fought hardest during the strike, and also makes any regroupment of forces in the future more difficult. Kent, one of the most militant areas, is threatened with total closure and a 'productive' pit like Frickely in West Yorkshire is to lose a third of its workforce in the next five years. But the level of demoralisation is such that even the most solid areas have been unable to mount an effective campaign against redundancy and closure. Bold in Lancashire, Penrhiwceiber in South Wales and, most tragic of all, Corton Wood, where the strike started, have all now voted to accept closure. There is some resistance, but in general the defeat has left the militant leaderships in the NUM areas isolated and demoralised.
The defeat has also led to the emergence of the breakaway, scab UDM. At present this is confined to the scab areas like Notts and South Derbyshire, members from the Colliery Trades and Allied Workers in Durham and scab pits like Agecroft in in Lancs, International, No. 2. Januarv/Februarv 1986
Warwickshire. It is still an open question as to how far it will be able to go beyond this initial organisation, to penetrate into the strongholds of the NUM and extend its present membership of about 20,000. Partly this depends on the response of the labour and trade union movement. All indications at the moment are that the Kinnock leadership of the Labour Party will seek to make a compromise with the scab union. Right-wing MPs like Concannon in the Notts area have been openly supporting the right of individual UDM members to remain on the general committees of local Labour parties. This is being backed up by the national agent, David Hughes, who is said to be seeking 'a form of words' to overcome their lack of TUC affiliation.
Resistance to the recognition of the UDM support groups in Notts. But the right-wing Labour parties have been ruling support group resolutions 'out of order', in addition to refusing to hire out party rooms for them to organise their meetings.
The centre and right in the TUC will also be looking for some compromise with the scabs. It is significant that the Leicestershire area NUM is balloting its members on whether to leave the NUM, but not on joining the UDM. If the vote goes in favour of leaving, an independent grouping could provide the focus for some form of compromise or conciliation with the UDM, which the TUC could back without too much loss of face. Alternatively the EEPTU/AUEW bloc may provide shelter for them. In any case it is an important issue for the left to be fighting.
The fact that the strike was defeated, however, is not an adequate explanation for the development of the UDM. In reality its
BLHEKLEL MINH YOUR DAY AT WORK 15 YOUR DRY DF SHAME JOIN DUR FIGHT NOW acob Sutton/Reflex formation is the logical development of whole areas scabbing during the strike, and it is this scabbing that needs analysing. Any analysis has to take into account a number of factors, both recent and historical. No one single explanation is enough; rather it is necessary to point to a combination of interwoven pressures and traditions which produced scabbing on such a scale during the '84/85 strike.
Notts was the centre of Spencerism after the defeat of 1926. The bosses' union lasted until the late 1930s, and even then was not politically defeated. Instead the Spencer union was incorporated into the Notts area and Spencer himself given a job as a fulltime union official! More recently the Notts area benefitted, as did others, from the divisive bonus scheme negotiated by against it.
Notts has traditionally had a 'moderate' leadership, most recently that of Richardson and Chadburn. South Wales miners when they went to Notts to try and win support for their fight against the closure of Tymawr/Lewis-Merthyr pit in 82, were horrified by the lack of organisation in the area: they found few meetings to address. This lack of organisation was reiterated by Notts striking miners during the strike. They told how The Miner newspaper piled up in the area offices, undistributed; how lodges often failed to meet and that the sense of solidarity with other, less well-paid areas, was very low.
At the beginning of the strike the leadership of the area was indecisive. After some pits were picketed out, the strikers were ordered back to work for a ballot. This was lost and from that point on in Notts, the momentum which in other areas built the Il
Hammond of the EETPU with Lynk of the UDM: splitting the trade union movement. of the coalfield were able to picket out the to win the strike put a lot of pressure on the UDM, ever since the end of the strike. though it is clear too that the CP played a the need to organise; not just at the level of Since the end of the strike, however, they If resistance to Tory attack and resistance to occupation. The refusal by the leadership of the soft left, led by George Bolton from picketing had the inevitable and perhaps Wales, and the isolation of the left. The last the lack of action by the TUC and Labour Communist influence. The dependence on demoralised workforce by a nationally co- emboldened by the defeat of the miners and ordinated initiative. Similarly the failure to are setting the pace inside the TUC in favour to work', even before it was agreed by the Miners' Support Groups and the National executive of South Wales. His more recent Justice for Miners Campaign now given than the actual issue of acceptance of state substantial backing by the NUM and other money. A large number of unions are It is also essential that all such formations Mainstream adherents goes much further educative, if tragic one. The election of Des link up with and support Women Against Pit for Emlyn groups have proved to be the most solid in full-blown business unionismi.
national strike, was lost. The majority of Notts miners saw militant action as a threat to their livelihood and this overcame any residual sense of class solidarity. In this period of Tory attack on the labour movement, the inability of the leadership of the movement as a whole to combat the fear and insecurity created by the Tory attacks, has left workers seeking individual as opposed to collective solutions.
Compared to the debacle in Notts, the South Wales area remained an apparent model of solidarity throughout the year-long fight. With its history of working class solidarity and a tradition of militancy based on a left leadership centred on the Communist Party, 92% of the workforce stayed out for the whole year. They also received strong support from the local communities, dependent on the survival of the pits for financial security. Despite a 'no' vote in the area ballot, the pits in the middle rest of the area which quickly became solid. It seems contradictory then that it was this same area which led the 'back to work' call in March 1985.
Six to eight weeks after the strike became solid in South Wales the area leadership took financial control away from the lodge-based strike centres and from that point on were able to control the mass action of the more militant rank and file. For example, after the sequestration of the area funds, when there were calls to resume mass action, the executive were able to divert this militancy into the adventure of the Port Talbot crane Emlyn Williams to organise and fund mass intended result of demobilising the strikers. Trusting their leadership's apparent support has also been lost. for the strike, the strikers failed to build any alternative leadership prepared to confront leaderships.
'Mainstream is trailblazing
scab trade unionism'
The Wales Congress, based on support from the church, nationalist, trade union and Labour leaderships, completed this wresting of the initiative from the rank and file. The mass action strategy was replaced with an attempt to 'win public support back after Orgreave', and a condemnation of mass action on the grounds that it 'alienated' necessary to try such support. The hijacking of the area leadership on the line of the EuroCommunists became when Kim Howells led the call for a 'return proposals of the need for 'dialogue and reconciliation' with the UDM fit into the same framework.
For many miners the role of the South scattered since the defeat. Wales area leadership has been Dutfield, a Steril upones, for nme Coses groups. right-winger Terry Williams' 12 significant victory
The development of a leadership fighting Communist Party during the strike itself, key role against Scargill in playing down mass picketing at Orgreave, have launched a savage attack on Scargill himself and on the methods used. They have used their journal Marxism Today to link up with the Kinnock leadership, and the centre and right in the TUC, to isolate Scargill and his supporters. The vote on the NEC on whether the NUM should go to court to purge its 'contempt', which went 5-8 against Scargill, is evidence of the hardening out of Scotland and Emlyn Williams from South 'Scargill' policy against incentive payments
A whole series of decisions made since the local negotiations to reinstate sacked miners, though successful in some cases, neglected the need to try and regroup the defeated and organise or back, until very recently, any national amnesty campaign, disgraceful rejection of the affiliation of the Women Against Pit Closures to the national
organised from the Communist Party's miners' advisory committee, also reveal their reactionary role.
In the face of the shift to the right it is
Tand regroup the left militants in the NUM, along with all those who supported them during the strike. The absolutely explicit Yorkshire Campaign Group, the Notts Forum, left trade union leaders - all represent
attempts to reorganise those militant forces the back of EEPTU/AUEW defiance. place on the executive is a the face of defeat. They have organised
Riot ament:::.
redundancy and closure and against the If there is one lesson from the strike, it is of leadership, nor only in the NUM. The left for example. has to organise across the labour movement. capitulation is to be mounted, it can only be done in this way. New realists on the offensive If the Labour leadership is giving ground to the UDM by trying to engineer Labour Party membership for the scabs, the right wing of the TUC is openly aiding them. David Prendergast, treasurer of the UDM, is vice-chair of 'Mainstream', a right-wing co-ordination founded in April 1985. Mainstream's organiser is EEPTU research officer John Spellar, formerly Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield and front-rank Frank Chapple hatchet-person. The other vice-chair is Bill Jordan, candidate for the AUEW presidency. Gavin Laird and Eric Hammond are prominent The Mainstream supporters have been of the acceptance of state money for secret ballots, and the full-scale destruction of the policy of defiance of the Tory union laws. At this year's TUC opposition to the EEPTU "The CP advisory committee organised against women's support groups..?' and AUEW over state funding crumbled. In the Co-ordinating Campaign of reality, the unease of the other bureaucrats was more over the 'authority' of the TUC, preparing to accept the Tory union laws, on But the trailblazing activities of the than shifting TUC policy to the right. They The women's support die pushing ahead the implementation of a Thus the EEPTU has recentiy signed against strike-free deals with Inmos, Control Dan. International. No 2. January/Februars 1:4
Hitachi, AB Electronics, Toshiba, Sanyo, Bowater Scott and, just to show their total rejection of any of the normal attributes of trade unions, Eddie Shah's new daily newspaper. The AUEW is not far behind. It has signed several one-union, no-strike deals, the most notable being that with Nissan for its new car plant at Washington, county Durham.
There is a pattern to the deals which the EEPTU and the AUEW are making. They are following new firms, especially anti-union Japanese firms, into arcas which have either a defeated or a traditionally nonmilitant workforce. The choice of Washington for the Nissan plant is significant in that respect. They are also making a drive towards the high-tech electronics industries, which are locating themselves in areas with a high rate of nonunionisation, especially the south and south west — the so-called 'sunbelt' from East Anglia to Bristol. Prostrating themselves before anti-union managements is a vital weapon for the bureaucracy to combat the decline in union membership figures. For example, it has been calculated that because of redundancies and 'natural wastage' the EEPTU needs 60,000 new members every year just to maintain its current membership figure. The alternative of actually fighting redundancies does not occur to the likes of Hammond.
'Hammoud is planning a
right-wing "super union'''
Here the EEPTU has struck upon significant phenomenon. Trade unionism is weakest in the high technology and service sectors, which given the pattern of Britain's economic development — or rather lack of it - are the only growth areas. Recent surveys have shown that the closed shop, despite Tory legislation, is still relatively popular among employers. Many would prefer to have a servile and cooperative union to discipline the workforce. There is a real danger that the new realists will firmly implant themselves in these new developing industries, while traditional manufacturing declines. I In other words the new realist strategy is one to try to corner a greater percentage of the diminishing pool of trade unionists.
Mainsteam claims supporters in the NUR, CPSA, ISTO and National Communications Union (ex-lOEU). Although support in some of these unions may not be great, it gives an indication of the unions which they are seeking to target and bring firmly into the new realist fold. But there is even more frightening development on the horizon. Fric Hammond has ben sounding out the ASTMS and the AUEW about a fusion into a new 'super-union'. This would be a conglomerate bigger than the TGWU, and far and away the biggest and most powerful union. It could become the core of a new 'Mainstream' right-wing union federation able to challenge the TUC, and with strong links to the SDP/Liberal Alliance. While the merger is being opposed by the left in the International. Vo C. fatuary/Februney 1980:
C on AINERS Women marching for the miners AUEW, Clive Jenkins of the ASTMS is said to be interested in it. Resistance and the shape of things to come Scab trade unionism, like Spencerism after 1926, is a product of a period of defeats. It is only strengthened by the timidity of the Labour and TUC leaderships. Each new capitulation to the Tories' anti-union legislation just gives more power to the new realists. To ask how far Mainstream will go, and how deeply it will establish itself, is to ask to what extent the working class will suffer defeats — which cannot be predicted in advance. Most likely a lot will depend on what happens to the economy. Any upswing would almost certainly give a boost to working class combativity, and work against the new realists. This seems unlikely in the short term. But of course it also depends on the organisation and clarity of the left, especially in the trade unions, and this will be a product of political struggle, not an automatic by-product of economic developments.
We should be under no illusions about just how secure the new realists are in their own unions. In the EEPTU the undemocratic right is completely dominant. In the AUEW the situation is more complex. In the first round of the presidential elections, right winger Bill Jordan got 75,000 votes as against 50,000 for Broad Left candidate John Tocher. Jordan will dearly win in the serond round. Al the time of writing the results of the AUEW ballot on state funding have not been announced. but almost certainly there will be a thumping majority
acceptance. The right wing have
AP 10im13 SorT Philip Gordon/Reflex cornered and won the argument about democracy in the unions, largely because the 'centre' and 'left' burcaucrats have been unable, quite understandably, demonstrate that the present system is itself democratic. The new realist proposals on
'...in the unions the far left
Tis in a total shambles' secret ballots cannot be confronted without challenging the lack of democracy in the vast bulk of the British trade union movement.
The danger which we face, therefore, is that new defeats of the working class could be the prelude to a split in the trade union movement with the emergenee of an American-style business union federation. We are thankfully some distance from such a development. Despite the loss of two million union members in five years, the British working class is one of the most massively unionised in the world. There are still vast reserves of militancy and solidarity to draw on to confront the Hamond-Laird-Lynk mafia. But even this enormous strength will count for nothing if the left is incapable of ending the retreat before the Tory union laws and incapable of defending the sacked and victimised miners. Struggling to make the UDM the pariah of the union movement is central i. this.
Finally, it has to be said that in terms of strategy and implantation in the unions the revolutionary left in this country is in a total shambles. This is a not unimportant part of the equation and one to which we shall
13 return in future articles.