How miners found a seam of
Across Frontiers Jonathan Saunders. Canary Press 1989. 290 pages, £6.95. Reviewed by Finn Jensen Jonathan Saunders' book is a detailed account of the intemational support for the British miners' strike of 1984-85. It provides a lot of analysis that can be useful in future major strikes in other industries; but also in discussions on how to develop internationalist trade unionist and socialist consciousness.
Across Frontiers is a wellwritten book. At lot of research has gone into describing the interational support for the miners. Even for those of us who took part in that work the book is full of surprises about the scale of this solidarity work. As a historical record of this important aspect of the international labour movement, the book is second to none.
Jonathan Saunders' book places the international solidarity work in a historical and political context. A chapter on the British NUM's intemational work prior to the 1984-85 strike is useful to understand the links that were made before the strike started.
The solidarity work in Europe, Soviet Union, North America, South Africa and elsewhere is described in various chapters, each beginning with a brief outline of the labour movement and the political situation in that country, which helps explain the various forms the solidarity work took in the different countries.
Each chapter is full of anecdotes from the individuals actually involved. That makes the book lively and humourous, but without undermining a serious study of one of the big class battles this century.
So what difference did the intemational solidarity work make to the miners' strike? According to NUM's general secretary.
REVIEWS solidarity
Peter Heathfield, 85% of the financial support at the end of the strike came from abroad (a fact that is not mentioned in the book). But according to Jonathan Saunders the international support could not have closed down the British power stations even if coal supplies from abroad had been totally cut off; this was mainly due to the Nottingham working miners.
The importance of the international solidarity work lies more in the internationalism it brought to life among millions of trade unionists and socialists across the world - a practical experience that can be used again.
Jonathan Saunders argues that this intemationalism could have been developed much further if it was not for the NUM leadership restricting the fight to defend NUM jobs. His argument is that if NUM's fight had been against all job losses - in British industries as well as abroad -then it would have been more likely to get real practical solidarity work from other workers: such as respecting picket lines and sympathy strikes. And he goes a step further: it was the sectoral struggle of the NUM that 'unfortunately led directly to the isolation and defeat of March 1985.
There is no doubt that the NUM strike would have been
MARCH AGAINST strengthened if other workers in Britain and abroad had taken industrial action against austerity policies and job losses.
But Jonathan's own description of the response from the foreign workers (and my own experience inside the Danish trade union movement) indicate that these workers gave unconditional support to the British miners because they understood that this was a major test of strength in the class struggle. I doubt very much if these foreign workers solidarity would have been qualitatively different if NUM's official demand had been against all job losses; it might make a difference for British workers. In neither case can one explain the defeat of March 1985 as a consequence of the strike defending only NUM jobs.
In the last chapter of the book Jonathan Saunders looks at the legacy of the miners' strike. Politically this is the weakest chapter of the book. He criticies Scargill for supporting the Labour Party: "The NUM was the first union to weigh in with a big contribution (£400,000) towards Labour's election expenses. Scargill, who made the announcement, was apparently willing to swallow much of Kinnock's 'new realism':
First of all it is ultra-left not to ask people to vote Labour (un-
Andrew Wiard/Report less you present a better altema-
- INTERNATIONALE F tive). But secondly
Saunders is wrong in sug gesting that
PIT
Scargill sup
COSURES ports new realism. Scargill has made mistakes, but he is still a class stug gle fighter. His election campaign for
NUM's presidency was just one proof of that.
Saunders gives credit to the various left organisations that have been involved in the international solidarity work but in his last chapter makes sweeping generalisations about the British left without any nuances.
His central thesis is that 'Instead of trying to persuade miners to transcend the limits of activity being organised by the
NUM leadership, they (i.e. the
British Left) restricted themsel ves to attacking the Kinnockites and the Willises for failing to back the strike. ... In political terms their (i.e. the left's) inter vention was more or less irrelevant.
The problem with the miners' strike was not the NUM leadership restricting the activity of the rank and file members but the lack of industrial action from other British workers in support of the miners. That is why it was necessary to put pressure on the
Kinnockites and the Willises to organise industrial support for the miners. A few hundred revolutionary miners could not have organised it.
Despite these political weaknesses, the book is worth reading by any militant trade unionist. It is also worth noting that Canary Press has published many other excellent books on the miners' strike.
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American car workers queue for jobs