The 1980s will be remembered as the years when the Welsh coal industry was finally destroyed. Wales entered the decade with over 30,000 people employed in coal and left it with less than a thousand. This butchery was made possible by the defeat of the 1984-85 miners' strike, a defeat with far-reaching posasical and economic consequences in Wales.
Additional job losses in steel and other manufacturing industries pusnea unemploy ment above the UK average in over 15 per cent in 1986 but then began to steadily decline and the gap between Wales and the UK average began to narrow.
Wales attracted a fifth of all foreign investment in the late '80s, despite containing only a twentieth of the UK workforce. Weish secretary Peter Walker claimed a major success, and declared Wales entered the remarkable economic prospects... the 1990s therefore" do not contain the A glance behind the rhetoric Welsh workers slipped to the bottom 1980s, carning only 88 per cent of the UK average in 1990.
The Tories have been more successful in Wales than any other part of Britain in pushing down wages while increasing productivity. They have created a low waged, low skill economy based on the entry of large numbers of women into the workforce Two factors made this possible. First, the huge pool of unemployment made it relatively easy to put the squeeze on wages. Second, the defeat of the miners' strike had a devastating impact, it actroyed the sout Wales NUM, without doubt the union with the strongest traditions of militancy in Wales, and demoralised supporters of the The Wales TUC has enthusiastically supported the view that inward investment is the only answer. Affiliated unions have pursued a policy of single-union deals and no strike agreements.
Many of the US and Japanese companies which have invested in Wales do not recog nise unions in any of their other locations. But they are happy to accept a workforce disciplined by their own organisations.
Following a brief left wing Plaid Cymru leadership has • UNITED KINGDOM? rightwards. Daffyd Ellis Thomas moved the writ for Bobby Sands MP in 1981, but by 1990 he was calling for a ban on a visit by Sinn Fein councillors! Plaid also opposed mass non-payment of the Poll Tax and so failed to capitalise on the issue in the way the SNP did in Scotland.
The challenge is to build a new left in the Weish labour movement with an alternative to the inward investment line of the right wing leaders. We need a left which positively addres. defends the Welsh language.
These demands focused in a call for a Welsh defend Welsh workers, which will only be won through strug: gle. In this process we will need to draw on the rich history of working class organisation in Wales. Significantly, 1992 marks the eightieth anniversary of the publication of the syndicalist Miners' Next Step in the Rhondda. sentence remains as fresh and vital as the day it was written: 'The old policy of identity of interest beween employers and ourselves be abolished, and a policy of open hostility be installed."