MINERS' STRIKE «By BILL PETERS TU GENERALS
adult rights to speak and vote. • Launch publicity Tory leafletting, meetings, join appropriate unions, and sug gesting items - subsidised trave for the where posals. wait for them to come to the unions! enjoyed rises worth 101.2% over the same period - 26% above inflation - and also benefitted most from the various tax cuts. who have suffered most from the 1979 and the trebling of youth unemployment. This gives the lie high wages "price workers out of a job". ruling that the miners' strike was "unofficial". It provided the op- portunity for ridicule the trade union move- ment and brag about "the rule of law" being upheld NUM's tion does not lie with Scargill. He led the first great challenge to mass New! Perhaps the first attempt at an objective and coherent political analysis of the miners' strike and its lessons for the workers' movement. 44 pages, 80p. including postage, from Socialist Viewpoint. BCM Bx 3956. London WCIN 3XX. Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 pl
at minimal subscriptions with full DEPARTMENT DF campaigns, HEALTH & estate can- vasses, urging the unemployed to SOCIAL SECURITY other facilities, campaigns against harassment, etc., which can be taken up by the labour movement. Urge the unemployed to make their own pro- Go to the unemployed: don't Yet it has been the lowest paid 140% rise in unemployment since once again to the Tory notion that the Judges to But the responsibility for this situa labour never misses Scargill in unions and
unemployment and in the course of it confronted the full force of Tory anti-union legislation. He, like the striking miners themselves, can hold his head high in the knowledge that he fought an uncompromising fight until the end. He and the miners were betrayed by the TUC and let down by those unions best placed to break the isolation the NUM found itself in a few months into the strike.
Failure to back the miners, and win the strike has now linked into a swing to the right within the trade union and
movement. Neil Kinnock a chance to attack increasingly vitriolic terms. Principles are thrown to one side. The employers and the Government offensive against the working class is forgotten. Everything must be subordinated to winning the next election and the road to this is seen as a wholesale shift to the right.
This has led to the increasing isolation of Scargill and the left within the
Othe TUC. The miners demonstrated the fighting ability of the working class and showed that the Tories can be beaten if a fighting unity can be forged within the trade union movement. But the conclusion drawn by the vast majority of trade union leaders is that it was wrong to
have fought; that it proves that their normal policy of compromise was right all along.
Unfortunately this dangerous doctrine is being increasingly accepted on all levels within the movement. The Communist Party for example, is at the centre of it. They talk openly about the "necessity" of isolating the "Bennite left" in the unions and getting together with groupings like the Tribunites and the ordinating Committee.
The far left, by and large, is not accepting the argument, but it is conceding the situation. Workers Party has dropped the victimised miners for other pastures. The Support Groups have declined, although determined groups of activists keep them going in areas, maintaining links with NUM and supporting the victimised miners. This turn away from miners by sections of the far left has made it easier for the right wing to take the initiative.
Nor is this slide to the right excluded from the NUM itself. There, the "success" of the scab UDM is exaggerated by the right wing in order to put pressure on Scargill. In reality the UDM has not broken out of the scab pits and has had a hard job getting a majority in some of those despite an openly biased media and the full support of the manipulating the wage review to give Lynk the advantage.
Despite this there is a widespread movement amongst Area officials and others to undermine Scargill as President. This was reflected in the NEC vote to force him into the Court to purge the "contempt" of the union.
It is important for militant miners to defend Scargill and defend the NUM. Any move against him would make conditions in the industry tar worse, and would prolong the vital task of rebuilding the fighting capacity of the NUM.
Now the TUC General Council is preparing a wholesale collapse in front of the AUEW and the EEPTU over money for strike ballots without even a recall of the Congress. proposal is that the Government send the money direct to the TUC and they
allocate it to the individual unions. Such a collapse, whilst predictable,
would represent a further substantial
shift to the right.
To combat the retreat, the task of the militants in the NUM is to rebuild
the fighting capacity of the union,
which means in the short term the
reorganisation of the
developing a fight around the pits
faced with closure. A number of pits
have taken a decision
closure: Mardy and St John's in South
Wales, Bold in Lancashire and Dar-
field Main and Fryston in Yorkshire.
Most of these have begun various
campaigns against closure — appeal-
ing for public support for their cases.
NCB policy is to offer vast
creases in productivity for keeping
the pit open. They have declared that
Labour Co- The Socialist many the the NCB fering higher productivity. …••••• • • The left and to resist by Striking Miners In- Children
any pit unable to produce coal for ultimately less than 142 per tonne in the short term and £38 in the longer term will either be closed. Some pits fall into this trap by arguing their own potential pro- fitability and in some cases even of- Support Public campaigns are important, and the confidence of the miners can be raised in that way; but no closure ••.. ... More valuable than gold Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p5
of a pit or a factory has ever been by a public prevented campaign but only by direct action: strikes. occupations OI It is self evident that pits faced with closure cannot fight against it alone. be has generated to throughout the coalfield towards a strike decision of an area conference when closure decisions go ahead. A new booklet of poems. prose and drawings by miners' children about the Great Strike of 1984-5 is now available: proceeds from sales go to Women Against Pit Closures. The booklet is €1.50 plus postage from MUTG, 10, West Bank London N16 5DG. (Cheques payable to "More Valuable Than Gold").
Yorkshire