Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No. 42, September 1984
After six months of the miners strike panic is gripping the leaders of the Labour and trade union movement. These staunch upholders of the old order are terrified that their carefully built institutions, based on years of treacherous compromise with the ruling class, could be blown apart if the miners strike continues outside their control. For the irreconcilable divisions in the NUM and mining communities, between the striking miners and the scabs, are now mirrored throughout the labour and trade union movement as workers are necessarily forced to take sides. The threat of public exposure of these divisions at the annual Trades Union Congress and Labour Party conferences in September and October has only increased the determination of the labour movement leaders to bring Arthur Scargill and the striking miners to heel.
From the beginning, in order to defend their strike, the miners have had to go way beyond the legal, constitutional and traditional methods of trade union struggle. Mass picketing, occupations and sit-ins, barricades, bricks and petrol bombs, sabotage and hit squads have been the miners response to the state violence and repression launched against their strike. Inevitably the miners, forced to fight in this way against the British imperialist machinery of terror, are identifying their struggle with that of the oppressed who have already taken on the same enemy. For the first time in decades a section of politically conscious workers are identifying their struggle with the revolutionary struggle of the Irish people for freedom. Little wonder that the same Labour and trade union leaders who have fully backed British terror in Ireland and who have ignored the British state’s brutal and racist attack on black people, should now be determined to get the miners strike under their deadly control.
TUC — THE KISS OF JUDAS
The weeks prior to the TUC conference have been marked by unusually hectic activity from trade union leaders devoted to a single end: that of ensuring that Scargill and the NUM do not make a direct appeal to trade unionists over the heads of their leaders. For such an appeal would expose the deep divisions in the conference. The media has faithfully recorded the anxiety and fears of trade union leaders like Murray, Basnett, Duffy, Chapple and Sirs. Talk of the conference ‘splitting’, of it being ‘hijacked’ by the miners, of ‘chaotic scenes’ and even of ‘mass violence’ from miners inside and outside the conference hall in Brighton, have been used to pressurise the NUM to water down its demands on the TUC. With the prospect of 20,000 miners lobbying the conference Len Murray even took the unprecedented step of meeting with the Chief Constable of Sussex to discuss police tactics — such as whether to use police dogs.
The miners demands were for simple trade union solidarity: a 10p a week levy from all trade unionists, the declaration that no one should cross a miners picket line and a ban on the movement of scab coal. These demands, though simple, pose an obvious threat to the unity of a conference whose leaders and members have shown themselves to be deeply divided over support for the miners cause. The threat of total isolation of the NUM, coming from both ‘left’ and ‘right’ trade union leaders, has led to NUM leaders accepting a compromise series of demands. The 10p levy has been dropped and replaced by ‘a concerted campaign to raise money…’. While trade unionists will be asked not to cross NUM official pickets or use scab coal or fuels, the implementation of this now requires ‘detailed discussions with the General Council and agreement with unions who would be directly concerned’. These concessions to reactionary sections of the trade union movement will not advance the miners position even if they may serve to temporarily paper over the cracks at the conference. On the eve of conference right-wing trade union leaders are already making it clear that they will take their opposition to the deal into the conference hall. The divisions in the trade union movement are all too real and cannot be papered over, as the second dock strike within two months has shown.
The first dock strike called at the beginning of July, after coal had been unloaded for the British Steel Corporation (BSC) at Immingham by non-registered dock labour, soon ended on 23 July after a compromise formula had been agreed and as a result of pressures from dockers in non-registered ports, especially Dover. The second dock strike called after BSC’s decision to unload coal from the Ostia in Hunterston, again using non-registered dock labour, has demonstrated the deep divisions among dockers in the TGWU. While all twelve dock labour scheme ports in Scotland are on strike and most of those in England and Wales, crucial ports like Dover and Felixstowe are working. The voting at Dover was only 6 out of 488 in favour of a strike. And at Felixstowe where the average wage of 1,532 employees last year was £13,507, only 5 out of 900 supported a strike. A scab branch secretary in Great Yarmouth stated a widely held position of those dockers still working.
‘We have helped the miners in the past with money but we draw a line at this. The talk about scab labour is just an excuse. This is a political strike. We shall work and we shall cross picket lines if we have to.’
Despite the fact that a victory for the miners would be an enormous step forward for the whole working class, the steel workers, power workers and many dockers have chosen to put their narrow sectional interests before those of the working class as a whole. Concessions to such reactionary trade unionists will hold back the future development of a real fighting trade union movement.
STATE VIOLENCE VS WORKERS VIOLENCE
With the breakdown of the last round of talks between the NCB and the miners on 17 July, the NCB has devoted its energies to creating a ‘back-to-work’ movement in an effort to break the strike. Enormous police operations have been mounted to get scabs through picket lines. 1,000 police were used to get 2 scabs into Gascoigne Wood, Yorkshire, on 17 August. It took five days for police to get one scab, Paul Wilkinson, through barricades and mass pickets into Easington Colliery, Durham on 24 August, and then only by sneaking him in through a back door. Miners responded by throwing bricks, smashing 71 windows of the Easington NCB offices and overturning cars. Police mount round-the-clock guards on scabs’ homes and protect meetings organised by scab leaders, such as Chris Butcher (alias Silver Birch) whose activities have been magnified out of all proportion by the NCB and media. In reality the back-to-work movement in solid strike areas was, according to the NCB itself, on 20 August only 160 miners out of 110,000 (0.15 per cent). Even this figure is disputed by the NUM who suggest that the NCB is so desperate to make its case that it is ‘counting the pit cat and the fleas’. The NCB has also tried to add to the pressure on striking miners by closing pit faces which they claim are in a dangerous condition and sacking some miners convicted of picketing offences.
Far from undermining the strike, these measures and the police-protected ‘back-to-work’ movement have strengthened the determination of the striking miners. Mass picketing has been stepped up in all areas and miners are finding new forms of resistance to combat the increased violence and intimidation of the police.
Riot police were used for the first time in Nottinghamshire in Warsop on 13 August. Miners and their cars were attacked by police using batons, police cars were driven into miners cars. Brute force was used to drive pickets out of Warsop three hours before the shift even began. On that day alone, in a small area, police turned back 800 cars in Derbyshire and 600 cars with 3,000 pickets in Notts. On 15 August Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, was sealed off by 1,000 police who also closed four miles of the A18. Police have launched violent attacks in the Armthorpe area, Yorkshire. One young miner Adrian Simpson was put in intensive care in Doncaster Hospital as a result of injuries sustained whilst in police custody. His injuries included a broken jaw, lost teeth, injured arm, broken knuckles and injuries to the back of the head. This is in the same area where on 22 August police sealed off the area and halted bus services. Police in riot gear charged through the village chasing pickets. Local women opened doors to let pickets into safety and police broke down doors and dragged pickets out and beat them. An 84 year old woman was injured. The press were refused entry to the area.
The number of arrests is well over 6,000 and is rising rapidly. One miner has already been sentenced to 9 months in gaol. More can be expected as special mobile highly-paid magistrates have been urgently drafted into mining areas. Over 2,000 miners have been injured. It is in response to this level of state violence and police support for the scabs that the striking miners have stepped up their fightback meeting state violence with workers violence.
The most striking aspect has been the development of the surprise raids by hit squads of miners doing extensive damage to NCB property and transport. Attacks have included the following: 29 July — an arson attack on the E&J Meeks Transport depot near Mansfield in which nine vehicles were set alight and six completely destroyed. On 5 August — a raid on a transport depot at South Normanton near Mansfield was claimed by an anonymous caller to Radio Nottingham saying he was from the South Nottinghamshire hit squad. He said the raid was part of a campaign against NCB property and the homes of working miners — especially members of the Notts Working Miners Committee. On 7 August 200 pickets attacked an NCB transport depot and caused £4,000 of damage in 3 minutes, smashing the windows of 15 lorries and a coach. The same night 60 men attacked the Doncaster NCB HQ, 500 men attacked Silverhill Colliery, Notts, damaging 18 working miners’ cars and smashing all office windows. 1,000 men at Harworth pit smashed windows and attacked cars — 59 were arrested and charged with ‘unlawful assembly and threatening behaviour’. Nine police were injured, three seriously. Next day mounted police were used at Harworth and a further 95 were arrested. On 12 August five NCB coaches being fitted with grilles at an engineering works in Notts were totally gutted by fire.
On 15 August Welsh and Notts miners occupied the offices of Price Waterhouse in Birmingham. They are the accountants empowered by the High Court to seize Welsh NUM funds after the NUM had refused to pay a £50,000 fine for contempt of court for picketing scab lorries which were delivering coal to the Port Talbot steel works. More recently South Wales miners have taken direct action to block coal supplies to Welsh steel works. On 30 August they seized a transporter bridge and used it to prevent ships passing up the River Usk, Newport. 80 miners simultaneously occupied a BSC jetty at Port Talbot and climbed onto cranes being used to unload coal. When police surrounded the area the miners pelted them with stones and scaffolding poles. Whilst the ruling class and the media have raised a furore about strikers’ violence they take a different attitude to violence by scabs. On 6 July a scab fired a shot gun out of his house at strikers. The police said this was the right thing to do. Whilst he was not charged, the pickets were.
Scargill has been taunted and beseeched by the media to condemn the miners violence, but time after time he has refused. Calling the pickets ‘magnificent’ and saying he took a ‘class stand’ he said he was not willing, in any circumstances ‘to condemn the brave men and women whose only crime is fighting for the right to work’. He received a standing ovation for this from miners’ wives at a rally on 11 August, So frustrated is MacGregor at Scargill’s principled stand that he suggested on 21 August that Scargill was involved in an ‘orchestrated conspiracy’.
‘If you have people creating riots somebody has got to be behind that. I believe that in due course the justice of this country should take cognisance of what has been going on. I see evidence of an orchestrated conspiracy . . . the authorities should examine what the position of Mr Scargill is in this very highly organised orchestration’.
MacGregor received support from the extreme right-wing trade union leader Frank Chapple for his view that there was a conspiracy to create violence in the miners strike. He stopped short of stating that Scargill should be prosecuted but felt it necessary to state that Scargill was a ‘raging egomaniac’ and a ‘big-headed loud-mouthed bigot’. So much for trade union solidarity.
The attack on workers violence has not been confined to right wing trade union leaders and capitalist hatchet men. Labour Party leader Kinnock was eager to disassociate himself from acts of workers violence, describing them as ‘horrific’ and ‘playing Maggie’s game’. ‘Violence’ he said, ‘is no part of British trade unionism’. This is simply a lie. As an historical fact the most militant period of the British working class movement was the time of the Chartist movement in the 1840s. Workers defended themselves against police violence with staves and firearms, they attacked police stations and burned down the houses of those who administered the Poor Law. Similar working class violence was used to defend trade unionism before the First imperialist war. That Kinnock condemns workers violence is not surprising. He is the leader of a party which has directed state violence against oppressed peoples throughout the world and against black people in Britain.
While Kinnock covers up his attack on workers violence by saying they are playing into the hands of Prime Minister Thatcher, the Socialist Workers Party covers up its attack on miners hit squads by saying ‘such raids can give trade union officials an excuse not to deliver solidarity’ (Socialist Worker 11 August 1984). In a disgusting attack op miners resistance through hit squads to attempts by the police, the NCB and scabs to break the strike, they say:
‘we are … opposed to individuals or groups using violence as a substitute for mass struggle. That’s why we oppose planting bombs, assassinating politicians and criticise some of the miners “hit squads”’ (Socialist Worker 25 August 1984)
Terrified of the revolutionary violence of the oppressed, Socialist Worker goes to absurd lengths to tell us that we should only support violence when large numbers are involved. What an unreal world the writers of Socialist Worker live in. How else do they think that miners, denied the right to picket and travel, placed on curfew, besieged by police, are to fight back? Nor are these actions divorced from the mass struggle as Socialist Worker tries to argue – they obviously complement it.
MINERS RESISTANCE —NEW LESSONS, NEW ALLIES
Three months into the miners strike FRFI argued that whilst miners were drawing comparisons between the police operation against the miners and that against the nationalist minority in the Six Counties of Ireland and against black people in racist South Africa, they had yet:
‘to draw the political conclusion that to defend themselves they must stand in solidarity with these struggles against the British imperialist state’ (FRFI 40)
Only three months later miners and some of their leaders are now arguing exactly this point. Speaking at a demonstration for British withdrawal from Ireland, Malcolm Pitt President of Kent NUM, stated on 18 August:
‘The people of Ireland and the British miners and the British working class are locked in struggle with the same enemy but on different fronts…
And we have to be honest. As a Labour Movement we often turned our backs, but now we are experiencing the same tactics and we have learnt the lesson, we will remember, and we will stand with all oppressed people against this sort of harassment in the future.’
Speaking at an Edinburgh Irish Solidarity Committee meeting protesting against the murder of Sean Downes by the RUC on Bloody Sunday 12 August in Belfast, a Fife miner said of his experience at Orgreave:
‘It is these such forces the Irish people have fought against for fifteen years and now the miners are faced with similar attacks. When this dispute is won the Irish people must not be left to fight alone.’
Inevitably in such a determined and courageous struggle like that of the miners, former friends are exposed as treacherous enemies as divisions in the working class continue to widen. However, this process is a necessary one. It is laying the basis for rebuilding the working class movement as a fighting force. As old alliances are destroyed by the struggle so are new and more reliable ones formed. It is this aspect of the miners strike that paves the way for the future — the recognition that British workers have a common interest in uniting with the oppressed everywhere to destroy the common enemy: British imperialism. Real allies of the miners are to be found among the nationalist people fighting for freedom in Ireland, among the black masses fighting against the British-backed apartheid state in South Africa, and among black people fighting the racist British state here in Britain. These developments show that some British trade unionists are at last breaking with the imperialist traditions that have dominated the British Labour and trade union movement since its foundation.
Victory to the miners!
Olivia Adamson, David Reed, Maxine Williams
Stop Press
The compromise motion drawn up for the TUC Conference on 3 September was passed overwhelmingly. The cracks were temporarily papered over. The heat was temporarily turned down. There were no riots outside the Conference Hall or battles on the Congress floor. Only 4-5,000 gathered outside. Half-an-hour before the debate began new talks between the NCB and NUM were announced. The scabs led by Eric Hammond (EEPTU) made an ineffective appearance, were booed — they continue to scab. The AUEW could now ‘support’ the miners as they have been drawn back into the TUC fold. Meanwhile, the pickets and the arrests go on — 36 on 3 September in Kent alone. The much heralded ‘back-to-work’ movement of the 3 September failed to materialise and miner’s pickets threw petrol bombs at Kiverton Park Colliery in South Yorkshire as masses of police enabled a few scabs to get to work.
