Thatcher faces summer of discontent THERE IS a change taking place in the political situation in Britain that could point towards the end of the Thatcher years. A new wave of industrial militancy has emerged, which has even caused the British media to talk about a possible "summer of discontent"
At the same time, the County Council' elections on May 4 (the tenth anniversary of Thatcher's rule) resulted not only in the collapse of the centre parties, but in a significant swing to Labour. On the same day, Labour won the parliamentary by-election in the Vale of
Glamorgan — a Tory seat for swing in their favour. ALAN THORNETT ALAN THORNETT B UT THE key developments are on the industrial front. At the time of writing, over one-and-a-half million workers are either involved in strikes, strike decisions or strike ballots across ten industries. Where balloting is completed, in every case there are big majorities for industrial action.
• 10,000 dockers have just voted by 3-1 (with a 90% turnout) for an all-out strike in defence of the National Dock Labour Scheme, which is being abolished by the government (see below). Shop stewards, in defiance of the union leadership, have threatened strike action regardless of the outcome of a court ruling on its legality, which is due to be announced on May 24.
• 18,000 BBC staff have rejected a 7% pay offer, and are conducting a series of one- and two-day strikes in pursuit of a 16% wage claim. The unions are consider-
38 years — with a 12% ing a fresh ballot for all-out action.
• There are two disputes on London Underground. An unofficial movement of drivers is conducting a series of one-day strikes that completely disrupt the capital. They are demanding a £64 a week pay increase [around $105] and £23,000 [$37,700] back pay. At the same time, the main rail union, the NUR, is balloting its 10,000 members on the underground for all-out strike action in opposition to new working conditions being imposed by management. There was an 8-1 majority for strike action, but the strike was constrained by a High Court injunction that the NUR complied with.
• 12,500 London bus drivers are being 1. County Councils are local governments in England and Wales, not including city administrations whose elections take place at a different time.
balloted for a series of one-day strikes after rejecting a 7.1% pay offer. The first of these strikes took place on May 15, coinciding with the third 24-hour strike by tube workers and an overtime ban by rail workers, effectively bringing London's public transport to a halt.
Rail unions balloting for strike action
• The rail unions, NUR and ASLEF, are balloting their 100,000 members on British Rail for some form of action after the imposition of a 7% pay increase and management's attempt to challenge the existing national bargaining agreements. Already, train crews on the Southern Region (which includes an important chunk of London's commuter network) are banning overtime unofficially, seriously disrupting services.
• 70,000 power station workers have voted overwhelmingly for industrial action in the power stations and by a majority of 3-2 for a second preference of all-out strike action in pursuit of a 7% wage claim. Management say that even an overtime ban would bring power cuts, and have now made a new offer to try to avoid a strike.
• 800,000 engineering workers, covering 5,000 manufacturing companies, are being balloted for a series of all-out strikes in selected industries in pursuit of a claim for a 35-hour week and an increase in minimum rates.
• Firefighters are expected to ballot for strike action in opposition to the ending of national bargaining arrangements by the management. NAIGo, is considering as trike bral move. ' union pay.
• The Union of Communication Workers is considering a strike ballot of 80,000 postal workers after the breakdown of wage negotiations.
• University lecturers are continuing a long-running pay dispute.
Not all these ballots will result in strike action. Indeed, many of them face major problems in the courts and may never get off the ground. But they do show a profound change in the mood of the working class, which is the pressure behind all of them. They also demonstrate once again that the working class in Britain is alive and well and that the Tories had written them off too soon. Despite all the setbacks, they have not suffered a defeat capable of taking away their ability to struggle.
Most of these disputes are a direct response to the rate of inflation, officially given as 7.6% but clearly much higher — 19% for mortgage-holders, for example. The fact is that the Thatcher project is now faltering on the economic front, seen by many as her greatest strength.
At the beginning of their first term in office, from 1979-81, the Tories crashed the economy and created the deepest recession ever seen in Britain in order to create
BRITAIN mass unemployment and take on the trade unions. The resulting decline in living standards, for big sections of the population, kept the inflation rate down and strengthened the employers, who used their advantage to rationalize working conditions and increase productivity.
After a series of victories over sections of the working class who, apart from the miners, were betrayed by their leaders, the Tories embarked on huge social changes: the ending of the post-war consensus of the welfare state and the mixed economy, and the global restructuring of the labour market to the employers' advantage through the introduction of extensive anti-union laws.
It was the 1987 stock market crash that began to unravel all this. The Tories responded to the crash with a consumer-led boom, which led to rising inflation, high interest rates and a balance of trade crisis. Now it is clear that Britain's position in relation to the rest of the world has not fundamentally changed. Levels of investment have remained poor, and the growth rate of the economy remains at an average of around 2%.
Tories' losing popularity over NHS attacks
There is also hostility to aspects of the Tory project that is giving people the confidence to fight back. In the Vale of Glamorgan by-election, eight out of ten people who switched their votes from Tory to Labour said it was because of the attacks on the National Health Service (NHS).2 In addition, measures like the poll tax and water privatization are extremely unpopular, and the Tories are increasingly being blamed for the lack of investment and rundown of the economy's infrastructure, which is expressing itself in disasters on the railways and elsewhere.
It is from this weak economic position that Britain faces the single European market in 1992. This means new attacks on the working class to attempt to prepare British capitalism to meet the challenge. In fact, preparation for 1992 is behind the Tories' dramatic move to abolish the National Dock Labour Scheme and risk a national dock strike.
The Scheme was a major gain of the trade-union movement in Britain. It was established by a Labour government in 1947, and defended by mass struggle a number of times since then. After the betrayal of a national strike in 1972, the docks industry was split down the middle by an expansion of unregistered ports. Today, the Scheme only covers half the industry (46 ports), but they are still an effective force, handling 75% of the cargo moving in and out of the country.
The Scheme provides an individual guarantee of jobs for dockers — "jobs for life" as they became known — and working conditions second-to-none among bluecollar workers. It also provides for a degree of workers' control in the ports, since the unions comprise 50% of the committees that run the Scheme. So it is not surprising that dockers are keen to defend the Scheme. A strike could become the central focus of an industrial fightback against the Tories.
The docks ballot resulted in an overwhelming vote for strike action. But that does not resolve the problems that will immediately face the strike.
Despite the rise in struggle that is taking place, "new realism" continues to dominate both the trade-union and Labour Party leaderships. Even while this industrial situation has been developing, Labour leader Neil Kinnock has been busy ramming through his "policy review", which drops unilateral nuclear disarmament, embraces "market forces", and openly argues that the job of the Party is to organize capitalism better than the Tories. And the trade-union leaders are just as determined to avoid confrontation with either the employers, the government or the courts.
The most serious issue facing the trade-union movement in Britain today is the Tory anti-union laws and the way they are being used by the courts. These laws, which enforce ballots before strikes, outlaw solidarity action and actions deemed by the courts to be of a "political" nature, are framed in such a way as to give wide powers of interpretation to the judges. This has now reached the stage where the right to strike itself has been seriously undermined.
It is here that the new realists have done their greatest damage. They are responsible for the present situation — their policy of complying with the law has been a disaster. For several years, each time they have complied with court decisions the judges have been encouraged to go a step further. Now, as this strike wave gets underway, they still refuse to confront even the most outrageous decisions of the courts.
Anti-union laws outlaw effective strike action
In the case of the dockers, the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) leadership, which is regarded as being on the left of the trade-union movement, said on the very day that the government announced the abolition of the Dock Labour Scheme, that any response by the dockers would have to be within the law. They even preempted the courts by assuming that any strike against the Scheme's abolition would be illegal if it was oppos2. The Tories' recent proposals to introduce wholesale "free-market" mechanisms into the NHS have met with massive opposition from health workers (including doctors and consultants) and the public at large. 3. A new per capita local taxation system, due to replace the present system of property tax. On the fight against the poll tax in Scotland, where it is being 7 implemented first, see /V 152, November 28, 1988.
BRITAIN • ITALY ing a decision of parliament! Such a thing has not been tested in the courts, and it would be a huge escalation of the use of the law if it went that way since it would outlaw most strikes in the public sector -they would be against the government and therefore "political". The TGWU leaders have tried to avoid this by arguing that the strike is really against the employers.
In addition, TGWU officials are telling dockers that if the strike is legal on that count, they must not break the law in any other way. There must be no solidarity action from non-Scheme ports, and they must not attempt to prevent scab cargo being diverted through non-Scheme ports, since this would constitute illegal secondary action. Growth in unofficial action and self-organization
On the London Underground things are no better. The National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) - another union regarded as being on the left — immediately complied with a High Court ruling and called off an all-out strike due to start on Monday, May 8. This was another ruling that broke new legal ground, in that the ballot paper itself had been illegal because it was too detailed and therefore confusing! The battle for the strike is now in the courts.
Previous Tory anti-union laws, in the early 1970s, were defeated because they were massively defied and discredited. There is no alternative to such action now. Those responsible for weakening the movement argue that it is now too weak to take on the government or the courts. But there are still 8,500,000 workers affiliated to the single national union federation, the TUC, despite an overall decline in union membership. Although a lot of damage has been done to shop-floor organizations, it is absurd to argue that a trade-union movement with eight-and-a-half million members does not have the power to take on the courts.
If mass struggles emerge out of the present situation, however, there will be the bases to confront the new realists in both the unions and the Labour Party. Workers are increasingly turning to unofficial action and self-organization to defend their interests, but ultimately these problems will have to be tackled at the level of the leaderships as well. * 8 International Viewpoint #164 • May 29, 1989