Green shoots of militancy
IN 1991-92 strike activity in Britain plummeted to an all time low. In recent months, however, important sectors of the workers movement have begun to break through this powerful mental barrier. Unfortunately, despite the relative weakness of the current Conservative government, the new strike wave has some serious limitations. PHIL HEARSE — London, April 23, 1993
H UNDREDS OF thousands of miners and transport workers staged one-day strikes in Britain on 2 and 16 April. The strikes, co-ordinated between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), were both against planned privatisation and redundancy plans. London bus workers in the Transport and General Workers Union, who are staging their own series of one-day strikes against the planned privatisation and de-regulation of London bus services, joined the 16 April stoppage.
The strike wave has also included a number of bitter local battles, in particular a strike against redundancies at the Timex factory in Dundee (Scotland) and the strike of Asian women from the Burnsalls electroplating plant in Birmingham.
The strikes are part of the growing mood of industrial militancy sparked off by the government's decision last October to close the majority of Britain's remaining coal mines, to sack 30,000 miners and privatise the remaining pits. It was the huge campaign in November which mobilised 80,000 and 200,000 people within a few days, which crystallised the growing mood of anger.
The strikes of miners and railworkers represent something new in the British class struggle; for the first time since the 1984-85 miners' strike, unions are engaging in national strikes over threatened job losses and growing unemployment, rather than over wage settlements. However, it has to be said that this remobilisation is very fragile and could be easily headed-off. This is hardly surprising given the historical low points in strike activity in 1991 and 1992. The underlying reasons for this fragility are the precarious situation of the miners, despite their mass campaigning, and the baleful effects of mass unemployment on workers' willingness to take prolonged strike action; together with the continuing pressure of the anti-union laws.
The miners struggle is at a difficult stage because the government minister responsible for the mine closures, President of the Board of Trade Michael Heseltine, was able in March to come up with a new plan which won over previous dissidents among the Conservative Party's own Members of Parliament (MPs). By reducing the number of pits to be immediately closed to 12, and offering the others a stay of execution, most Conservative MPs were able to accept his compromise — which in reality will result in the closure of all 31 mines within a few years. This meant that the threat of parliamentary defeat on the issue was removed; and without such a threat the miners will either have to resort to the most militant tactics or see the mines start to shut. If the NUM goes down to defeat this will have a negative effect on the prospects for a sustained fightback against the Conservative government.
Because of the requirements of the anti-union laws, the co-ordinated days of strike action involved each union calling the strike on issues strictly relating to their own industries: thus the railworkers struck on the question of compulsory redundancies and the use
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International Viewpoint #245 May 1993 of contract labour on the rail network, both a by-product of planned privatisation. It was the railworkers' strikes which easily had the most public impact and dominated media coverage, relegating the simultaneous miners' strikes to a footnote. When coal stocks are sky high, who notices when the miners stop production for a day? While preparing to conclude the miners struggle with the commencement of pit closures, the government is also behind desperate attempts to find a compromise with the railworkers' union. If both these things happen, the cutting edge of the struggle will be blunted.
Moreover, the response to the government's attempt to impose a 1.5% limit on public sector pay rises, involving five million national and local government workers, has been very muted. Every part of the public sector faces the danger of deepening privatisation and cutbacks, with consequent job losses. Rightwing 'new realist' union leaders can easily play on the members fears of losing their jobs to hold back action on pay. For in 1993 Britain, becoming unemployed, given the low level of unemployment benefit and high personal debts, is a social catastrophe which can easily mean becoming homeless as well. It is mass unemployment above all which has disciplined the British unions.
However, the government will certainly face a challenge this summer from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), historically one of the most leftwing in the country. After the first national firefighters' strike in 1976, which caused government panic, they were
granted a special pay formula which effectively index-linked their pay. Now the government proposes to abolish this formula and this is certain to be bitterly resisted.
At the same time the government will also face a challenge from the major teaching unions, which have decided to boycott work on the planned summer national tests for all 14 year olds in school, in protest at the huge workload the tests impose. Behind this action is also massive opposition to the reactionary educational philosophy implied in the governments' National Curriculum and compulsory testing at ages 7, 11 and 14.
The past period has shown that John Major's government is a much weaker government than that of his predecessor Margaret Thatcher. While she never had a majority of less than 100, Major has a majority of only 20, making him vulnerable to Conservative Party revolts.
However, there are signs of a temporary stabilisation in the crisis which erupted last autumn, when sterling collapsed, the pits revolt started and opposition in the Conservative Party to Maastricht became more strident.
There are signs of a very limited industrial upturn. A weak economic recovery will not solve mass unemployment, but it will strengthen the government's hand with its own supporters in the middle classes as business confidence improves. A series of skillful parliamentary manoeuvres have put the opponents of the Maastricht Treaty on the defensive. It seems certain now that provided Denmark votes 'yes' in the coming referendum, Parliament will ratify the treaty.
If the government does temporarily overcome its current crisis, workers face a major new threat — legislation to effectively ban all strikes among public employees. Detailed preparations for such legislation are being made.
The spectacle of a very weak and divided government still able to get away with major attacks on the working class is entirely due to the continued absolute dominance of the Labour Party rightwing and the new realist' trade union leaders. It is not the strength of the government, but the relationship of forces in the labour movement which prevents Major's government being brushed aside.
This relationship of forces is the product of the last 15 years of struggle, and the huge defeats suffered by the trade unions, in the first place the defeat of the 1984-85 miners' strike. It is inconceivable that such gigantic defeats could be reversed through one wave of strike action, involving at most half a million workers. The road to recovery for the British workers movement will be long and hard; but the first green shoots of recovery are at last visible. *
• SENEGAL