ROITAIN
BRITAIN
The miners' strike enters its final phase The struggle continues The British miners' strike is entering its final phase. After 11 months on national strike against pit closures the possibility of victory has faded. Instead the miners' leaders demand is for an 'honourable settlement'. However, under pressure from the Thatcher government, the coal employers are refusing negotiations. The British prime minister is aiming to crush the National Union of Mineworkers.
A complicated series of moves has begun allegedly designed to promote a negotiated settlement to the dispute. The NUM has made concessions for example agreeing to propose amendments to the National Coal Board's proposed agenda, rather than rejecting it outright, since it contains the principle of the Board's 'right to manage.' The union still got no answer miners are in a majority to break away from the NUM. While it is doubtful that even a majority of the working miners support such break-aways, they pose a grave threat to the integrity of the NUM, since there have been persistent reports that if the NCB can claim a majority of miners back at work, it will simply declare the strike over and start to negotiate with the scabs.
Such a development would repeat the experience of the miners after their defeat in the 1926 strike when the same area of the union, Nottingham, led a break-away to form the so-called 'Spencer' union.
This is clearly an experience which Thatcher would like to repeat. But how has the miners' union come to face such a desperate situation? In October of last year the NUM had just received the support of the TUC and the unconditional solidarity of the Labour Party conference.
Since then there have been sporadic actions, largely inspired by rank and file and Scargill used that to show that negotiating. Steve ROBERTS
The challenge represented by the union was clear enough. Ten years ago the miners had brought down the Conservative government of Edward Heath. From the 1972 and 1974 strikes a new layer of militants emerged, dedicated to using the industrial strength of their union not only to defend their own jobs, but also to bring about more general social change in society. Of these militants Arthur Scargill was the most prominent, winning the post of national president by a 70 per cent majority three years ago.
The announcement of the closure of 20 pits and the loss of 20,000 jobs was the signal for the beginning of national strike action on March 12, 1984. The courage and determination of the miners and their families has made this the longest industrial dispute in Britain, drawing in widespread national and international support.
Today, however, most striking miners are pessimistic that their goal of a total withdrawal of the pit closure plan can be achieved. This assessment is reflected in the NUM leadership's demand for an honourable settlement and for negotiations to begin 'without preconditions.
However, the National Coal Board (the employers in the nationalised industry) are refusing negotiations until the NUM has given a written undertaking that it will respect the NCB's right to close down uneconomic (that is, non-profitable) pits.
The Coal Board are well aware that such an undertaking would amount to a complete surrender by the NUM. The union has opposed such closures on the basis that the profitability of the industry has to be assessed as a whole and that state subsidies should be used to keep such pits open. Such subsidies would be less than the social costs (unemployment International Viewpoint 25 February 1985 the government is not interested in benefits, start-up of replacement industries, etc.) incurred by closure.
If the union concedes the NCB's point, the present closure list could be extended to a further 75 pits with the loss of half the industry's workforce.
But the union is under heavy pressure from the back to work' movement, which has seen its numbers swell to a probable level of 60,000 out of 180,000 miners, back at work. The exact figures are very difficult to calculate since double counting by the NCB is common and miners who have returned to work have since rejoined the strike. Likewise, only in the areas where a majority of miners have gone back to work, like Nottingham and Leicester, are significant quantities of coal being mined.
More worrying though is the growing tendency of the areas in which working workers in solidarity with the miners such as the strike by railwayworkers on January 17, and the 'day of action' on February 11, organised by the local regions of the TUC. (See International Viewpoint, No 68, January 28, 1985.) Equally strong support has come from the rank and file of the Labour Party which has played a leading role in setting up the 400 plus solidarity committees which exist throughout the country. TUC and Labour Party leadership have tried to suffocate the strike
The role of the TUC and Labour Party leadership has been, however, to suffocate the strike: on the one hand providing sufficient financial support for the miners to hold out, but on the other, refusing the industrial action, particularly in the power stations, which could have brought cuts in electricity supply and the
Declaration of the Fourth International on the British miners' strike
Militants of the Fourth International gathered at this Twelfth Congress salute the long and determined struggle of the British miners and the women in the mining communities against the closure of pits and against the attacks on workers' rights led by the Thatcher government.
Every effort is being made by the militants and supporters of the Fourth International and their organisations in over fifty countries to explain the struggle of the
National Union of Mineworkers and their allies to workers and oppressed people throughout the world.
We are proud to identify ourselves in solidarity with your struggle, which we know has inspired millions of working people throughout the world.
We recognise the crucial part played by women in the mining communities, who have provided vital support and inspiration.
Your determination has given new confidence to working people in many countries to continue and step up their own battles against oppression. Your struggle in itself is already a great victory for the oppressed.
We are committed to continue our efforts to mobilise the labour movement in political and material solidarity with you.
Victory to the miners!
Down with the Tory government!
Workers of the world unite!
certain victory of the strike.
The Labour leadership too has played a hypocritical role, "supporting' the miners' demands, but at the same time condemning the methods by which the miners have attempted to make their strike effective through picketing.
The combination of these efforts has meant the virtual isolation of the miners as far as industrial action has been con- as tar as industrial action nas been concerned.
Few miners would blame Scargill for the sorry state that the strike finds itself in today. From the beginning he has warned his rank and file against any reliance on the TUC to win victory, counterposing the necessity for the miners to rely only on their own struggle. This type of class-struggle strategy represents a complete break with the class collaboration practised by British trade union leaders for the last 60 years.
But it has its own weaknesses too. The NUM leadership did not give priority to building the cross-sectoral organisation of the left before and during the strike which could have brought concerted pressure on all the union leaderships to all theounion leaderships to take action in the strike. An all-trade union left conference has been organised by the Broad Left Organising Committee, but it will take place in March, too late to save the strike.
Similarly absent has been any serious challenge to the Labour leaders who both locally and nationally have so shamefully betrayed the strike. This aspect will become more important in the period ahead.
Whatever the result of the strike, struggles still lie ahead. Starting in March, local authorities controlled by the Labour Party and municipal workers will enter into struggle against the government's attacks on local autonomy and finances. Still other battles will erupt as the Thatcher government tries to apply its draconian new trade union laws.
Inevitably, many workers' eyes will turn to the general elections due in 1988 as the only way to remove Thatcher. The question of elections has also been raised in relation to Thatcher's disastrous handling of the economy. This has now led to a dramatic rise in interest rates in an attempt to keep sterling stable in the face of falling North Sea oil revenues. This rise in interest rates threatens to throttle the pitifully weak degree of economic recovery of the British economy.
Under these circumstances the new left wing in the British labour movement, called into being by the miners' strike, can respond by presenting an alternative to the class collaboration of the present leadership of the Labour Party. Such an alternative would support all the present and future struggles against the Thatcher government, reject any alliances with other bourgeois forces and present anticapitalist policies such as those fought for by the miners in the course of their dispute. One result of such a campaign would be the entry of a whole number of new deputies into Parliament including those from the far left of the Party.