The 9-month fight they couldn't kill!
Socialist Viewpoint1980sScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
The 9-month fight they couldn't kill!
The politics of the
MINERS' STRIKE a By BILL PETERS
C
COUNCIL i
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 Box
3956. London WCIN 3XX.
was no real debate about the News International dispute at the TUC. Everything was geared to play it down.
Like the 1984 TUC conterence which was debating support for the miners, a resolution was put get maximum backing but had no teeth to it and called
TUC affiliates to do nothing.
The state of the dispute was summed up when Michael Hicks, leading member of the Communist Campaign Group out of the conference with his ever present megaphone - which he needs like Linus blanket needs his security the
TUC had just given announced fantastic backing to the printers.
There were cheers and clapping. In the crowd was a print worker who has been fighting since the beginning for Fleet
Street to come out, for effective picketing, and against the tactics of Dean - which
Hicks and the CCG promote, He just stood there head down, arms folded and shook his head.
He knew that the TUC vote featured in the media. Scenes from
Wapping or Kinning Park appear on the television in the way miners strike the papers have a keeping it quiet
Murdoch win... they will then be in a strong position to and conditions terms workers.
The printers, now out for nine months, win this dispute. They lack the rank and file leadership up force the arguments into Fleet Street.
The way to win is clear... Fleet Street
Sloganising out.
Giving the support, and political, to the printworkers who are arguing for it has proved harder.
All SOGAT, NGA and NUJ members who
International titles must be picketed.
And a strategy must be drawn up tor mass picketing the other papers in order to stop them publishing.
The endless sectarianism apathy of the left has meant that the strongest of the printers have been left with little support. That has to change now.
Support groups revitalised to mobilising the labour movement in their areas to get down to the pickets absolutely nothing and far from backing the printers the
Dubbins and Willis want to wash their hands of this dispute, negotiate it away.
and SOGAT has been crucial from the beginning.
justifiably) hated by many of the print a woman leading a very she is dominated union the slurs and criticisms of her politics degenerate into attacks on her because she is a woman ( and by implication strike). Her role from the start has been to came negotiate.
to try thoughts tactics and strengths of the miners might and materialise and she has done everything possible to stop that.
has
She attempts by other sections to get involved the picketing in phoned ensure that no official NUM presence has been on the Wedensday and Saturday pickets on a regular basis.
Dubbins the on rapturous applause and standing ovations ment
Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 p4 rarely and have
The did.
other not the vested interest in and in seeing similar impose their on are largely determined to not a and preaches till now to
Nine about it is easy.
both practical
News handing strike action.
themselves or total was need to be take a lead in trade union
TUC, Kinnock, Dean, officers'
The role of the leadership of the NGA him.
Brenda Dean is clearly (and
She is the villain of the piece. Because male clearly not up to leading a terrified
Her most were that a strike with similar that not even deliberately defused any personally and has up NUM leadership figures to other hand gets
TGWU and physically support the printers. They should set up public meetings the printers who are arguing for Fleet Street out speaking,
"Wapping personalities" like Hicks and Freeman who have been at the front of stopping any kind of discussion on spreading the strike.
A support group structure should be reformed bringing support groups in Regions together. But it needs to be a structure which is accountable sectarian group which about the way forward without mobilising for it and which patronises the strikers.
months on strike changes people. The tactics for winning - the boycott, the weekly demos, the flying squads — advanced at the beginning by the bureaucrats, and supported by the Communist Party, have failed. There is nothing wrong with them as tactics for supplementing supporting
But they are not in separately or together capable of winning this dispute. That difficult to argue at the beginning with about 90 per cent of the printers. Nine months in struggle has changed some of them and the arguments need to be put now, put strongly, acted on and maybe the movement will see a victory instead of a defeat. from the printers. The Dean and Dubbins double act are a bit like classic police One is hated and the other gains your confidence under pressure so you trust okay". He has done nothing to further this dispute and has been just as much of a traitor to the worker as Dean but becasuse she is so awful he seems better.
Whatever happens in this dispute the print unions will never be the same again.
The crucial question in the trade union movement which comes out in any strike or struggle is the question of leadership.
Nowhere has it been more apparent than in the printworkers struggle.
It was clear from the beginning of the strike that the SOGAT NGA leaders did not want a fight and would block any attempt to get effective action. The fact all SOGAT and NGA members handling Murdoch titles were called out was a clear indication of the lack of will to spread the strike at all.
The fact that many SOGAT members were working on News International titles and that Fleet Street was working normal:
made it virtually to get any response frc= members driving the sca:
Iwo days after the ballot result: printworkers and supporters march through
REVISER
Wapping. The fight goes on! lorries, though this does not excuse Ron Todd and the TGWU from their role.
Because of the very bureaucratic and federated style of the print chapels and branches there was very little organised unity between the different strikers even within the same union. It was three weeks into the dispute before there was a joint union committee meeting to discuss the dispute. Workers were turning up Saturday night pickets with no plan, no organisation, and no idea achieve the stopping of Wapping.
The Stalinists meanwhile were quickly to ensure that they kept a tight grip through the bureaucracy on the picketing and stewarding of the marches. From day one of this strike the CP and the Communist Campaign Group determined to be in control. They have had a very strong presence in the print unions for many years now. The CP split had just taken place and there was disunity amongst the Stalinists, which left a slight chink in their armour but not enough to allow a strong challenge Stalinist strikers.
Anyone attempting to intervene in the strike who was known to be hostile to the CP was attacked. Support group members from Tower Hamlets were threatened by Communist Campaign Group members both at meetings and on the picket.
Printers who were organisation of the strike and particularly the role of the CCG and CP were physically threatened. Most important of all was the need of the CP to ensure that the question of bringing the rest of the Fleet Street workers out was never raised in chapel meetings or mass meetings and that sacked NI workers who did raise it were discredited and shut up.
They were the first to adopt the pathetic excuse that any Fleet Street strike would increase Murdoch's circulation because
OGAT
82 at winning have workers, not
The leaders, through negotiated conditions working the sacked members foI equipped enough of how
Stalinists to against the stactic of the boycott campaign.
Gradually acting more raising the issue of bringing were
Fleet
The
Street about three to four from dispute to the rest of Fleet Street.
nonleafletting organising critical of the it has begun.
any real their megaphones brunt of the police violence.
main road coaches take
Highway.
Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 p5
THE SUN his would be the only papers on the stands.
A scab
The print chapels, although very good economic demands for their developed many political perspectives within the unions.
FOCs and MOCs, had excellent strength which nOW
WeLC threatened by Murdoch. But the bulk of well were not to argue effectively and against the and more of them, however, were looking for a method of out Fleet
Street, and a small but strong group of printers have been at the fore of trying to gain control of the aspects of the strike from the very powerful and mafia-like CP.
Support
Unit, consisting mainly of printers, was set up riot gear months into dispute. It is an attempt to loosely organise the plant.
those printers who are trying to spread the
The Fleet Street Support Unit is now and lobbying outside the other papers. The Observer with 550 NGA members with redundancy notices was the first target. Organising the left in unions with structures like the print unions is an extremely difficult job — but
The Stalinists on the other hand can be seen at Wapping every Wednesday and doorstep.
Saturday leading the marches away from controntation; announcing on must be that they peaceful and orderly; winding the police the up, and then leaving so others get the
Not long ago one of the marches was proceeding down Commercial Road, the
Now, that the lorries.
and scab once they leave the coach came towards the march. People surrounded it. There were not enough police to control the situation so the CCG stepped in and regrouped the march to go down a side road away from the scabs and the lorries! They were literally doing the police's job for them.
The wonder of Wapping is not that the marches are small now but that people continue to come week after week despite such demoralising tactics.
Living in Tower Hamlets where the plant is situated, the strike is part of everyday life. Every time you go to work you see the scabs and the lorries. The coaches are parked outside the tube, picking up and dropping off their filth.
The roads are blocked off at least twice a week. If you refuse to show identification you don't get home. Police on horses in
Pride through working class housing estates on their way to and from
The plant itself dominates the landscape throughout much of Wapping and every time we look at it the anger rises. The Tower Hamlets Support Group has been active since day one of this dispute.
Is evolution is probably a miniature of what has happened with this dispute throughout the rest of London. meetings were packed with 60 to 70 people from all political groups and trade unions. It was a new and exciting dispute on our
The first meetings got little practical support work organised, as everyone was keen to make a speech about how they saw dispute being and won. The sacked printers who attended (and who are still with us) must have wondered what they had walked into.
nine months later, the support group is a core of 6 to 10 activists and the printers. The polemic has stopped and sc has the influence of almost every other
political group in the borough. general feeling seems dispute is going to be sold out anyway so why bother?
The left press still write about it every week and the papers sellers are picket — but only to sell their papers and not really to give any practical support and solidarity to the sacked workers.
The left generally seems to have learned little from the miners' strike. It cannot get itself together to support workers in struggle unless they are clearly onto a winner.
The most militant and political of the printers know that this stirke will be sold out. But they are still in there fighting, picketing and marching the trade union and labour movement support from the rest of London? Sitting at home or at a newer picket somewhere with more prospect of winning.
Supporting the printers has always been different from supporting London's labour movement thousands of pounds for the People were travelling to and from coal fields.
But this strike is different. A industrial struggle in the London. Supporting it was never about organising collections of money. It was much harder. It is about getting other workers who are low paid and work in terrible conditions to listen to what the well paid printers are saying about losing their jobs. about a continual presence outside the Wapping plant every week for eight months. Not just one romanticised trips to a striking pit village every week.
It is about going down to Wapping and being infuriated by the sexism. racism and anti-gay sentiments Paul Mattson/Frame.
The to be that the the
Street out...
back.
more involved in dispute than others.
recognise us.
- and where its fight which daily gets harder to win.
incredible.
Some of the the miners.
raised clerical workes miners.
the mass heart of been fronts.
food and demonstration in it women on
It was expressed.
two or of with
Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 рб many of the workers you are there to women support and having to confront that all the time. It is about constantly talking with the workers (and not just the rest of the left) about the need to get Fleet a dispute right here on road doorstep and it is being ignored. The
May local elections took a lot of people away to canvass and to work in their boroughs. Many of those never came
Possibly living in Tower Hamlets we get of the the emotions
There are scores of printers who we recognise now and they
We don't know their names or anything about them except that they are there every week on the marches and outside the plant. They are comrades in a
The women in this dispute have been strongest and woman sharpest of the strikers are the women
- in marked contrast to
Brenda Dean. Always at the bottom end in terms of the union's organisation but at the whole top in terms of the strike. They have been excluded from having any organised say as women in this strike by the bureaucrats.
Even the women's demonstrations have
The last women's are fighting
July tightly was controlled by the officials to ensure that against none of the anger of the thousands of
Metropolitan could be effectively right-moving
It was the first demonstration to be held after the high court injunction banning the right of the marchers to proceed down the
Highway. The atmosphere was lively and the ground.
good. Unlike the usual marches, there was again.
loud singing and chanting. Many of us women like her.
were glad that the timing had coincided the women's march, feeling that would be less likely to be controlled than the men.
But as the march got to the plant the leaders of it (Stalinists) halted it 150 yards away from the police and made no attempt to insist on our right to proceed down the
The rally which should have taken place a half mile away started exactly where the police told the chief stewards to stop. Women had been betrayed. To add insult to injury we were supposed to stand there and listen to Brenda Dean tell us all about the "fight for our people"
Marching through the streets of London on a day time march with the printers in July when the sun was shining and the atmosphere was strong and solid was a moving experience.
As we walked past the Times building in Grays Inn Road scabs had put copies of the Times and Sun in the windows. One who has been on every march, always with her placard and a strong voice
- stood there. She was not going to move until the papers were taken down. The march cane together and determined not to move.
The police went into the building and removed the papers from the windows. The woman was jubilant. It was a small victory. A tiny victory. But for people who with everything they have the might of Murdoch, the Police, Thatcher and her thugs, the cusioned union leaders and the
Labour party and TUC, it was a significant victory.
That woman is what struggle is about. She will not give in even if she is beaten to
She will get up and fight The left has a lot to learn from