04.12.2014

Intensification or resolution?

As the miner's strike approached a crossroads, president of Kent NUM Malcolm Pitt spoke to The Leninist

Malcolm Pitt (1942-2010) was a contradictory figure in some ways. He was author of The world on our backs, a book that not simply tells the story of the Kent miners in the 1972 strike, but also paints an evocative picture of the rich, broader culture of these communities. As this November 1984 interview in The Leninist (forerunner of the Weekly Worker) shows, he was a thoughtful and principled class fighter who led his union from the front. He actually went to prison for a time after being arrested on a picket line.

He combined this world view with his Catholic faith - an aspect of his belief system that was to come more to the fore after the defeat of the strike. He subsequently spent a year studying the life of St Francis and later worked for the Catholic bishops conference of England and Wales. He was appointed to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and met Pope John Paul II several times.

In that sense, he was living vindication of our organisation’s position on religion and the class struggle.¹ As an intransigent leader of the most militant section of the National Union of Mineworkers, he combined an 11-year membership of Communist Party - serving on the Kent district committee and national executive committee of the CPGB - with a Catholic faith that advocates loving loving one’s enemies and turning the other cheek. An internal contradiction that - at least during the tumultuous events of 1984-85 - he undoubtedly resolved positively.

As this interview reveals, after six months the strike was approaching a crossroads.

Mark Fischer

mark.fischer@weeklyworker.co.uk

Pitt on the strike, Polish coal and Ireland

Malcolm Pitt is president of Kent Area NUM. The comrade has been outspoken in his condemnations of British imperialism’s actions in the Six Counties and has quite correctly drawn the links between the miners’ struggle and the Irish people

In our paper we have drawn parallels between this strike and that of 1926, in that we consider both to be major strategic confronta­tions for the entire working class. What do you think are the key questions for today?

The first question which obviously comes to mind is that in this particular dispute it was the government that picked the time and picked the place. Cer­tainly over the last six years it has been making quite detailed preparations to break the miners, as part of an overall political strategy of breaking the trade union movement.

I think we can even go further and say that since 1972 and 1974 ruling circles in Britain have pinpoin­ted the National Union of Mineworkers as the heart of the trade union organi­sation in Britain and therefore it was necessary to take it out of operation either by buying the miners out or else by confrontation. It’s fairly clear that the Thatcher government decided that this would be by confrontation. One thing it has brought up very clearly is that the trade union movement still res­ponds to actions by government or by the employing class rather than initiating or planning action.

I think this is also true internatio­nally. It is quite clear now that, with the development of the multi- and transnationals, no trade union centre is in the position to counter their strate­gies effectively without very close links with the rest of the international trade union movement. So one thing the strike has definitely raised is the whole question of the organisation of the trade union movement nationally, internationally and also the need to develop broad strategies capable of uniting trade union centres in common action.

One of the healthiest aspects of the strike for us has been the semi-spontaneous development of miners’ support committees through­out the country. We have argued for the transformation of these committees into broad, fighting working class organisations which encompass industrial militants and all those committed to giving total physical support to the miners. What is your view of the role of these committees?

Well, I think that it’s fairly obvious that the sort of support committees which would come into existence, particularly if they were clearly based on the trade union move­ment, would take on more and more the character of councils of action. I said this at the beginning of the strike. I don’t like to make artificial comparis­ons or attempts to project onto organi­sations functions and powers which they do not have as a result of the deve­loping struggle, but it’s fairly obvious that the coming together of trade union organisations and also political parties creates organisations which have a role far beyond merely collecting food or putting out leaflets on behalf of the miners.

And, again, it’s very clear that, once you get organisations of that nature coming together, then the issues cease to be just the issues of one particular trade union, one particular industrial dis­pute: they become clearly political issues discussing a political strat­egy. So, yes, I would see that the miners’ support groups, or any organisation that has been built up because of strug­gle, should as far as possible be main­tained and also developed as regular facets of working class organisation - without again trying to artificially extend their life beyond the strike.

I think one of the things which raises itself is the whole role of trades councils, which has been demoted in terms of trade union priorities. I think it’s about time the whole issue of trades council representation at congress should be fought on - not just in terms of being a discussion shop for political activists in the trade union movement, but as being real fighting organisations of the trade union movement in local areas. That perspective should be developed and the miners’ support groups given that sort of lead.

Many people may have been quite surprised at some of your state­ments on Ireland and by the fact that parallels have been drawn by several people between the actions of the state in the occupied Six Counties and the battle against the miners. What in your view are the lessons of Ireland for the miners?

I’ve made the point since the beginning of the strike, and Imade it earlier than this interview, that the miners’ strike is quite obviously a symptom of an economic crisis which is affecting British capitalism. It’s there­fore very much part of the political response of the ruling class to that cri­sis, but, because of the development of imperialism over the last 50 years or so, you have seen the contradictions developing on an international scale.

So with the whole question of Ireland, I’ve made the point that first of all we’ve got to recognise that we are engaged in a battle against the same enemy, but on a different front. The enemy is imperialism and it’s not just a matter of emotional solidarity with the ‘poor oppressed Irish people’. It’s a basic fact of life that workers through­out the world - either engaged in natio­nal liberation struggles or struggles against employers in advanced capital­ist countries - are quite concretely fighting against the same enemy, even sometimes against the same company.

But also there has been the whole experience of the strike. Fifteen years ago people on the left were saying that the tactics which were being developed in Northern Ireland were merely a parade ground for what was going to be developed in our own country, on the mainland, and I would think that the majority of trade unionists turned their back on that and said it wouldn’t hap­pen. I think there’s been an entire negli­gence of the whole Irish question over the last few years, to the extent that people have got to look through the agendas of Trades Union Congress and Labour Party con­ferences and say, ‘Where is Ireland?’

The experience of Brixton and Toxteth events² again brought it home that the police had been developing a whole series of tac­tics, which threatened democratic and trade union rights in Britain and was therefore an issue which had to be taken up by the trade union movement. That was reinforced after the War­rington National Graphical Association dispute, when we saw those tactics being used against trade unionists.³ Now the full appa­ratus of the police has been revealed and miners have suffered at first hand what various minorities in this country - and, of course, the Irish people - have suf­fered for a very long time and it has certainly raised their consciousness. People are now definitely aware of the nature of the state. You’d have a hell of a job in one of our villages persuading the average miner that the police are neutral and in some way there to ‘pro­tect’ equally the scab and the striker, or the National Coal Board and the striker. That illusion has been destroyed.

People have begun to look at the issue of police violence and state vio­lence and we’ve had people in Yorkshire, for example, who have gone over to Belfast and they are beginning to link up the two issues and say, ‘Well, this is exactly what we are suffering’. They can recognise the common enemy. So there is a whole new consciousness developing and I think that will be extended. In our own coalfield there are now links developing between the Southall people, the black community and our people. Again the issue of police violence has come up and the black comrades are saying quite clearly, ‘We’ve been up against this for some time and now you’re learning’, and our people are saying, ‘Yes, we recognise what you are up against’. This is going to be the beginning of a relationship which is going to carry on.

So there’s a definite lifting of cons­ciousness because of what has hap­pened with the police. But I think obviously with the issue of Ireland itself, ever since the days of Connolly, there’s been the supposed recognition in socialist circles of the struggle for national liberation in Ireland and the struggle for socialism in this country. I believe that what is happening in the miners’ strike is just bringing it home more forcefully and therefore I think we’ve got an opportunity to really develop a discussion about our attitude as the British labour and trade union movement towards the problems of the Irish people.

The high level of invol­vement of women in this strike is one of the healthiest developments in the arena of women’s struggle for a very long time. In our paper we have looked at the Women Against Pit Closures⁴ movement as the embryo of a working class women’s movement. What is your view of this?

I’ve made the state­ment previously that one thing we can’t argue with is that the women have very much become the backbone of the strike. Women are now making the headway in many ways in regard to propaganda, arguing the case, and, of course, in terms of organising their own intervention with regard to pickets and demonstrations. The important thing about it is not just in terms of the miners’ strike. It’s been a tre­mendous plus in regards to organisa­tion, because that weakness that capitalism used against strikers, wher­eby they could put pressure on a family, has been not just removed, but turned the opposite way. Women are now saying to their husbands, ‘If you ever thought of going back I’d divorce you’. That is a strength, but in the wider sense there has been a whole series of discussions about feminism, about the role of women. Socialists have always recognised the revolutionary potential of women. We’ve seen it in every big social upheaval - in Petrograd, in the Paris Commune, all the way through history.

But the arguments over the last few years have tended to be somewhat rarefied and often really a fringe activity. I think what is impor­tant now is that you are beginning to see a mass working class women’s movement and it’s very clearly linked to the whole question of class struggle. It’s class struggle which has released it; it is in fact manifesting itself in working class action. And so I think this is far more important than some of the more academic discussions which have been carried on in the past.

And it’s something, again, which has frightened the ruling class. They have always underestimated the sort of forces that come into the field. I’m quite convinced that at the begin­ning of the strike they believed they could provoke a strike in York­shire, there would be a brief flurry through the rest of the coalfields and then it would crumble and turn in on itself. What’s happened, of course, is that the strike has become more and more solid, despite a handful of scabs - who I think are a symptom of the strength of the strike, if you just get handfuls responding after seven months of what the NCB has been put­ting out. But, more than that, you’ve seen this tremendous movement by not just the women, but also by the youth. I think that’s an important development, because it’s not so long ago that The Guardian produced articles ‘proving’ beyond any shadow of a doubt that young miners were middle class, that they were all bought off by the system, integrated into the system and that they would never identify with the trade union movement. They would never take up the cudgels in regard to the fight for jobs and a whole period of trade union history was fin­ished.

Also there have been sections within the labour movement that have taken similar lines - ‘The forward march of labour halted’⁵ and all this sort of nonsense - that the working class has lost its revolutionary potential and we’ve got to look under every floor­board for some new social force to pick it up. Well, I think the response of the young miners has proved that position totally wrong. You’ve seen them using all the various cultural things - the songs and the organisations that have developed out of football crowds and such - these are now being used in action on the picket lines. That is also something which is of con­cern to ruling class circles, because they have now seen a whole section of work­ing class youth and working class women radicalised on a massive scale, and that won’t finish with the strike, as in 1972 and 74. That’s going to continue in a whole new series of developments in the Labour Party, and in trade unions and the labour movement generally.

Have you seen a change in men’s attitudes to women during the strike?

Yes, there’s nodoubt, about it. I don’t want to disparage the work of the feminist groups, by the way, because I think they’ve certainly broken the ground in many ways in terms of ideas, although I disagree with some of the more bizarre manifesta­tions of it. Certainly there has been a reaction to a certain extent by men against what was taking place. There was an initial period of adjustment, but, talking around and listening to women describe what’s happening, it’s been accepted, I think, by the majority of miners - certainly the majority I’ve been in contact with anyway - that the women are playing an important role. And it has also been accepted that the fact that they are playing that role is going to have some effect on their own domestic arrangements and how things are organised.

Given that everyone sees mining communities as in some ways very male-chauvinist, I think the res­ponse of the men has been extremely positive. People are now in a position to start making remarks about women standing for branch committees and so on, which is very good.

In our previous issue we reported the meeting held for Inter­national Miners’ Day at the beginning of September between, amongst others, representatives of Kent NUM and the Polish mineworkers union. Despite assurances from the Polish representa­tives at this gathering Poland has still not blocked coal exports to Britain dur­ing this strike. What is your attitude to the Polish authorities’ actions?⁶

The question of Pol­ish coal has obviously been of great concern to us. Our national union has had quite close links with the Polish miners’ unions. It has taken a sympathetic position in regard to the prob­lems of the Polish people in the last period, to the extent of Arthur Scargill becom­ing quite a centre of controversy on the whole issue and we still recognise the very serious problems that the Polish people are confronted with. But we have felt that such a long dispute must merit a hearing by the Polish govern­ment and also the Polish trade unions, and a response in line with their inter­national working class duty.

There has been a whole series of approaches, of which Inter­national Miners’ Day was just one, where different levels and different sections of the movement have approa­ched the Poles in regard to getting the movement of coal stopped. For instance, the Australian miners’ union have made representations and expres­sed their dissatisfaction with the sort of answers they’ve been given in regard to the maintenance of contracts. So we have been extremely concerned about it, we’ve made representations. We recognise the problems that the Polish people are confronted with, but we are still making the very basic demand on every section of the international working class movement: that we want them to block the movement of all coal and allied fuel stock coming to Great Britain. That is the position which we hope very soon the Polish government and Polish trade unions will respond to.

Do you think that the actions of the Polish authorities may have improved the image of Solidarność in the eyes of many miners?

I don’t know - that’smore difficult to judge. There have been statements - for example, in Labour Briefing - and letters allegedly from Solidarność unions pledging support to the British miners, but on the other hand we have seen Lech Wałęsa⁷ saying that Margaret Thatcher is doing ‘a good job’ and the miners are wrong. I think that the position which the NUM took was a correct one. I think it recog­nised the fact that in Poland there were serious grounds for discontent and opposition and that was expressed in the formation of Solidarność.

At the same time it recognised that the political direction taken by that organisation was basically anti-socialist. I think that position has been confirmed. I think that in no way excuses, however, the actions of the Polish government or Polish trade unions in not responding properly to the basic call for international solidarity. Des­pite all their problems, we expect them to honour all their international obligations.

How do you see the strike developing? How are you going to win?

It has been proved over the last seven or eight months that predictions on the deve­lopment of the strike have tended to be a waste of time. All you can say is that there are certain direc­tions the strike could take and predictions have always been somewhat rash. The general perspective that the NUM has to have, I believe, is that we have got to escalate the level of the dis­pute, to the extent the government resists coming to a sensible resolution of the dispute.

In the six months prior to the TUC, I think our attitude was correct, in that there were certain problems in develop­ing solidarity because of the situation we had in Nottinghamshire and other Midlands coalfields, which again would be rash for us to ignore - it’s difficult to call on a railwayman to put his job on the line, when in fact he can say there are Nottinghamshire miners working. But, on the other hand, over that period, because of the campaign which the NUM waged, by sending people out to speak and really develop­ing the links between our union and other unions, people have recog­nised in the trade union movement that this dispute is not just an issue for the miners, it’s not just an industrial dis­pute: it’s really a central issue in regard to the overall government strategy. As Bill Sirs⁸ said at the beginning of the dispute, if the brigade of guards goes down, what chance have the light infantry got?

I think that reflects a very strong feeling among activists within the trade union movement. You can see that level of support developing, despite the problems in the steelworks, which I lay firmly at the door of the leadership of the Iron and Steel Trade Confederation - the ISTC has consistently betrayed their members over several years. Despite all of those problems, there has been a general intensification of support in terms of food, money and also by the taking of industrial action.

….

We have got to look at whatthe ruling class is doing. There is very clear evidence that there are very serious splits and divisions on their side. I think the fact that we’ve seen a series of negotiations take place is not merely some sort of manoeuvre - you know: an attempt to raise people’s hopes and then dash them. There are sections within the govern­ment who are seriously concerned at the length of the strike, the radicalisa­tion which has taken place because of it and the fact that other trade unions now have been involved in vic­tories because of the miners’ strike - the National Union of Railwaymen and Aslef, having taken a fairly nasty knock in the past, have now managed to restore a certain confi­dence. They have had quite a significant victory because of the miners’ strike - and everyone knows it’s because of the miners’ strike. They managed to get a pay award without any strings attached.

So that process is something which concerns them. The fact that the church is now becoming quite openly involved with warning voices about the conti­nuation of the strike, the fact that Pym⁹ has now come out with a statement about the “human cost” of the strike - all those are very clear indications that the ruling class is now very uncertain which way to go. I believe that we could possibly see after the Tory conference - after the jamboree, when obviously Margaret will not wish to be seen hand­ing concessions out - serious negotiations take place.

On the other hand, I think we have got to be aware of the fact that the issue is not decided on their side and it is quite pos­sible we could see an escalation of the dispute, with the ‘hawks’ thinking in terms of further action against trade union funds. I would be surprised if they put Arthur Scargill in prison, but I can certainly see the likeli­hood of action against our funds, the possibility of the use of troops in regard to the movement of coal - that is a real possibility. We have got to be careful about the sort of initiatives that are being put about by Nacods¹⁰ - but the type of sugges­tions which are being put forward could begin a process of a series of com­promises.

There are indications that sections of the ruling class are now talking in terms of a settlement, with all the political repercussions that could have with regard to a change in the leadership of the government. On the other hand, I think we have got to be careful not to fall for some ‘Oh well, it’s now all coming to an end then, lads’ sort of line. We’ve also got to be aware that the whole direction could quite easily change in regard to an intensification of the dispute. And at some point the issue of a general strike will be raised concretely by the course of the struggle.

I think it’s quite obvious that if the divisions in the ruling class circles are resolved in regard to a further intensifi­cation of the dispute, then obviously that can only be met by further action by the trade union movement and the question of the general strike becomes part and parcel of that development. That, of course, opens up a whole new dimension in regard to the advance of the class, which is possibly one of the reasons why the ruling class will avoid that sort of confrontation in this partic­ular period.

Notes

1. See www.cpgb.org.uk/home/party-news/religous-communists.

2. The scene of riots in 1981.

3. The reference is to the dispute between the print union, the National Graphical Association, and the noxious reactionary, Eddie Shah, who utilised Thatcher’s anti-trade union laws and selective sacking of union activists in a dispute in 1983. The NGA responded with mass picketing of the Warrington Messenger and on November 30, 4,000 trade unionists confronted riot-trained police from five surrounding areas. The NGA speaker van was attacked and overturned by police, while squads in full riot gear repeatedly charged the pickets.

4. See ‘Awakened to the struggle’ Weekly Worker July 17 2014.

5. The reference is to the September 1978 Marxism Today articleby Eric Hobsbawm, a leading light of the rightwing Eurocommunist trend of the CPGB. ‘The forward march of labour halted?’ argued that the working class was losing its pivotal role in society - as reflected in the decline of electoral support for its traditional parties - and that progressive politics must develop a ‘broader’ base of support.

6. See ‘The question of Polish coal’ Weekly Worker June 26 2014.

7. The pro-capitalist leader of the Polish organisation, Solidarność, which was first set up in opposition to the officially recognised trade unions.

8. Bill Sirs (born 1920) was the general secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation who earned widespread contempt in the workers’ movement for his role in the strike. Despite the fact that miners had delivered solidarity to the steelworkers during the latter’s 13-week strike in 1980, Sirs would not reciprocate. There was to be no solidarity with the miners from the official structures of the ISTC. In contrast, there was clearly a different mood amongst the rank and file. While their leadership scabbed, steelworkers In Llanwern, south Wales were collecting £2,000 a week for the miners.

9. Francis Pym was a Tory cabinet minister at various times in the 1970s and 80s.

10. The National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers (Nacods) represents colliery deputies and under-officials in the coal industry.