WeeklyWorker

19.03.2015

How could we have won?

Former NUM South Wales area executive member Ian Isaac looks back to the miners’ Great Strike

The 30th anniversary reprints of articles from The Leninist on the 1984-85 miners’ strike provide a service to the movement, reminding us of the importance of the miners’ struggle and the lessons to be remembered three decades on.

What is not so clear is what those lessons are for those who have followed the polemic played out between Dave Douglass and Jack Conrad in the letters pages. Important issues are raised for the trade union and labour movement. The main issues causing such vexatious debate appear to be around what actions could have resulted in victory for the miners - a one-day strike, a general strike or widespread parallel action by other sections of the movement.

Much has been written about the conditions and events that led to the strike. We are reminded of the wages struggles of 1969, 1972 and 1974 and the false starts and dummy runs of the Welsh miners’ actions against pit closures of 1981 (led by Coegnant colliery in my own valley) and 1983 (led by Ty Mawr Lewis Merthyr colliery), resulting in temporary retreats by both the Tory government and the miners’ unions.

We are reminded of the (Nicholas) Ridley plan1, which the Tory leadership adopted as early as 1978. It was aimed at taking on the militancy of the British trade unions and in particular undermining the prospects for a successful miners’ strike against pit closures. It laid down that:

On reflection we miners were starting the strike on the back foot anyway. Not only had the National Coal Board started to prepare for a confrontation when Ian MacGregor was appointed chairman in 1983, but the NCB, in full consultation with prime minister Margaret Thatcher, chose the time by announcing the closure of Corton Wood colliery in March 1984. To rub it in, this was followed within days by the revelation that 24 pits, six of them in Wales, were earmarked for closure.

Miners across the country were acutely aware of the need for a ‘do or die’ struggle to keep the pits open except where there was proven exhaustion. Previously when pits had closed for a variety of reasons there had always been another colliery where miners could transfer without opting for redundancy. But now there was the carrot of increased redundancy pay, as well as a topping up of pensions for those over-50s who were prepared to retire early.

The prospect of transferring to another pit was becoming more difficult. In my area, the Afan Valley, all three deep mines had closed between 1964 and 1970. In the Llynfi Valley, Maesteg, two of the remaining deep mines were shut down between 1979 and 1983, leaving St John’s colliery, where I was lodge secretary, as the last remaining pit with over 1,000 men on its books.

History

How prepared and motivated was the NUM, compared to the state under a Conservative government and a politically orchestrated and nationally coordinated police force and judiciary?

The NUM had been formed in 1945 out of the old Miners’ Federation of Great Britain. Instead of a unified structure, however, its founding fathers continued it as a federation along the lines of the MFGB. The famous Communist Party miners’ leader, Arthur Horner, who had been a founding member of the CPGB in 1920, became the first NUM general secretary. When the NCB was formed in 1947, the flags hoisted at the pitheads proclaimed: “This pit is managed by the NCB on behalf of the people.” The NCB formed area boards to manage this great nationalised industry of over one thousand collieries and the million men that worked in it “on behalf of the people”!

The NUM consisted of area unions, and craftsmen’s sections were also created as areas. The rule book allowed for full-time officers, down to district miners agents and many pit secretaries (by local arrangement). Those carrying out the backroom finance and compensation work were appointed, but the top officials were elected by ballot and then issued with permanent life contracts of employment.

In 1979 the TUC adopted a pay parity policy based on the 1970 Equal Pay Act. Many trade union officers in various industries used it to link full-time officials’ pay with that of their management counterparts and this led to an explosion in pay levels for officials. Of course this ‘sleight of hand’ and ‘smoke and mirror’ pay restructuring took place across the whole of the movement, but many on the Marxist left called for NUM officials to be paid the average pay of a face worker. In 1985 I stood with the backing of my lodge and four others for president of the South Wales area on the slogan, “A miners’ president on a miners’ wage”. The argument still stands that an official is more likely to fight for his members if he is on the same pay and conditions as those he represents.

Within this structure of patronage and privilege the left managed to gain a number of positions in the union. The emergence of Arthur Scargill in late 1981 to become national president resulted from a mighty campaign by the left in the coalfields across Britain. He inherited a national executive committee, including full-time, life-appointed officials, that had a ‘Don’t rock the boat’ attitude. There were constantly very close votes dividing left and right on the NEC.

This situation prevailed right up to the decisive vote at the April 1984 Sheffield special delegate conference. The rule change for 50% plus one to decide the outcome of a strike ballot was passed. But the motion for a national ballot to be held was lost and the composite motion put forward by the Kent area declaring the strike that had already begun an official national action was passed by the area delegations. There were some of us massed outside the Sheffield conference who thought that the moment to further strengthen the strike through engagement with the Nottingham and Leicestershire miners had been lost, but we put it behind us. In the early days of the strike in March we attempted to get into the Notts colliery canteens and pitheads, but were prevented by a heavy police presence.

Notts and the ballot

In late 1983, after we in south Wales had been on strike over the closure of Lewis Merthyr pit, I was part of a delegation of south Wales rank-and-file miners and lodge leaders, who were invited into the Nottingham coalfield with the help of area secretary Henry Richardson and president Ray Chadburn. We toured every colliery, where the reception was friendly and courteous.

In March 1984, following the tragic death of David Jones - hit by a brick on the back of the head as he left the picket line to fetch his car from a secluded car park in Ollerton - the Notts miners remained off work from that day until the announcement of the ballot some five days later. Arthur Scargill and Henry Richardson addressed a mass meeting at midnight held at the gates of Ollerton colliery and declared that all the Notts branches had agreed not to go to work until the area strike ballot result. It was a surreal feeling, as many were considering retaliation for David’s violent death.

In the area ballot only 26% were in favour of a strike, but this was double the vote for action held in the ballot the previous year. Had the Notts miners participated in a further national ballot in April 1984, then I am sure support would have been even higher. I believe that, had a pithead ballot taken place whilst we were on strike in April/May 1984, it would have resulted in an overwhelming national result in favour of strike action over pit closures. In these circumstances the Notts and Leicester miners would have come out on strike, albeit initially with reluctance, with their fellow miners across Britain.

A significant ‘yes’ across the country may not have been sufficient to win the day with every miner and every branch in Notts, as many were under the influence of government agents who had been operating in the Notts coalfield since 1979. But a positive national ballot result, with the participation of Nottingham NUM, would have had a legitimising effect. It would have put pressure on the leadership of the trade unions and the TUC itself to raise the stakes in support of the miners, forcing the government to concede a new colliery review procedure with the active participation and final say of the miners’ unions. Even the resignation of the World War II tank designer, Ian MacGregor, was a possibility!

In 1972 I had been an AUEW shop steward at the Cowley car works when Notts miners picketed the gates of the plant seeking support for their strike for a decent pay increase. I remember talking to the pickets and was struck by a small group at the main gate who said they were Tory voters. Things like that stick in your mind when you are only 21 years of age. How could a miner come out on strike and vote Tory? But they did. And I believe they would have done so again after a national ballot result in 1984 in favour of national strike action.

That was in the early weeks of the strike. Dave Douglass believes that the miners could have won a ballot right up to October 1984 (Letters, February 19). Of course, had that period been one of a series of disputes and parallel action by other groups of workers - coming together in an alliance for decent pay and jobs on the basis of ‘work or full pay’, against the anti-trade union laws and in pursuit of their own grievances, then things might have been different. It would even have had some impact on the willingness of more Notts miners to join the strike action.

But the truth is that the Tory strategy of buying off other sections was successful. Car workers were granted their pay claims, as were fire fighters, council workers and seamen. Why? Because Thatcher want to fight on one front - against the miners and the NUM. The Tories wanted to emasculate the brigade of guards of the British labour and trade union movement.

General strike

In these circumstances how effective would a general strike and the setting up of councils of action have been? In 1926 the nine-day General Strike fizzled out, leaving the miners to struggle on alone, hungry for the basic necessities of life, until driven back to work later that year. The miners should not have been left to fight on their own - that is the lesson of history. The 1926 miners’ strike was a tragedy, but the outcome of the 1984-85 strike was a travesty. The TUC leaders should have been ashamed for not giving it sufficient support.

Of course, in 1984-85 the miners did not starve. Help was at hand everywhere, although in some places more than others. The creation of various types of miners support groups, led mainly by NUM branches themselves and the wives and relatives of miners, were indeed councils of action in embryo. Local Labour Party branches and the various left groups, such as the Communist Party, Militant and the Labour Party Young Socialists that I was aligned with at the time, gave great support, including practical organisation to get miners into the student unions, the council estates and the non-mining areas across the country. But there were very few examples of trades councils opening their arms to miners support groups, let alone combining in councils of action. There was tremendous fundraising in the large cities, but the prospect of converting that support into a movement towards a general strike just did not materialise, even though many called for it.

In July 1984, when the sequestration of NUM bank accounts was attempted, Emlyn Williams declared to demonstrators on the steps of the South Wales NUM HQ in Pontypridd: “If it takes a general strike to stop them taking the funds of the South Wales miners then I will call for it.” My hair stood on end and I thought, here we go! But it did not happen.

The article from The Leninist, ‘From the jaws of defeat’, was right: the miners “must not fight alone”. A “united strike wave ... to be really effective must rise to the level of a general strike”. Miners support committees must be “transformed into council of action-type organisations” ... the committees should consist of recallable delegates from trade union branches, unemployed workers’ groups, trades councils, shop stewards organisations and all working class political organisations”.2

The call was correct. In its wake the movement would have been a head taller. But that call was barely audible except in the coalfields themselves.

30 years on

I have no regrets about striking for a year to try and save miners’ jobs and those for future generations. It was better to have fought and lost than not to have fought at all and we should all applaud the strenuous efforts made over decades by militant miners like Dave Douglass. I do think, however, that none of us has the monopoly of wisdom in providing the answer to the question, ‘How could the miners have won?’ The Weekly Worker has gone some way along the road to providing some of the analysis and some, though not all, of the answers.

The reality is, the miners lost the strike. They continued to fight with every sinew to stop their pits closing. These struggles continued and culminated in the 1993 strikes and days of action by the miners and wider trade union movement over a further 21 pits earmarked for closure.

Attempts to create a single unified union were resisted by the NUM NEC, but we kept on trying to democratise our union. In the 1985 South Wales NUM annual conference I moved on behalf of St John’s lodge a motion calling for the election every five years of national and area officers. The result was two votes short of the two-thirds majority needed. But that year the South Wales delegates to the national conference were instructed to vote in favour anyway. Arthur Scargill stood as president in 1986 - five years after his first elected appointment. It was not the Tories who campaigned for that: it was the militant rank-and-file miners, who knew that a leadership fit for purpose had to be recallable and answerable to them.

Notes

1. The Ridley plan is explained in I Isaac When we were miners Ken Smith Press 2010, p20 (available from ian.isaac@yahoo.co.uk or from Kindle and Amazon as eBook). Ridley listed the unions in order of their susceptibility to strike action and the NUM was actually perceived as a middle-ranking strike threat.

2. Republished in Weekly Worker January 29 2015.