... This outrageous decision, wholly unsustainable by any rational legal process, could not be explained in any other terms but sheer class prejudice. Paul Foot, Judges’ Ruling
We socialists are always saying that workers change in struggle – but what a joy and a relief it is when we can test the theory in flesh and blood. When I drew back the curtains in Tayport at 6.30 a.m. on Thursday 20 May, the sun streamed in – it was a glorious spring morning. Half an hour later, across the river and through the city of Dundee, the picket line at Timex was revelling in the sunshine. There were 60 to 70 people there, their numbers alone a great shout of mockery at the Tory anti-union laws’ insistence on six pickets. There was laughter and anger in equal measure – laughter among the pickets themselves, anger as the scabs’ lorries came up the hill and turned into the gate. Inside the lorries, and inside the private cars of the supervisors, strike breakers cowered, some of them hiding their face in balaclavas, others making a pathetic show of defiance, especially after they passed the gates. Each vehicle was greeted with a great roar of rage ...
A former president of the engineering union, Hugh Scanlon, once said in a famous TUC speech that every scratch on the trade union movement can lead to gangrene. The sweetheart approach of his successors led to gangrene soon enough. Every concession by the unions was greeted by the employers with cries for more. In Dundee like everywhere else the employers, led on this occasion by the Engineering Employers Federation, started to yearn for the day when they would not have to deal with unions at all. True, the unions were a pushover. But how much more of a pushover would the workers be, how much more clear profit was there to be made, if the unions were utterly broken once and for all? ...
Shortly before Christmas last year, he announced lay-offs. On 5 January the workers all got letters – some ‘thick’ (the sack), others ‘thin’ (not the sack). They refused to accept the letters, and occupied the canteen. Hall promised negotiations. The workers went back to work, effectively accepting the principle of lay-offs, though they balloted (92 per cent) for a strike. From 8 to 29 January they worked rotating shifts to cover for their laid off workmates, and waited for the negotiations which never came. There was no whisper of negotiation from Hall. A plea to go to ACAS was vigorously snubbed. On 29 January, frustrated by the constant prevarication, the workers came out on strike. On 17 February they reported en masse for work. They were told they could return only if they accepted a 10 per cent cut in wages and other humiliations, including pension reductions. When they refused, they were locked out, and have been ever since.
... These men and women are out to win. They deserve to win and they need to win. Above all they can win. The entire resources – human and financial – of the labour movement should be put at their disposal. Paul Foot, article June 1993, ‘Seize the Time’
On the 17th of January 1969 Barbara Castle published her vision for industrial harmony in Britain In Place of Strife. It promised pre-strike ballots and a cooling off period before strikes could start, and that settlement would be imposed on wild-cat strikes. Moderate by today’s standards; most of Wilson’s cabinet saw all of this as extreme and divisive. And the union leaders regarded In Place of Strife as an outright assault. Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain, BBC 2007
But for Heath there was no escape. On the 9th January 1972 the National Union of Mineworkers demanded a pay increase of 45%. When this was rejected they began their first national strike since 1926. The miners began a mass picket of the largest coke distribution depot in the country at Saltley in Birmingham. ibid.
There were a grand total of two working-class MPs in the House of Commons. And Arthur Balfour is said to have remarked once that he had no idea what a Trade Union was. Andrew Marr’s Making of Modern Britain, BBC 2009
Workers marched on Whitehall for better wages and lower prices. Around seventeen million working days were lost to strikes in Britain between 1915 and 1918. There were strikes by miners in south Wales, engineers in Coventry, Sheffield and Manchester, and shipbuilders on Teesside, Tyneside and the Clyde. The First World War: Revolution, Channel 4 2003
There was a lot of camaraderie ... There was a drive forward to have better working conditions, better working rights for the individual. They have done a lot of good for a lot of people. Richard Griffiths, televised interview The British at Work: Them and US 1964-1980, BBC 2011
Meet the British boss class: it was widely accepted that British management in the late sixties and early seventies was not the natural home of fresh dynamic thinking. The British at Work: Them and US 1964-1980, BBC 2011
In the 1970s it was all about the workplace: there were Acts on Health & Safety, Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination. It was nothing less than a workplace revolution. These Acts were of course enthusiastically fought for by many working women, and more often than not by the Unions. ibid.
The idea, of course, is that the workers are less militant than the leaders. All I can tell you, speaking quite frankly, is that this is not my experience, nor is it the experience of any Minister of Labour. Iain Macleod, address Party Conference 1956
It is necessary to be able to withstand all this, to agree to any and every sacrifice, and even – if need be – to resort to all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres and illegal methods – to evasion and subterfuges – in order to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs. Vladimir Lenin
Throwing a bomb is bad,
Dropping a bomb is good;
Terror, no need to add,
Depends on who’s wearing the hood.
Kangaroo courts are wrong,
Specialist courts are right;
Discipline by the strong
Is fair if your collar is white.
Company output ‘soars’
Wages, of course, ‘explode’;
Profits deserve applause,
Pay-claims, the criminal code.
Daily the Church declares
Betting shops are a curse;
Gambling with stocks and shares
Enlarges the national purse.
Workers the absentees,
Businessmen relax,
Different as chalk and cheese;
Social morality
Has a duality –
One for each side of the tracks. Roger Woodis, Ethics for Everyone
The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good. Pope Paul VI
David Stirling returned to his traditional recruiting ground, the clubs of Mayfair. He formed an organisation called Great Britain 75. It was a group of military men, many of them ex-SAS. They planned to take over the running of Britain if the strikes led to the collapse of civil order. Stirling also formed a secret organisation within the trades unions itself; its job was to fight and undermine the leftwing union leaders. Much of the money to fund Stirling’s operations came from his friend at the Clermont Club – James Goldsmith. Like Sterling, Goldsmith believed that politicians no longer had the power to control Britain. Adam Curtis, The Mayfair Set I: Who Pays Wins ***** Channel 4 1999
Mrs Thatcher just couldn’t bear the idea that British decline should be taken for granted. She rejected that with her guts. She thought Britain should be great. Searching around for what was wrong she decided that what the economy needed was a dynamic shake-up, was to make people self-reliant again, and above all to break the power of the trade union movement. Christopher Hitchens
The case against trade unions was overstated, and their role in offering protection against the powerful trends in the labour market was wholly underestimated. Trade unions are needed again. Will Hutton, The State to Come
Unions are killers. Wall Street 1987 starring Michael Douglas & Charlie Sheen & Daryl Hannah & Martin Sheen & Terence Stamp & John C McGinley & James Karen & Hal Holbrook & Sean Young & James Spader et al, director Oliver Stone
I am still around. And as long as I am I have a responsibility to the union membership I represent. ibid. father to son
I’ll let the men decide for themselves. That much I promise you. ibid. father to son
Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day. A J Cook, 1885-1931, speech York 3rd April 1926
We must fight capitalism with all the weapons at our disposal in an organised fashion. This needs power, which only trade unions can create by industrial and political argument. A J Cook
The miners are not broken – they continue to fight; their destiny is in your hands. An embargo on blackleg coal and a levy on all workers must be adopted to save the miners from defeat.
And to the miners who are fighting I say: Every honest worker in the world admires your courage and loyalty in the fight which was forced upon you by the rapacious mine-owners, who have at their service the banks, the press and the resources of the press. A J Cook, foreword to The Miners Struggle and the Big Five Banks