'We're Striking Against Low Pay' |
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| 'We're Striking Against Low Pay' |
"THEY KNOW we don't do it for the money. For years we have been thinking: 'We can't let people down.' Now it's beyond a joke. This strike has been coming for years. |
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Stock market: Make The Bosses Pay! |
SHARE PRICES on the world's stock exchanges have fallen by 25% in just two months. Rich 'global investors', panicked by big companies slashing their profit predictions, are fleeing to the 'safe havens' of bonds and gold. |
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| A Turning Point In The Struggle |
RECENT EVENTS in the trade unions mark a major change in the situation in Britain. The strike of nearly a million council workers on 17 July was an expression of the growing anger of public sector workers. More ... A New Party Is Needed: AS WORKERS are moving into struggle, the union leaders are coming under increasing pressure to review their link with a party that attacks workers through privatisation, low pay and worsening conditions in the workplace. National strike proposed for September should also involve NUT, NATFHE and FBU ... |
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| Mass Action Against Low Pay And Privatisation |
Strike reports: THE COUNCIL workers' strike on 17 July was an
inspiration. It showed the determination to fight low pay by the people
who prop up large parts of the public sector... THE STRIKE in Bristol was
solid... "This Was Just The Beginning" THERE WERE around 50 UNISON and GMB picket lines in Leicestershire. During the week running up to the strike 100 people joined UNISON. Josie Nicholls, Joint Education convenor, personal capacity Warm Welcome On Welsh Picket Lines SOCIALIST PARTY Wales members received a warm welcome on all the picket lines and demos we covered. Striking Success Around The Country - London, Knowsley, Swindon And Sheffield Winning Over Agency Workers: ONE OF the questions facing council workers during the strike was that of agency workers. Up to a million agency and contract workers can be employed at any one time throughout the public sector. Bill Mullins, Socialist Party industrial organiser At Least 80% Out In Coventry: AN ESTIMATED 80% of Coventry's council workers walked out in support of Wednesday's national strike. Linking With The Teachers' Unions: ADDRESSING THE strikers at Walthamstow Town Hall, Linda Taaffe, bringing greetings from the NUT said: " The strikers have shown how essential they are to education. |
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| 1972 - The Summer Of Discontent |
AFTER THE successes of the council workers' and London tubeworkers' strikes, the media compared them to movements in the 1970s particularly the 'winter of discontent', the dirty jobs strike of 1979 against the Labour government. By Roger Thomas |
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| Amicus: Simpson Puts Spoke In Right-Wing Machine |
LEFT-WINGER Derek Simpson has beaten Tony Blair's union poodle Sir Ken Jackson for the leadership of Amicus-AEEU trade union by 406 votes. By Mick Cotter, Amicus-MSF National Craft Committee, London Region MM |
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The Socialist 26 July 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe
'We're Striking Against Low Pay'
The Socialist Party says:
The Socialist 26 July 2002 | Top | Home | News | The Socialist Join the Socialist Party | Donate | Subscribe
Stock market panicMake The Bosses Pay!SHARE PRICES on the world's stock exchanges have fallen by 25% in just two months. Rich 'global investors', panicked by big companies slashing their profit predictions, are fleeing to the 'safe havens' of bonds and gold. But even the system's dodgiest accountants can't pretend that capitalism offers workers a safe haven - let alone a golden one. Faced with the prospect of either a depression or a devastating slump, the bosses want working people to pay with more poverty and unemployment, while they attack services and pensions. JobsWorldCom, the biggest corporate fraud in history, has become the biggest bankruptcy with £30 billion debts. It has 85,000 employees world-wide. The jobs impact of this latest 'economic correction' will be felt for years to come.
Public spendingAll chancellor Gordon Brown's promises of increased public spending could come to nothing if the crisis continues. Economic forecasters Ernst & Young predict that economic growth will go down to 1.7% this year - further stock market falls could hit growth figures even more next year. The bosses want more 'prudence' and more privatisation. Most extra money will go into private sector profits through privatisation schemes.
PensionsEmployers also want their workers to pay for collapsing share prices through their pensions. Pension funds lost out heavily in recent stock market panics. Bosses want workers to pay more while they pay less. Millions face a cut in their retirement income of up to 40%. Already steel workers have threatened industrial action as employers ditch their 'final salary' pension scheme, which offered a fixed proportion of their final salary, for gambling schemes which pay according to how the stock market is performing. The £30 billion 'black hole' in pensions provision is compounded by bosses awarding themselves a pensions 'holiday' by not contributing into their employees' scheme for a year. Workers will suffer lower pensions and/or higher and compulsory contributions to occupational pensions schemes.
Capitalism is a system of exploitation and fraud and financial trickery. Why should workers pay for this crisis? Make the bosses and the rich pay!
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What We SayA Turning Point In The StruggleRECENT EVENTS in the trade unions mark a major change in the situation in Britain. The strike of nearly a million council workers on 17 July was an expression of the growing anger of public sector workers. This and Derek Simpson's victory over right-winger Ken Jackson in the election for general secretary of the AEEU section of Amicus, represented a turning point in the fight back against New Labour and its big business allies. The Financial Times (22 July), contemptuously dismissed the strikes as of little significance. It compared the 29 million days lost in strikes in 1979 to the "half a million days lost last week" (a clear underestimation if you add in the tube workers as well). It declared that if this led to a "weakening of the link" between Labour and the unions then "that is good", because the unions are an "increasingly unrepresentative lobby group". The Socialist neither underestimates nor exaggerates these strikes. But after years of holding back their members a section of the union leaders is now feeling the ground moving under their feet. It's clear that trade union members have had enough of collaboration between the right-wing union leaders and the bosses, especially in the so-called partnership deals pushed by the TUC. AEEU members have watched the manufacturing sector collapse with more than 400,000 jobs going over the last three years while the Labour government says it is nothing to do with them. Public-sector workers have had enough of a party whose councillors and MPs support privatisation and service cuts. They see their wages fall further and further behind while Labour oversees the obscenity of huge salary rises and bonuses for the bosses. Socialist Party members in UNISON are pushing for the union to declare that its planned third national strike in September (following a strike on 14 August) should be a public-sector wide strike against low pay. This should include the NUT in the schools who are fighting for an increase in the London allowance and the college lecturers' union NATFHE who have already had a one-day national strike over pay. The FBU who are gearing up for their first national pay strike since the 1970s should also be approached, as should the RMT, ASLEF and the CWU to coordinate action. If this strike was timed to coincide with the Labour Party conference it would send a signal to the whole working class that the unions are once again taking up the cudgels on their behalf. The defeat of Ken Jackson was in its way just as important as the local government and tube strikes. The right wing at the head of the AEEU is not just an obstacle to the members but is a machine built up over decades, ruling through intimidation and putting the fear of God into anyone on the Left who puts their head above the parapet. The removal of Jackson was welcomed but unexpected by the Left in the union. But if Derek Simpson is not to become a prisoner of the right-wing machine then he will have to organise to defeat them. This will require the building of a left-wing rank and file organisation that operates openly and in a democratic fashion and makes an appeal to the new layers that will now want to get involved in the union. Unfortunately, Derek Simpson, perhaps for understandable reasons given the role of the right-wing machine and the secret nature of much of the Left in the union, seems not to accept this at the moment. It will be up to others on the left, including Socialist Party members in Amicus-AEEU to fight for this to happen.
A New Party Is NeededAS WORKERS are moving into struggle, the union leaders are coming under increasing pressure to review their link with a party that attacks workers through privatisation, low pay and worsening conditions in the workplace. Instead of drawing the conclusion from this that it's time to break the link with New Labour and build a new mass workers' party, the union leaders, including those on the Left, talk instead about "reclaiming" the party. Yet, they never explain exactly how they will go about doing this when the democratic channels in the party have been blocked off. At a recent conference of the Socialist Campaign Group (see page 10) they seemed to just hope that something will turn up. They did not put forward any concrete strategy for reclaiming the party. Instead, there was a series of assertions that things were going their way. However, as more and more workers are forced to move into action to defend their interests against New Labour and the bosses the pressure on the union leaders to disaffiliate from the party will grow and the call for a new mass workers' party will be increasingly taken up and turned into a concrete reality.
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Mass Action Against Low Pay And PrivatisationTHE STRIKE in Bristol was solid, closing most council offices apart from 'life and limb' services. Trade unions took a statement from senior officers that 'some council premises could have picket lines' as a challenge to mount as many pickets as possible. Paul Moorhouse, UNISON stewardThe prize for the most successful picket must go to staff at the central library who mounted a picket from five in the morning, successfully turning away the cleaners and winning support from borrowers. The picketing and the massively successful march and rally represented a new high point in joint action across the city's three trade unions with past differences being pushed into the background by a strong desire for unity in action. The march of two to four thousand was applauded by shoppers all through the city centre. The rally was addressed by officials and lay members from all three unions. Some of the loudest applause came for city council tenants' representative (and Socialist Party member) Geoff Brightman. He referred to recent elections in which the Leader and Housing Executive lost safe Labour seats and warned Labour councillors: "If you think that you can afford to pay yourselves over £20,000 expenses for cutting wages and destroying services but can't afford to pay a living wage to caretakers and home care assistants, you should not be surprised when tenants and workers won't come out to vote for you. "If you carry on this way, in future you won't just lose more votes, you could see trade union candidates standing against you." IT WAS the young trade union reps on the Bristol demo that led the demand for the full 6% claim. With them were the school meals workers, care home assistants, schools assistants. They were all low paid, overwhelmingly women workers wearing their uniforms to press home the point of who keeps the local authority services going. The message going out to the local authorities and central government was clear enough though - no less than the full claim with no cuts in services, no job cuts and no rise in council tax to pay for it. The claim to be met in full by central government! Steve Wootton, Bristol Socialist Party. "This Was Just The Beginning"THERE WERE around 50 UNISON and GMB picket lines in Leicestershire. During the week running up to the strike 100 people joined UNISON. Josie Nicholls, Joint Education convenor, personal capacityAt county hall, the six entrances were covered. Showing their usual solidarity, the postal workers refused to cross the picket lines and a delivery driver bringing IT equipment did the same. A Tory councillor arrived on an expensive motorbike claiming he would listen to what we had to say. But when we told him that many of our workers earn less than £5 an hour and asked him for a donation for the hardship fund, he said he hadn't got any money! Members at one workplace, (previously a pit, now a science museum!) were all out. Non-unionised agency workers there felt they had to go in but said that there was a strong possibility that there could be some toast burnt and the alarms would go off causing an evacuation of the building! Hundreds of union members from around the county and city then gathered together at a rally outside the town hall. I chaired it on behalf of Leicestershire UNISON. Speakers from UNISON and GMB made it clear this was just the beginning and we need to keep solid. Judging by the response that's just what will happen. Greetings were given from the Trades Council, UNISON Health branch and Steve Score from the Socialist Party. He was applauded when he pointed to the "fat cats'" pay rises and council leaders giving themselves big rises. He also got support when he asked why unions donate money to the Labour Party, when that same party is attacking pay and conditions and privatising services. After an appeal for people to give to the hardship fund, two young women with children came up to me and put a couple of quid in, they said they couldn't afford much because they don't work. One of them said she couldn't survive without her home care worker and thought it was disgusting that she was paid less than £5 an hour.
Warm Welcome On Welsh Picket LinesSOCIALIST PARTY Wales members received a warm welcome on all the picket lines and demos we covered. Alec Thraves.Manual and office workers were determined to improve their poverty pay and are furious that Labour councillors are getting more in expenses than many of the council workers. Refuse collectors in Swansea said that the biggest rubbish they had to collect was their wages - some taking home just £120 a week! Those comments were echoed to our members by school, office and social services staff in Llanelli, Port Talbot, Pontypridd and Cardiff. Support from the general public was outstanding, highlighted by the fact that Swansea and Port Talbot Socialist Party members sold over 200 copies of The Socialist in the run-up to the one-day strike and collected £94 fighting fund in Swansea on the day! Low-paid workers in the private sector recognise that the fight for decent wages affects everyone and the council workers are guaranteed continued support until they win.
Striking Success Around The Country - London, Knowsley, Swindon And SheffieldMANAGERS, AGENCY staff and non-union workers found themselves locked out at 8am at Newham Council's offices in Stratford, east London. They were joined by a vanload of police and security men who eventually opened up the building. However, much to the GMB and UNISON pickets' delight the strikebreakers very soon had to vacate as the building's internal security doors remained locked. "It's been a great day", said a smiling UNISON picket! KnowsleyTHE STRIKE was rock solid in Knowsley. All the main One Stop Shops were closed to the public, and 34 schools closed. Construction workers in UCATT and Amicus, not covered by the dispute, refused to cross picket lines. In the days prior to the strike, membership applications flooded in. At lunchtime, pickets went to Liverpool for a joint rally with strikers from Liverpool city council. They heard speakers including Socialist Party member Roger Bannister, vice chair of UNISON's Industrial Action committee, attacking low pay in local government. Attacks on the continued funding of New Labour by the unions drew loud cheers from the crowd. SwindonA MAN came over to a Swindon picket line and said: 'Stay out, it's the only way you'll get your money. I was at Rover, we were out for seven weeks and we got our money. Stay out." John Black told me: "Blair is more conservative than Thatcher. The public services are the backbone of the country. New Labour are in power because people hoped they would make services better. Instead things haven't improved much. "Under-funded council services have had money cut. There have been many reviews but things like 'Best Value' try to compare profit making companies with non-profit making organisations, they do not compare like with like." All the pickets said the dispute was not just about money but also the general neglect of council services. Tim HughesSheffieldOVER 300 STRIKERS came to a rally in Sheffield. Paul, GMB caretaker on a housing estate, said: "We've just had a 25% pay cut! Housing caretakers living on the job used to get rent-free accommodation but that's been taken away. That's an average £50 a week pay cut." Rosie, UNISON steward for Planning, Transport and Highways: "We're balloting for action in our department because staff face redundancies and a £3,000 downgrading due to a budget crisis but they've appointed two more top managers!"
Winning Over Agency WorkersONE OF the questions facing council workers during the strike was that of agency workers. Up to a million agency and contract workers can be employed at any one time throughout the public sector. Bill Mullins, Socialist Party industrial organiserLabour ministers boasted before the strike that it would not be like 1979 because then there were seven million public sector workers and now there are only five million. The rest have been privatised or replaced by agency labour. Many agency workers have worked for the same councils for years but in general do not have union protection and can be taken off the agents' books at the drop of a hat. Some of these workers felt forced to cross picket lines but they can be won to the solidarity and protection of the trade unions. I was on a picket line with about 40 GMBTU, UNISON and TGWU members at Newham central services depot in east London. When the agency workers turned up for work, at least a dozen police in body armour appeared. A discussion started amongst the pickets and the agency workers. Some pickets felt that they should be allowed in, others were unsure. The agency workers were also unhappy but didn't know what to do. The shop steward was not around, so I got the agency's phone number off one of the workers and spoke to the manager. He said he was only following the council managers' instructions. I said if action was taken against anyone who didn't want to cross the picket line, there was likely to be repercussions. I explained these people work alongside the council staff, who would take a dim view of the agency workers doing their jobs. Obviously very flustered, he promised he would ring back. I told some of the pickets and the agency workers and Tony, one of the pickets, offered at my suggestion to talk to the agency manager. In a loud enough voice for many of the agency workers to hear, he told the manager that if any action was taken against the workers, he would organise another strike and picket line the next day. Getting into his stride he said it was disgusting to treat human beings the way the agency did. Eventually the manager conceded that agency workers who did not want to cross the picket line could book a day's holiday. When Tony gave the agency workers the good news, some were still unsure and wanted to know what would happen if they were told they were not wanted the following day. Tony and other pickets then produced a bundle of union recruitment forms and said: "When you're in the union we will protect you". The agency workers then stood in a long line to join the union. One of the agency workers spoke at the Newham strikers' rally, saying: "You're striking for 6%, we're striking for 0%, but we hope you'll stand with us in our fight against low pay". The word got around other Newham picket lines like wild fire. At the all-London rally Heather Wakefield, UNISON's national officer declared: "Even agency workers in Newham were joining the union and not crossing the picket line." She didn't mention this wouldn't have happened without the Socialist Party.
At Least 80% Out In CoventryAN ESTIMATED 80% of Coventry's council workers walked out in support of Wednesday's national strike. 250 workers rallied outside the town hall and called for the rejection of the 3% pay rise in favour of 6%. Mark Power, CoventryDorothy, an education worker, said: " 3% of my wage would mean an increase of just 15p per hour. There should be total, complete shut down. Everybody. Until we've got what we want." Coventry's three Socialist councillors joined the protest. When Dave Nellist spoke he got enthusiastic cheers when he called for further industrial action. Socialist councillor Rob Windsor commented: "The workers are going to have to escalate the action and let the council and the government know they really mean business. We need further picketing which will help build a wider campaign against Labour's privatisation programme."
Linking With The Teachers' UnionsADDRESSING THE strikers at Walthamstow Town Hall, Linda Taaffe, bringing greetings from the NUT said: " The strikers have shown how essential they are to education. My school has closed, even though there are only a few union members. "Many teachers feel upset that their union did not follow through on their strike last March over London Allowance. However, a few days ago the NUT executive came under so much pressure that they decided to ballot all members in London and the Fringe for a further one day strike in September. "We will be fighting to make that a coordinated action with other teaching and support staff unions. If the union leaderships can manage to talk to each other we might yet get a London-wide education shutdown over pay."
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1972 - The Summer Of DiscontentAFTER THE successes of the council workers' and London tubeworkers' strikes, the media compared them to movements in the 1970s particularly the 'winter of discontent', the dirty jobs strike of 1979 against the Labour government. Roger ThomasHowever the capitalist press often hide the biggest industrial struggles and victories from the 1970s. Workers need to remember the nine months of almost constant strike activity by miners, dockers, car workers, engineers, railworkers and building workers 30 years ago in 1972. Britain came within inches of a general strike which could well have rivalled that of France in 1968. Edward Heath's Tory government was humbled and its attempts to use the courts to control workers' activity shattered by mass defiance. The Heath government had come to power with plans to control not just wages but, through their proposed Industrial Relations Act, the activities of the unions and individual workers. They set up a National Industrial Relations Court (NIRC) under the judge John Donaldson - this body featured time and again during 1972. The NIRC was to be the ultimate means of imposing wage restraint on the workers of Britain. These were not the first attempts at such intervention - Harold Wilson's Labour government had first put the idea forward with the White Paper "In Place of Strife" but this attempt was quickly abandoned in the face of opposition by workers across the country. This opposition continued after 1970 when the newly elected Tories put forward their proposals. Robert Carr. secretary of state for employment, told the TUC leaders that the government could not compromise - a statement he later said he regretted. The Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, an organisation set up by the Communist Party in 1966, agreed at a conference in November 1970 to call a one day strike on 8 December. The TUC denounced this and strongly advised unions not to take part in any unofficial activities or stoppages of work. In the event between 350,000 and 600,000 stopped work in the biggest political strike since the 1926 general strike. National newspaper production was stopped as print union SOGAT officially supported the strike, despite a court injunction. This forced the TUC to take up the campaign and the TUC demonstration on 21 February 1971 brought at least 140,000 onto the streets. The Industrial Relations Act finally became law in August 1971 and would be implemented in stages, coming fully into effect on 28 February 1972. Miners' solidarityTHE 1971 miners' pay campaign started with an overtime ban. This had a dual effect of reducing stockpiles of coal and showing miners just how low their pay was without bonus payments. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Executive committee gave notice that the strike would start on 9 January 1972. The call was taken up and every pit was closed from day one. 50% of pits lost safety cover due to vigorous picketing. Only 38 out of 289 pits had cover after the first week of the strike. The secret new ingredient was the flying picket - a concept which first emerged in the 1969 strike. Pickets could be dispatched, often in large numbers, around the country and picketing was taken up on a 24-hour basis. Pickets appeared at power stations and coal depots across the land and on the Thames, Kent miners developed the miners' navy to picket the riverside wharves of the big power stations. An estimated 40,000-60,000 miners were engaged in picketing. By February the CEGB declared itself in a state of siege. Supplies to the power stations hit by blacking included not just coal but oil and other essential materials for cleaning. Miners were assisted by other workers. TUC policy was for no crossing of picket lines and in the power stations this position was assisted by the power workers' own work to rule and overtime ban in their pay campaign. Indeed the country came within a whisker of a power strike when power workers' negotiators tied on a strike vote. The casting vote fell to Frank Chapple right wing leader of the electricians' union. He said: "Such dual action would be seen as a challenge to the state, tantamount to a general strike... Industrial action for political ends is alien to me and so far it is alien to the TUC". Heath's government was terrified of the growing mood - there had already been voltage reductions, a prelude to power cuts. The following day a state of emergency was called. On the railways the movement of coal was blacked - it would take only one or two miners to stop a train leaving the depot. Similar stories were told by lorry drivers. Vouchers were issued for emergency services and pickets would on occasions accompany deliveries to check they were not going to power stations. Saltley GatesA PICKET had been placed on the West Midland Gas Board Coke Depot at Saltley Gates following information from the local Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS) especially supporters of Militant, The Socialist's predecessor. At first it made little impression so discussions were held with the local secretary of the Communist Party (CP), an ex-miner Frank Watters. In 1972 the CP - despite its political weaknesses - still had around 800 members in the Birmingham area, many of them convenors and leading stewards in factories. This activist network was used to publicise the miners' case - a young Arthur Scargill from Yorkshire NUM was placed in charge of picketing. Miners toured Birmingham workplaces and spoke at meetings. Birmingham Trades Council placed an advert in the local Evening Mail calling for solidarity and support for the mass picket that Thursday, 10 February. The picket swelled through the week but with 1,000 police in attendance a higher level of solidarity was needed. As the mass picket loomed, the Chief Constable said that the depot would close over his dead body. Scargill described the scene of 3,000 miners "then a single banner came over the hill... As far as the eye could see it was a mass of people. There was a huge roar from the other side of the hill ... they were coming from every direction." From early that morning there had been meetings in the factories where stewards convinced members to support the miners. Police records claimed 15,000 at the peak. Scargill goes on "everybody was chanting... some were chanting 'Heath out, Tories out, Support the miners'. I got hold of the megaphone and I started to chant 'close the gates' and it was taken up like a football chant. "Each time they chanted it they moved and the police, who were four deep, couldn't help it they were getting moved in and the Chief Constable said 'close the gates' and they swung them to. Hats were in the air. Absolute delirium on the part of the people who were there." The picketing continued but the government's resolve was broken. The settlement talks at Downing Street were appropriately held by candlelight due to a power cut. The Wilberforce report gave a substantial increase. The miners had emerged out of the years of accepting low pay and pit closures - in reality a new union was born. Dockers' fightTHE DOCKERS' fight revolved around the Industrial Relations Act. Dockers were locked in a fight for jobs and against the effects of containerisation, which transferred many dock jobs inland. Between 1966 and 1972 20,000 dockers' jobs had been lost. On 26 January a one-day unofficial strike was supported by 25,000 and on 7 March 14,000 London dockers struck. Workplace organisation was primarily unofficial, with the ban on Communists only being lifted after Jack Jones was elected TGWU General Secretary. The main dockers' union, the TGWU, was on the front line against the NIRC and its members' actions brought the first fine. The TUC policy was for non-registration with the Court and non-attendance at hearings. But this policy was coming under strain especially when a union of the TGWU's size risked fines or loss of its funds. It felt ultimately it couldn't support the TGWU because of threats to its own funds and those of other member unions. TGWU members expected the national leadership to launch a national strike but they continued to drag their heels. Meanwhile on 1 May Southampton dockers struck against the fine while Preston and Merseyside dockers struck to celebrate May Day. The national port shop stewards extended the blacking to two transport firms in each port. In Hull this lead to another court case which Walter Cunningham, chair of the Hull stewards refused to attend. A meeting in Hull saw him refuse to pay the fine and go to jail if necessary. With the national unofficial campaign extended London docks stewards had selected Dagenham Cold Storage and UK Cold Storage. However few drivers were honouring the ban. It was decided to picket the depots directly. Picketing began at Chobham Farm in Stratford, East London, where lorries turned away from the port had been diverted. A mass picket of about 1,000 started on 6 June. Soon the number of lorries crossing the picket line were reduced and the company offered to do a deal with the union to take on registered dockers and gradually phase out non-dockers who were paid considerably less. The stewards insisted there should be no job losses amongst the existing workers. The Chobham Farm drivers and warehousemen - also in the TGWU - didn't believe this and went to the NIRC for an order to stop the dockers picketing. The Court obliged naming the port stewards and three dockers but not the TGWU. Militant at the time suggested a conference of dockers and Chobham Farm workers on the issue of containerisation to work out a common policy in opposition to the employers. The court of appeal, anxious to try to uphold the legal system's increasingly fragile claim to impartiality, overturned an earlier judgement of the NIRC and reversed the fines on the union saying that unions weren't responsible for its shop stewards actions and that it was unjust for the union to be penalised simply because it was not registered. Government minister Robert Carr called the decision "a torpedo below the waterline and effectively destroyed government policy." Redress could now only come against individual workers. The NIRC now took out an order against the three pickets threatening them with imprisonment for contempt of court if they failed to attend the court by 16 June. The national stewards met and called for indefinite strike action if any of the three were imprisoned. Strikes broke out across the country involving 35,000 dockers. These were joined by car workers at Longbridge. On the Friday the stewards joined the mass picket at Chobham Farm to await the court tipstaff who was to make the arrests. But no arrests took place. A shadowy figure - the official solicitor - enters the scene. He instructed the TGWU lawyers to apply to the Court of Appeal to have the orders set aside on a technicality for lack of evidence to justify imprisonment. Judge Denning explained "we were influenced by the state of the country, by the realisation that there would be a general strike, which would paralyse the whole nation." This merely delayed the inevitable by a couple of weeks. At Chobham Farm a deal was signed to take on registered dockers while the existing workforce were given alternative jobs. Tories humiliatedON 4 July Midland Cold Storage applied to the NIRC for an order to stop picketing. The court summoned seven dockers to appear. They didn't attend so a court order banned them from picketing or encouraging others to picket the company. They ignored the order and continued picketing. The dockers were convinced that the government was now on the road to confrontation. The company returned to court and on Friday 21 July Donaldson issued warrants for the arrest of five dockers. After the decision there were immediate stoppages of work in London and a mass picket at Midland Cold Storage. Four of the dockers were arrested that day and placed in Pentonville prison. The fifth, Vic Turner, appeared in the picket line at the prison the next day. The dockers shifted picketing to the prison itself. Strikes broke out in Liverpool, Manchester and Hull with the other scheme ports joining by Monday. 40,000 dockers were estimated to be on strike. From the prison, delegates were sent out to argue for solidarity action. One group descended on Fleet Street, home of the national press. Through a series of impromptu meetings the papers were brought to a halt. Across the country around 90,000 workers were on indefinite strike by the time the five were released on 26 July. 250,000 had come out for one or two days and the South Wales miners executive had agreed to call its members out. A demonstration to the prison attracted 30,000 workers. In the light of this revolutionary wave the TUC, having argued against any solidarity action, were forced to call a one-day national stoppage for the following Monday. On the same morning 26 July the Law Lords overturned the Court of Appeal's decision and ruled that the TGWU was responsible for its members actions. Thus the case against the five dockers collapsed and they were released from prison. The decision was rushed through at the start of the summer recess. The release of the five - Derek Watkins, Bernie Steer, Vic Turner, Con Clancy and Tony Merrick - was met by jubilant scenes. The next day the official national dock strike began. 1972 also saw the struggles of the Manchester engineering workers and a series of sit-ins or occupations of factories. On the railways the government used first the 'cooling off period' provisions of the Industrial Relations Act and then forced a ballot on railworkers' pay which made this a contest between workers and government. The result was a resounding defeat for Heath and his incomes policy. From August to September the building workers' strike showed a huge wave of action by members at the grassroots. Once again the use of flying pickets enabled a lot of sites to be pulled out on strike. A number of crane-top protests also brought publicity and increased workers' confidence. The year showed the power of the working class once it's on the move and the ruling class's powerlessness in the face of such a movement. It showed the ingenuity of workers and the importance of organisation. Thirty years on, the recent strikes involving up to a million workers, most of them low-paid, show that the effects of the 1990s and the baleful effect of the pro-Blairite trade union leadership are beginning to be sloughed off. As we prepare for future battles the present generation of workers should learn from the 1972 strike movement.
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Simpson Puts Spoke In Right-Wing MachineLEFT-WINGER Derek Simpson has beaten Tony Blair's union poodle Sir Ken Jackson for the leadership of Amicus-AEEU trade union by 406 votes. He polled 89,521 to Jackson's 89,115 on the fourth re-count. Mick Cotter, Amicus-MSF National Craft Committee, London Region MMThe narrowness of the vote in no way reflects the scale of victory that this election represents. The deck was heavily stacked against Simpson from the day the election started. Firstly in order to stand he had to resign from his full time officers' position. Throughout the election the Jackson camp (ab)used the union apparatus with a zeal that saw one union official being disciplined and countless allegations of vote rigging against others. Simpson campaigned for opposition to PFI, privatisation and partnership deals and in favour of union membership democracy, including the right to elect full-time officials. This is a union that over the years, through mergers and bureaucratic manoeuvres, has concentrated power in the hands of the general secretary (Jackson). It was run in the interests of the leadership, not the membership. Jackson has been at the forefront supporting most of New Labour's anti-worker plans for PPP/PFI and has frequently interfered with other unions' business when they opposed these plans. Under Jackson, AEEU also welcomed millionaire ex-Tory Sean Woodward, now New Labour MP for St Helens-with-Butler, into AEEU membership. He is also a member, along with other blasts from the AEEU past like Lords Jordan and Chapple as well as Barry Reamsbottom and Marion Chambers of the PCS union, of a NATO-linked committee called the Trade Union Committee for European and Transatlantic Understanding. Understanding what? Certainly not the needs of their members. A recent circular from the committee director gives you a clue, urging support for Jackson in Amicus and Reamsbottom's 'moderate' grouping in the PCS executive elections. The Socialist has reported how these moderates in effect organised a coup cancelling the democratic election of left-winger Mark Serwotka and re-installed Reamsbottom as general secretary of PCS. This was even though Reamsbottom was unable to secure the required nominations to stand in the original election. The election of Derek Simpson is certainly a victory for the Left, and a big blow for the Blairites. How far he goes in challenging Blair's agenda remains to be seen, but coupled with mounting anger from rank and file trade unionists in the public sector including the Fire Brigades Union, against poverty pay, along with the rail and tube workers taking action on a range of issues, this could be a long hot summer for New Labour. The High Court action challenging Barry Reamsbottom's attempted coup in the PCS is still proceeding, with a judgement not likely before 26 July. More information is available from www.voteleftunity.org.uk
"I'm Just So Happy"THIS IS like Kim-il Sung losing an election in North Korea. I can't believe it - I just thought it was hopeless to beat the right-wing machine. Steve Hoare, Amicus-AEEU section convenor, Carnaud Metal Box, Sutton-in-Ashfield, personal capacityEvery shop steward got letters from their national and regional officers backing Jackson. They had access to the mailing lists, that was denied to Derek Simpson. Everything in the machine was against him. But in a lot of factories everybody has been fed up with the union. There's a big gulf now between the top of the union and the bottom. Most shop stewards campaigned for Simpson. There have been a lot of job losses in places like Vauxhalls and Rover. All those members still have votes. I first met Derek Simpson 20 years ago. He's a genuine guy who risked everything to stand in the election. Everyone here was disgusted that Jackson wouldn't accept the result. And why was the election returning officer a paid member of the union? Now we've got to make sure we support Derek to defeat the right-wing machine. The full-time officials who've been appointed should have to stand for election. It's been 'jobs for the boys' and it's got to change. Crafts members at my factory have just voted 67:6 (with 10 on holiday) to reject the company pay offer. I can't overestimate the importance of the national election. I never thought it would happen and I'm just so happy.
Don't Hold Back, Say What You Mean!DURING JACKSON'S tortuous departure, Daily Mirror columnist Paul Routledge launched a vicious attack on the Amicus-AEEU right wing. He described them as: "The corrupt filth in the union" who "cannot live with the verdict of the members." Referring to the print workers' battles in the 1980s, he calls their attempt to overturn the ballot result: "The dying bad breath of the dirty work fusiliers who provided scab labour to Murdoch's strike-breaking move to Wapping." He concludes: "They are not fit to be called trade unionists. They cannot be allowed to triumph now." Lets hope he keeps up this support for union democracy.
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