When Workers Beat The Heath Government

Working class history

When Workers Beat The Heath Government

THIRTY YEARS ago, Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath called a
snap general election on the issue of "Who runs the country – the
government or the trade unions?" Heath lost! 
ALISTAIR TICE looks at when
the strength and power of the organised working class smashed anti-union laws,
broke a pay freeze and brought down a bosses’ government.

WHEN HEATH came to power in 1970, he promptly set about the
task of restoring British capitalism’s profitability just as the post-war
economic upswing was running out of steam.

This meant confronting the power of the trade unions (with
over 11 million members – nearly 50% of the labour force) and especially the
shop stewards’ organisations. Heath even said he was prepared to "face
up" to a general strike if necessary.

His "no lame ducks" policy, where ailing or
unprofitable firms were allowed to go bust, led to unemployment rising sharply
to over a million for the first time since the 1930s. Wage controls were
brought in to keep pay rises down and the Industrial Relations Act was framed
to shackle the unions.

Workers’ resistance to these policies grew and three great
struggles forced the Tory government to make a ‘U-turn’.

In 1971 the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in caught the
imagination of millions and sparked a wave of factory occupations against
redundancies and closures. Then in 1972, the first all-out miners’ strike since
1926 broke the government’s wage controls, winning a 22% pay rise – way over
the 8% norm.

This historic victory was achieved through mass picketing
of steelworks, major ports, power stations and coal depots. The strike’s
turning point came at the ‘Battle of Saltley Gates’. Picketing miners (led by
Arthur Scargill then Yorkshire NUM president) were joined by 10,000 striking
Birmingham trade unionists who forced the police to close the Gas Board coal
depot.

Afterwards Tory Home Secretary Reginald Maudling wrote:
"some colleagues asked why I had not sent in troops to support our police.
I remember asking them a simple question. If they had been sent should they
have gone with rifles loaded or unloaded?"

In July 1972, the Industrial Relations Act was effectively
defeated when unofficial mass strike action forced the immediate release of
five dockers’ shop stewards imprisoned in Pentonville jail for picketing in
defiance of the anti-union laws.

Such was the spontaneous movement from below that the
Trades Union Congress (TUC) was forced to threaten a one-day general strike,
but only when it was clear that the dockers were about to be released.

These battles were not isolated. Railworkers won a 13% pay
rise. Building workers held a long strike where shop steward Ricky Tomlinson
(later of Royle Family fame) was arrested and imprisoned as one of the
Shrewsbury Two.

Militancy growing

TWENTY FOUR million working days were lost in 1972, a rise
in militancy unprecedented for over 50 years. 

This radicalisation was reflected
inside the Labour Party by a big shift to the Left. Indeed the 1972 conference
passed a Militant (forerunner of the Socialist Party) motion calling for
nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy.

Whilst not going that far, Labour’s 1973 Programme was its
most radical since 1945 including a commitment for public ownership of
shipbuilding, the aircraft industry, pharmaceuticals, and North Sea gas and
oil. The 1974 election manifesto talked of carrying out a "fundamental and
irreversible shift in power and wealth" and being proud of its socialist
aims.

However, the Labour government that followed, once the
pressure of workers’ struggles had abated, did not "squeeze the rich until
the pips squeaked" as Chancellor Denis Healey promised, in fact they began
‘free market’ monetarist policies even before Thatcher!

Nevertheless, this period shows how the workers’ movement
could affect, influence and bring change in the Labour Party, unlike today when
New Labour has become an openly capitalist party.

These industrial defeats forced Heath into a U-turn; he
sought to embroil a compliant TUC leadership into tripartite talks with
government and employers, from which emerged a new wage freeze followed by
further pay restraint.

Temporarily this collaboration cut across the strike
movement ("only" seven million days were lost in 1973, compared with
one million days last year).

The BBC documentary True Spies revealed that National Union
of Mineworkers (NUM) president Joe Gormley was a paid informer for the secret
services throughout the 1970s. In July 1973 he met Heath privately in Downing
Street to try to avert another strike. A Special Branch officer said: "He
was very worried about the growth of militancy in his own union."

This militancy pushed other union leaders to the Left, such
as Jack Jones of the transport workers and Hugh Scanlon of the engineering
union. They were the 70s equivalent of the "awkward squad", but with
the big difference of having powerful shop stewards’ organisations and a
combative membership behind them.

Even so, their limitations as Left but reformist leaders
were exposed when trade union power raised the question of who runs the
country? As Scanlon later admitted: "We looked over the precipice and
didn’t like what we saw." Later, Jones and Scanlon would be the architects
of the Social Contract negotiated with the Labour government which led to
voluntary wage restraint policed by the union leaders.

Two-day lockout

HOWEVER, THE British economy was in a dire state. 

The
speculative property boom collapsed. The pound floated downwards by 20%. The
balance of payments headed for a record deficit. Inflation was running out of
control.

Then the Yom Kippur War in the Middle-East and the
subsequent quadrupling of oil prices by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), tipped the world economy into its first simultaneous post-war
recession.

So when the miners began an overtime ban in November 1973
the ruling class were determined that Heath should not back down again.

The ruling-class press raised the question of an
"authoritarian solution" to try to avoid repeating the humiliations
of 1972, although more thoughtful employers realised that you couldn’t send
300,000 miners to jail.

Heath refused the TUC offer to treat the miners as a
special case and gambled on trying to isolate and defeat the NUM. With
electrical power engineers working to rule as well, the government declared a
state of emergency and introduced petrol rationing, power cuts and 13% interest
rates.

Then, ostensibly to save energy and conserve coal stocks, a
three-day working week (in effect a two-day lock-out) was introduced to try to
divide other workers from supporting the miners. However this backfired as
other workers, even those made redundant by the crisis, backed the miners.

The Evening Standard reported the views from a London
employment exchange, "To a man – and woman – they were behind the
miners."

By now the ruling class were in a panic. Tory Industry
minister John Davies told his family, "We must enjoy this Christmas for it
may be our last one."

Sir William Armstrong, chief civil servant and head of
Heath’s think-tank, suffered a total mental and physical collapse, "being
quite mad at the end" according to Whitehall inside sources.

Solidarity and confidence

AT THE beginning of February 1974, the NUM national ballot
revealed a 81% yes vote for all-out strike action.

 Amidst growing power cuts
and blackouts, Heath risked all by calling an emergency general election for
the end of that month: "Who runs the country?"

The 1974 miners’ strike was not as confrontational as in
1972 – the NUM leaders restrained picketing so as not to harm Labour’s
electoral chances. Yet the movement of coal was still halted because other
trade unionists were right behind the miners and respected even token picket
lines.

ASLEF members refused to drive a coal train under one
bridge with an NUM lodge banner draped over it but no pickets in sight! Such
was the feeling of solidarity and confidence, such was the anti-Tory mood among
workers.

This was enough to finish Heath off at the polls, but
Harold Wilson’s low-key campaign, which emphasised sound management rather than
Labour’s radical policies, failed to enthuse voters. So Labour, with only 37%
of the vote, scraped in forming a minority government on 4 March. Within a week
most of the miners’ demands were met, they returned to work and the three-day
week ended.

This period showed who had the power in the land and that
workers really could run the country. However, for that to be realised requires
not just struggle and solidarity, but also a conscious socialist leadership
which can overthrow the capitalist system not just one of their governments.