40 years ago, in April 1985, school students went on strike, organised by the Labour Party Young Socialists, in which young Militant (the Socialist Party’s predecessor) supporters played the leading role. Nancy Taaffe, now a Socialist Party National Committee member, remembers the events. We also publish excerpts from the Rise of Militant by Peter Taaffe.
In April 1985, school students went on strike, and you took part. Can you describe what it was like?
The actual day of the school student strike of 1985 was, on a personal level, one of the most exciting days of my life. I’ve heard young people describe the 2010 student protests like this, like the ‘best rave they’ve ever been to’, a day when a different morality had the streets, and a sense of togetherness dominates.
Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky describes in his writings how initial outpourings when the masses respond to an event, and strategical differences haven’t emerged in a movement, as having a carnival-like mood.
I went to Starcross School (now Elizabeth Garrett Anderson) in Islington, north London. The strikers from our school came out and met other school student strikers en route to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the assembly point for the demo. I can’t remember where we marched to, or if we had a destination, there seemed to be lots of marches taking place, going off in all directions, like an outpouring.
One thing that sticks in my mind was the pace of the demo – we virtually ran from Islington to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. We ran, not only because we were young and so we could, but because we were also a bit worried that someone would catch us and make us go back to school!
I also think international events had an effect too. Every night, images of Black youth in the townships of South Africa fighting back against the vicious apartheid regime were played in our front rooms. The youth rebellions out of the townships of South Africa were also fast; the young people, understandably, seemed to move quickly. Maybe these international events also played a role on some subconscious level too.
The day itself was as wild and exuberant as any teenager can be, at times a bit chaotic and at times focused on the issues. All day the authorities had condemned us, Neil Kinnock, the ineffective leader of Labour’s opposition to Thatcher, condemned us, calling us “dafties”. The use of that word was attempting to minimise the significance of the protest, but across the country it was estimated that 250,000 school students took to the streets that day… and won.
The day extracted concessions; we temporarily pushed back the Tories’ plans to make young people work for their dole money.
Out of that day we went on to form a national school student’s union, attempting to build branches and organising conferences.
Many of the young people involved in that strike went on to become activists in the Further Education (FE) sector, forming an organisation called FE Labour Students. We also became active in the National Union of Students and the National Organisation of Labour Students (NOLS), in which right-wing Labour careerists behaved like gangsters.
What were the issues the strike was about?
The creation of the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), which was rightly characterised as a slave labour scheme that made young people essentially free labour for dole money. The Tories have since introduced similar schemes like workfare. In 1985, the memories of the post-war gains were still present, the idea of working for your benefits was an alien concept. The post-war generation had fought for apprenticeships. Additionally, the closed shop still existed in some workplaces and young people taking jobs that were subsidised by the state was effectively undercutting wages. There was therefore opposition from older trade union organised workers.
Thatcher was closing factories and the mines, good jobs were being lost, whole swathes of the country were facing her shock doctrine of mass unemployment. The proposal to make young people work for benefits was seen as part of the master plan of driving wages and conditions down, using the spectre of unemployment to do it.
Every night on the news they used to run this map of the British Isles, and a red light would flash up every night of how many jobs were lost at factories and workplaces that day. Whilst occasionally an anaemic green one would flash to indicate jobs being created, you didn’t need O-levels to tell you jobs were haemorrhaging!
The school student strike of 1985 shines like a diamond at what very young people attempted to do to prevent the pauperisation that now exists among the working class.
Can you explain the role of LPYS, and what organisation went on in advance?
Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS) in 1985 had recruited loads of young people who were politicised from the Miners’ Strike. Members of Militant in Scotland had already led a significant youth movement where the effects of the deindustrialisation by Thatcher meant that unemployment was ever-present in working-class communities. She was hated. In the aftermath of the Scottish events, we discussed whether we thought a similar mood existed down south.
I was at my second LPYS conference after joining during the Miners’ Strike in 1984. There were about 2,000 young people gathered in Blackpool. We had a fringe meeting where we discussed the Tories’ YTS conscription and decided to make the call and name the date for the school student strike on our return to school.
1984-85 is remembered for one big event, the Miners’ Strike. How did that affect the outlook of young people like yourselves?
The Miners’ Strike was the event that politicised a whole generation, and asked people to pick a side, to side with their class. Many workers instinctively knew, but others were taught crucial lessons about what Thatcher and her semi-militarised state forces were trying to do to the post-war gains: smash them! Young people were in families talking about the strike.
There was a lot of talk about the Miners’ Strike being about future generations, the image of Alan Hardman’s cartoon asking “Will there be a job for me when I grow up?” was everywhere.
In the summer of 1984, a whole generation had watched as the miners fought to stop a jobs slaughter in the coalfields… Militant supporters had been everywhere in the year of 1984, Alan’s infamous cartoon was posted on bus stops, on placards and even the image of the daily reporting on the strike. Against the jobs slaughter the miners were at least fighting. It wasn’t lost on us.
Militant supporters knew that the generations following on from this jobs slaughter, the students and youth, would inherit worse conditions and pay and we needed to be organised, and fought, like the miners did, everywhere.
Just as the international struggles played a role in politicising a generation, so too did the Miners’ Strike.
What lessons are there for young people today looking to fight back?
Today’s times, in early 21st century decrepit capitalism, are much tougher for young people. There is less fat on the bones of the welfare state, making a stand can be criminalised easily. However, very young people can be fearless, can feel like they have no stake, and be prepared to struggle, like the young people in South Africa who inspired us.
From The Rise of Militant
The first signs of a movement came in mid-March, with a number of student strikes and walkouts throughout the country. Of course, the press were quick to blame it on the industrial action by teachers that was taking place at the time.
They blew up small incidents, trying to present a picture of ‘rampaging children’ let loose by ‘irresponsible’ teachers. The real reasons for young people’s discontent lay in their frustration, with no prospect of a real job when they left school; the dole or conscription onto YTS was the only future for them. Faced with this movement of school students, the police were deployed.
In Middlesbrough mounted police patrolled daily. Militant detailed a series of strikes in the Portsmouth area. These strikes ‘Were initially a confused action against the teachers, because they feared a potential “threat to examination chances”. [But] the LPYS immediately took the initiative. At one of the schools involved there are eight LPYS members. In an emergency leaflet the teachers’ campaign for better pay was forcibly explained… The YS received support from the majority of students for opposing the mindless violence of a small minority. [The strike began to gain support and] later spread to the Bridgemary School in Gosport, from its outset the action was in support of the teachers.’ (from Militant)
But these were just small movements before the explosion which detonated in Glasgow one week later. Organised by the Labour Party Young Socialists, with Militant supporters in the lead, ‘a general strike swept through Clydeside schools, bringing 20,000 pupils out… They gave Thatcher a defiant message – “We’re not having YTS job conscription’.’’
More than 10,000 students poured into Glasgow city centre in what Glasgow’s Daily Record called the “biggest show of pupil power ever in Britain”. Speakers were amazed when schools with improvised banners marched to the rally to be greeted with thunderous applause and roars of “Here we go”. Many made homemade banners with slogans like “No Slave Labour” and “What About a Future”. Red flags flew all around the indoor rally.
This new ‘Revolt on the Clyde’ led to an even bigger movement of school students throughout Britain two months later. The LPYS consciously prepared for and championed this movement.
They used their Easter conference attended by over 2,000 young people as a platform to launch a campaign for a national stoppage of youth. 200 gathered at a fringe meeting, chaired by Frances Curran, to hear Colin Baird from Glasgow and Nancy Taaffe from London, who set the turmoil in the schools against the background of the Miners’ Strike, Tory attacks on youth and past school strikes.
A School Students’ Action Committee was formed, a steering committee elected and a decision to call a national half-day school strike (except in Scotland because of earlier exams) on 25 April.
The success of the 25 April school student strike exceeded all expectations: ‘A quarter of a million school students have given a crushing answer to the Tories, the press and the cynics in the labour movement… Thatcher condemned it. So did the Liberals. Unfortunately too the TUC and Labour leadership condemned it.’
Labour leader Neil Kinnock condemned the organisers as “dafties” but in Kinnock’s own constituency 500 joined the strike. We declared: ‘The Marxists in the labour movement make no apology for backing the school students to the hilt. It is essential that the despair, the frustration and anger of youth is channelled in a positive direction, linking up with the labour movement. The students themselves understand it – in Pontypridd the thousand-strong school student demonstration called on the leader of the South Wales miners to lead them into the town, which he proudly did.’
Every area of the country seemed to be touched by the strike. Even in Northern Ireland 3,000 had come out with only a week’s notice and completely cut across the sectarian divide. In London, ‘thousands joined the strike… in Brent school students sent out flying pickets to build the strike… in Southampton, prefects and teachers at one Catholic girl’s school linked arms across the gateway to prevent students leaving. Similarly at Portsmouth Grammar School, students were beaten back from the gates. In Plymouth four LPYS members have been threatened with expulsion from the Labour Party for supporting the strike.’
But all the threats came to nothing: ‘10,000 school students marched through Liverpool. The mood was electric.’
The government also learned from the events of 25 April. Recognising the angry mood amongst school students they made some concessions. They had reacted in a similar fashion in 1981 when the Labour Party Young Socialists had organised a massive campaign on the issue of rights, training, conditions and wages against the forerunner of the YTS, the Youth Opportunities Programme.
As soon as they saw this movement developing, the government increased the YOP allowance. Now they took note of the mood of youth, as shown by the 25 April strike. Tory spokespersons withdrew the idea of conscripting youth, by withdrawing unemployment or social security pay, for those who refused to go on YTS. The school student strike was a landmark. It served to underline the enormous impact which the Miners’ Strike had made on youth.
- The Rise of Militant by Peter Taaffe at www.leftbooks.co.uk
