12 February 1985 Marxism Today

The miners' strike is no ordinary strike. It is a resistance movement which has spawned quite new alliances. MINING the Hywel Francis

THE BRITISH MINERS' STRIKE of ment all made common cause in support of 1984-85 has raised some fundamental Welsh mining communities. questions concerning the nature of indust­ The following week a large contingent of Out of this remarkable and new unity on rial and political alliances. In particular, gays and lesbians were in the Dulais Valley the Eisteddfod field and a myriad of other the Welsh experience may offer some as guests of miners' families because of new alliances elsewhere, grew the Wales useful lessons beyond the NUM and their outstanding fund-raising for the min­ Congress. beyond the strike. The South Wales coal­ ers' cause. A short time later food arrived Such seemingly unlikely and unex­ field with over 20,000 miners has remained in West Wales from the Greenham Com­ pected alliances could never have been solid in support of the NUM's fight for mon women who had earlier in the strike anticipated by Nicholas Ridley MP when jobs, pits and communities: after ten been entertained by a South Wales striking he drew up his secret anti-union and months barely 1% had broken the strike miners' choir. anti-strike plans in 1978, which antici­ and in the 14 central valleys only 14 had pated major industrial strikes but did not returned to work by mid-January. By foresee broad popular support for such contrast however, support in the small struggles. North Wales coalfield (only two pits and What is the political significance of these less than 2,000 men) was always patchy new alliances forged during the miners' and virtually collapsed overnight in strike across and beyond the British coal­ November. fields and does the Wales Congress, in The emergence in Wales of a broad particular, represent a 'new polities'? Or democratic alliance of possibly a new kind will it all fade away with the end of this - an anti-Thatcher alliance - is not the 'exceptional' industrial struggle? reason for this resistance. But an examina­ Throughout the late summer of 1984 the tion of its origins and development will NUM leadership was understandably pre­ perhaps begin to explain the intensity of paring to maximise its support at the TUC the phenomenon. The Wales Congress in and Labour Party Conferences in the au­ Support of Mining Communities grew out tumn. But the real business of struggle and of a linked realisation that in order to feed survival was going on elsewhere. For one miners' families more efficiently and in reason or another, and now with the order to explain the case for coal more benefit of hindsight, we can truthfully say effectively, greater unity was needed. But that Eric Hammond of the EEPTU was what was also important was that it was a Put more sharply, it is a right: the trade union movement, with the political realisation, born out of necessity resistance movement. glorious exception of the railway workers, within the miners' struggle, and arrived at has not delivered the goods when and virtually simultaneously by several politic­ where it matters. This is not to say that al, trade union, cultural and other orga­ Even earlier in the year the'sedate calm there have not been magnificent collec­ nisations. of respectable Wales, absorbing its annual tions and tremendous public demonstra­ When the Wales Congress in Support of dose of culture at the National Eisteddfod, tions. But Christmas parties and food Mining Communities was launched in Car­ was broken by public meetings on the parcels alone, important as they are, do not diff s City Hall on October 21 to consoli­ Eisteddfod field in support of the miners. win public support, let alone achieve pow­ date and broaden support for the NUM's Farmers, church leaders, teachers, public er cuts. strike throughout Wales, its proceedings employees, Welsh language activists, were dramatically interrupted by sixty historians, poets, folk-singers, commun­ Alliances London local government workers mar­ ists, members of the Labour Party and Old-fashioned trade union solidarity has, ching in with a banner proclaiming 'Brent Plaid Cymru, ministers of religion, the at best, been reduced to 75 turkeys from Nalgo supports the Dulais Valley'. women's movement and the peace move­ Llanwern steelworkers. At its worst, it's February 1985 Marxism Today 13

the army of well-paid faceless scab lorry- the prospect of unemployment again.' creation (as in 1926 but much more suc­ drivers trundling daily along the M4 to Even more perceptive and revealing was cessfully now - partly because there are supply foreign coke to the Llanwern the simple ceremony in Italy during the fewer miners) of an alternative welfare 'brothers' who supplied the turkeys. That strike when women activists from Coel- system. Put more sharply it is a resistance is the reality of an industrial battle which bren and Hirwaun were made honorary movement. The way striking mining com­ relies essentially on what amounts to no members of the Italian resistance. In a munities have responded to the threat to more than a 'syndicalist' strategy of indust­ period when the NUM is being attacked by their very existence has been the most rial confrontation and regular sectional every arm of the state, it is not an exaggera­ remarkable feature of the strike. calls for a general strike and mass picketing tion to say that the union is about to be This socio-political development is un­ to resolve the situation. Fortunately, the driven underground. The freezing of doubtedly part of the same phenomenon miners' strike in every coalfield has been South Wales miners' funds through se­ that resists rate-capping in local govern­ far more than that - it had to be because of questration in August was part of this ment; that opposes the abolition of the the inadequacy of the Triple Alliance and process. The subsequent survival of the the ineffectiveness of the TUC in enforcing union in South Wales inevitably begs Congress decisions. certain questions. The miners' struggle has Nevertheless there is no doubt that the miners' struggle has often been conducted A resistance movement often been conducted as if we as if we were living in those far-off days of In the Welsh context, the nearest historical were living in those far-off industrial militancy in the early 1970s - comparison we can make with the events of days . . . in the early 1970s. successful mass and flying pickets, work­ 1984-5 within communities and valleys is ers' occupations and unemployment at less the broad unity and resistance during the than a million. It was the era of unity of miners' lockout of 1926 and in the mid- GLC and other metropolitan bodies; the transport workers and miners on picket 19308 on the questions of struggle over mobilising of the unemployed around the lines which gave birth to the Wales TUC. mass unemployment, scab unionism and People's March for Jobs; and the mass One other factor is forgotten about that aid for Republican Spain. At that time, peace campaigns against Cruise and Tri­ period. Even though the two strikes of class and community converged, signifi­ dent. In that sense they are all extra- 1972 and 1974 were of relatively short cantly enough at a time of trade union parliamentary struggles which place grea­ duration, the victories were not achieved weakness. Mining communities were be­ ter emphasis than hitherto on educating by industrial action and industrial solidar­ coming or had become unemployed com­ and mobilising communities and organisa­ ity alone. Despite power cuts, the miners munities and their struggles even tions in broad alliances. won broad public support which ultimate­ embraced chapels and shopkeepers. Such In a Welsh context, it is part of the same ly led to the fall of the Heath Government. struggles were essentially extra- process that saw in the early 1980s the There was broad support even if it did not parliamentary in character and involved women's anti-nuclear march from Cardiff develop into tangible broad alliances. the mobilisation of whole communities. to Greenham Common; the Welsh Lan­ Since then the trade union movement But that socio-political unity was tran­ guage Society campaigning against unem­ has been debilitated by mass unemploy­ sient and despite the courage of exception­ ployment because without work, the ment, impotent TUC leadership, the al Labour leaders like the Welsh language will die; valley parents Thatcherite ideological offensive and suc­ broad-based unity around the South Wales involving themselves in direct action to cessive state assaults, from Grunwick Council of Action of 1935-6 was broken by oppose cuts in school bus services (includ­ through to the NGA, on its very existence. the anti-communism of right-wing trade ing the setting up of an alternative school); Until the present miners' strike, the move­ union and Labour leaders who saw and valley communities uniting with ment had been in retreat for years. Labourism as the rightful monolith in the NUPE members to oppose hospital clo­ In the summer of 1980 in the wake of the valleys. sures. first Thatcherite onslaught on the steel- Historical links there are. The strong The common threads in all these strug­ workers, the industrial correspondent of sense of solidarity and the organic rela­ gles were the tactic of non-violent civil- The Times wrote that we were about to tionship between union, community and disobedience; the mobilising of people witness the most severe testing of the pit is still so intense that it cannot be beyond the traditional parameters of the 'shock-troops of the labour movement'- dismissed simply as blind loyalty to be labour movement; and most important of the South Wales miners. Some observers 'lauded by future trade union historians' as all, the mobilising of whole communities had already written them off. Others pre­ South Wales area director Philip Weekes in their own defence. dicted their skirmishes in defence of jobs remarked when the anticipated return to and communities in 1981 and 1983. But work in South Wales again failed to mater­ Unifying the threads what no one could have anticipated was the ialise in the New Year. What the MacGregor NCB closures intensity and ferocity of the state onslaught However, it would be much more fruit­ announcement in March 1984 did was to on the British miners in 1984 and the ful for our purposes to examine our im­ accelerate these trends and ultimately manner in which they successfully with­ mediate past in order to understand the force their convergence. To say that the stood it. developments which led up to the Wales 'women against pit closures' movement That survival, that resistance, is en­ Congress. suddenly transformed women's attitudes capsulated in the words of an old Cynon There is no doubt that in many respects is to misunderstand the processes which Valley miner: 'After the experience of the the Wales Congress might be seen as only a had already been operating in mining last ten months, the miners and their formalisation of what also exists to an extent communities. The Greenham Common communities have learnt how to survive in all the other striking British coalfields, protest was started by working class together - they shouldn't ever have to fear the most significant feature of which is the women in the Rhondda. Very many of the 14 February 1985 Marxism Today

Welsh miners barricade of their NUM headquarters in Pontypridd Mid-Glamorgan - in an attempt to stop bailiffs sequestrating their funds. women active in the 1984-85 struggle were and collective human potential than at any them which placed the struggle in the already prominently involved in politics time in their lives. The new links within wider context of government energy poli­ and the peace movement at a local level. and between coalfields, with non-mining cy, what they have termed the 'vagaries of Furthermore, the Welsh Language areas in Britain and indeed internationally an undisciplined free market system' and Society had already made the link with are all pregnant with political possibilities. the need to emphasise the dignity of hu­ workers in struggle well before the miners' What emerges is a network of unex­ man beings and communities. strike. People and organisations were pected alliances which go far beyond the Conscious of the human and organisa­ therefore already making connections: traditional labour movement. It is a broad tional forces being unleashed by and for they were already identifying allies and democratic alliance of a new kind - an the miners in the midst of the crisis, the enemies. anti-Thatcher alliance - in which the orga­ Wales Congress in Support of Mining What the miners' strike in all the coal­ nised working class has a central role but a Communities initially set out to bring the fields did was to begin to bring such role which henceforth it will have to earn debate back to one over the future of the developments together, involving now not and not assume. coal industry rather than 'picket line vio­ just single communities or groups of activi­ lence' and to increase the unity around the ties but whole regions and tens of A new alliance mining communities. It was in effect an thousands of people. It is also something In this potentially permanent anti- all-Wales support group. beyond that. This new kind of alternative Thatcher alliance, the women's movement Its programme of aims highlighted the welfare system has created in many places and the peace movement will have promin­ need to identify and communicate the real a very resilient and tough resistance move­ ence because, unlike the bulk of the trade issues at stake - the need for a sane energy ment. Everyone should now acknowledge union and labour movement during the policy and the safeguarding of jobs, com­ that the network of women and mixed run-up to the miners' strike, they have munities, peace and democratic rights. It support groups has given rise to an alterna­ played a crucial role in raising the political also sought to encourage local authorities tive, community-based system of food, consciousness of the British people. It is to commission social audits of the effects of clothing, financial and morale distribution even conceivable that the churches will the current pit closure programme in their which has sustained about half a million have a part in such an alliance because they localities (as is being done in other parts of people for nearly a year. The social and have raised very pertinent political, social Britain). political skills of organisation and com­ and moral questions during the strike At a time when enormous pressures munication are akin to the experiences of concerning the nature and role of the state were building up on the NUM in South people during a social revolution. Women, and of the dehumanising character of, Wales, particularly as a result of sequestra­ men and indeed children have learnt more capitalism. In particular, the initiative of tion and fund-raising, the Congress sought about the strengths and weaknesses of the the Welsh Council of Churches revealed a to get the Welsh people to carry their share state apparatus, more about the problems very deep understanding of the political of the burden. of building working class solidarity and origins of the crisis facing all mining Indeed the Congress very quickly re­ above all more about their own individual regions and put forward proposals to solve ceived backing from over 300 prominent February 1985 Marxism Today 15 people in Welsh politics (Plaid, Labour None are minorities London, Ireland and even Nottingham. and CP), local government, trade unions, One of the great advantages of the Wales The strike has therefore not just been the churches, the arts, farmers, the Congress was that it ensured that the about mass picketing. It has been about women's movement and the peace move­ NUM, despite serious rebuffs from steel- how people begin to take control of their ment. The Congress was born out of a workers and lorry drivers, never felt iso­ own lives. It has been about women and realisation by large sections of the Welsh lated within Wales. For example, just as men from all the coalfields learning about people that the miners were struggling for the Wales Congress was launching a series the many-sided role of the state in indust­ the future of Wales. If Thatcherism could of nationwide rallies in November, the rial battles and that the fight for jobs and defeat the miners, then all Welsh com­ NCB in South Wales started to increase its communities was and is the experience munities, were in danger. aggressive managerial onslaught on the elsewhere in Britain and abroad. When the Its steering committee embraces all still rock-solid NUM membership. Con­ South Wales Striking Miners' Choir enter­ these organisations and meets weekly to gress leaders including Labour Euro-MP tained an entirely black audience in Wal­ discuss strategy. As yet there are remark­ David Morris and Plaid President Dafydd sall, one of the choristers paid tribute to ably few differences over tactics or political Elis Thomas MP spearheaded a counter­ the 'ethnic minorities' who had been so initiatives. attack by attempting to interview NCB outstanding in their support during the The miners' strike has therefore created managers personally. They asked why strike. A black leader responded:. 'The a Welsh unity and identity, overcoming were they, as trade unionists, prepared to Welsh are the ethnic minority in Walsall'. language and geographical differences, supervise scabs (unlike NACODS) and The strike has begun to teach us all that which failed to materialise in 1979 during why were they actively participating in a none of us are minorities. The Wales the devolution referendum when a four to government plan which would ultimately Congress is trying to build an anti- one vote rejected a measure of independ­ socially divide and industrially destroy Thatcher democratic alliance which will ence. It was the fear of such a return to the mining communities. hopefully go beyond the strike and turn all superficial and sterile politics of devolu­ The solidarity of the miners in South those so-called 'minorities' who have sup­ tion of 1979, that made a tiny number Wales held, and the Congress played its ported us into an irresistible and united within the Welsh labour movement hesi­ part then and later in holding the line to 1% majority to fight for peace, jobs and com­ tate about associating with the Congress. despite over ten months of struggle. munities. There will inevitably be prob­ Significantly, their influence was negligi­ After less than two months the Congress lems, the greatest of which will be the ble. Dark hints of a 'Commie and Nats was already strengthening itself by decen­ possibility that all the positive features of plot' was the language of the past. They tralisation. There are now local Congresses unity and experience everywhere could be soon realised that unless they joined, the in North Wales, the Rhondda, and the eclipsed by the fragmentation of the world would pass them by. prospect of others in all the valleys, in NUM. •