I'm On Strike!

[Lordofthebling]

2.30 in the morning and I'm not in bed yet?

Thats right - because I'm on strike on Tuesday!

We should do this every week!

I will be on the picket line by 12pm....

[Mr Mosquito]

2.30 in the morning and I'm not in bed yet?

Thats right - because I'm on strike on Tuesday!

We should do this every week!

I will be on the picket line by 12pm....

"Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking." Oliver Cromwell.

I'm on strike as well - although I'm not even in the crappy local government pension scheme (LGPS).

[Dollymarie]

I'm not on strike and I work for Bristol City council, can someone tell me why?

Plus nothing has been mentioned at school, so I don't think its just me?

[robins72]

Get back to work girl and get off this forum!!

[Dinky Gems]

No such luck for me, another joyful day ahead, but feeling slightly more positive today! Just heard all of the Schools which are closed.....I predict a Riot! xxx

[CiderHider]

Hmm, I don't really agree with Unions as a whole, but i can sympathize with the underpaid workers.

Fact is though people are living longer and the figures don't add up, better get used to saving you pennys guys as £4000 a year state pension will not be enough to live on.

[Mr Mosquito]

Hmm, I don't really agree with Unions as a whole, but i can sympathize with the underpaid workers.

Fact is though people are living longer and the figures don't add up, better get used to saving you pennys guys as £4000 a year state pension will not be enough to live on.

Maybe if we didn't have to subsidise so many corrupt royalist freeloaders there would be more pension monies for the rest of us The imposter Queen and her massive entourage and her war mongering Prime Minister - Tony Blair - have recently had holidays in Australia and at UK taxpayers' expense !!!!

[Lordofthebling]

I'm not on strike and I work for Bristol City council, can someone tell me why?

Plus nothing has been mentioned at school, so I don't think its just me?

don't understand that, I know a few people who work for BCC and they are all of...

[Dollymarie]

don't understand that, I know a few people who work for BCC and they are all of...

I'm not in the union could that be it?

[The Enormous Turnip]

2.30 in the morning and I'm not in bed yet?

Thats right - because I'm on strike on Tuesday!

We should do this every week!

I will be on the picket line by 12pm....

Cheers

I'm off School today because of your strike!

[bristolborn_and_red]

Hmm, I don't really agree with Unions as a whole, but i can sympathize with the underpaid workers.

Fact is though people are living longer and the figures don't add up, better get used to saving you pennys guys as £4000 a year state pension will not be enough to live on.

Don't agree with unions? I take it that if you are employed, you will stand by your statement and immediately hand back to your employer your annual leave, 8 hour day, pensions rights and any future sick pay. All of which were gained by the sacrifices of generations of union members.

[Lordofthebling]

I'm not in the union could that be it?

Doubt it, I'm in Unison, but loads of people are on strike because of the pensions not because Unison have called a strike. If you get what I mean.

[Mr Mosquito]

Don't agree with unions? I take it that if you are employed, you will stand by your statement and immediately hand back to your employer your annual leave, 8 hour day, pensions rights and any future sick pay. All of which were gained by the sacrifices of generations of union members.

Well written bristolborn_and_red

As per usual, non union members (and regrettably some members) will be standing back and reaping the benefits of our strike action. When did they refuse to accept an annual pay award when it is only the collective bargaining strength of the Trade Union movement that provides them with one ????!!!!!!!!

[Lordofthebling]

Don't agree with unions? I take it that if you are employed, you will stand by your statement and immediately hand back to your employer your annual leave, 8 hour day, pensions rights and any future sick pay. All of which were gained by the sacrifices of generations of union members.

I'm going to burn my bra in support of your statement.

[Maesknoll Red]

I'm not in the union could that be it?

Why ever not - cheapest from of employment legal insurance you'll ever get, should you ever need it.

[Guest Ron]

I'm not on strike and I work for Bristol City council, can someone tell me why?

Plus nothing has been mentioned at school, so I don't think its just me?

Grab a plaquard and go and stand outside Clifton Library

[bristolborn_and_red]

Don't agree with unions? I take it that if you are employed, you will stand by your statement and immediately hand back to your employer your annual leave, 8 hour day, pensions rights and any future sick pay. All of which were gained by the sacrifices of generations of union members.

And if you ever get the feeling to reply (as you usually don't). Just remember when you're writing your reply that your capability for stringing two words together in writing was down to the Labour party (note not new labour). If your feeling too ill to write, please remember that the doctor that you might be seeing at no cost to yourself is because of the Labour party. You might like to know that the Labour party was born out of the Trade Union Movement to give the working man/woman a voice in parliament. Not the reverse as some people believe.

[Mr Mosquito]

And if you ever get the feeling to reply (as you usually don't). Just remember when you're writing your reply that your capability for stringing two words together in writing was down to the Labour party (note not new labour). If your feeling too ill to write, please remember that the doctor that you might be seeing at no cost to yourself is because of the Labour party. You might like to know that the Labour party was born out of the Trade Union Movement to give the working man/woman a voice in parliament. Not the reverse as some people believe.

Quite right again bristolborn_and_red, the Labour Party of olde was indeed born out of the Trades Union Movement to give the working man/woman a voice in parliament. Unfortunately, with the likes of Tony Blair running 'New' Labour ordinary people have less of a voice within Blair's ruling 'New' Labour Party.

I'd love to see republicanism back on the Labour Party agenda as in the 1970's but that will not happen with New Labour who seem committed to the Monarchy and also Thatcherite economic thinking. "Work harder, faster, for less pay" while Blair and the Royals and their massive toff/snob entourage enjoy luxury holidays in Australia at our expense. That is the message from 10 Downing Street these days. :@

[bucksred]

Don't agree with unions? I take it that if you are employed, you will stand by your statement and immediately hand back to your employer your annual leave, 8 hour day, pensions rights and any future sick pay. All of which were gained by the sacrifices of generations of union members.

No I don't, because they take you out on strike, and YOU, the workers, lose money, and possibly jobs, while they got nice fat pensions, grace and favour houses, mortgages, cars, loans & chauffer driven limos and tea and medals at every junket going, all at YOU as union members expense. AND theyve cost hundreds of thousands of workers jobs with daft/ill judged/politically motivated strikes over the decades.

Unions aint changed since the days of mass strike action etc etc. The world has moved on from there. Workers unite and all that-you ARE having a giraffe!!! Some countries workers will take your jobs as quick as looking at you-they got families to raise too.

By the way my pay rise aint decided by a union, its done by hard work- get better ones that way than I ever did under a union.

Pensions-B B & B, why should TAXPAYERS who are struggling wi their own pensions have to subsidise outreach workers, co ordinators etc etc? I have to put more into my pension-my company wont (indeed cant, economic conditions aint great)...so should council workers. They don't sub us, so why should we sub them?

Every time this kinda thing happens you will lose more rights anyway-cos theres a globe out there, and Indians, South Africans, Indonesians etc, are nearly as well educated as us, and WILL work for less than an eighth an hour we all work for. Fact. Sadly. Where are the unions on THAT topic?? s'called Globalisation, and aint it wonderful? Not. if you are a low paid worker in Western countries. As we're finding out. to our detriment.

Arthur Scargill, now, wasnt he a great example of union leader eh?????. Talk about LIONS led by a DONKEY!!!!. Now-Joe Gormley on t'other definitely was.Its all, however, in the past. This is the brave new world we live in, and unions gotta realise it. Good innit?

I don't normally take issue with what you say B, B & B, but this time I gotta.

PS Derek Hatton, Red Ken, Margaret Hodge, and George Galloway- all Labour politicians at one time or other-I wouldnt shout too loud about old Labour at times.

[Mr Mosquito]

Arthur Scargill, now, wasnt he a great example of union leader eh?????. Talk about LIONS led by a DONKEY!!!!. Now-Joe Gormley on t'other definitely was.Its all, however, in the past. This is the brave new world we live in, and unions gotta realise it. Good innit?

I don't normally take issue with what you say B, B & B, but this time I gotta.

PS Derek Hatton, Red Ken, Margaret Hodge, and George Galloway- all Labour politicians at one time or other-I wouldnt shout too loud about old Labour at times.

Arthur Scargill was a good sargeant but a rubbish general within the National Union of Mineworkers. Things went down hill rapidly for the NUM when Joe Gormley was deposed and the Thatcher regime took full advantage of the situation. For every turkey like Hatton and Galloway within the old Labour party there were genuine blokes like Harold Wilson, Tony Benn and Eric Heffer that did their best for the ordinary bod. Have a look at the arguments put forward by the ageing Tony Benn on any current internet site - you may not agree with some of them but he leads from the front via his often very original thinking.

[Barrow Boy]

No I don't, because they take you out on strike, and YOU, the workers, lose money, and possibly jobs, while they got nice fat pensions, grace and favour houses, mortgages, cars, loans & chauffer driven limos and tea and medals at every junket going, all at YOU as union members expense. AND theyve cost hundreds of thousands of workers jobs with daft/ill judged/politically motivated strikes over the decades.

Unions aint changed since the days of mass strike action etc etc. The world has moved on from there. Workers unite and all that-you ARE having a giraffe!!! Some countries workers will take your jobs as quick as looking at you-they got families to raise too.

By the way my pay rise aint decided by a union, its done by hard work- get better ones that way than I ever did under a union.

Pensions-B B & B, why should TAXPAYERS who are struggling wi their own pensions have to subsidise outreach workers, co ordinators etc etc? I have to put more into my pension-my company wont (indeed cant, economic conditions aint great)...so should council workers. They don't sub us, so why should we sub them?

Every time this kinda thing happens you will lose more rights anyway-cos theres a globe out there, and Indians, South Africans, Indonesians etc, are nearly as well educated as us, and WILL work for less than an eighth an hour we all work for. Fact. Sadly. Where are the unions on THAT topic?? s'called Globalisation, and aint it wonderful? Not. if you are a low paid worker in Western countries. As we're finding out. to our detriment.

Arthur Scargill, now, wasnt he a great example of union leader eh?????. Talk about LIONS led by a DONKEY!!!!. Now-Joe Gormley on t'other definitely was.Its all, however, in the past. This is the brave new world we live in, and unions gotta realise it. Good innit?

I don't normally take issue with what you say B, B & B, but this time I gotta.

PS Derek Hatton, Red Ken, Margaret Hodge, and George Galloway- all Labour politicians at one time or other-I wouldnt shout too loud about old Labour at times.

Absolutely 100% correct. In fact if you actually look at the rule that is being changed, it is rule 85, it means that you can add your age to your lenght of service and if it reached 85, you can retire. So, if you are 53, worked for 32 years, you can retire on full pension!! That is nothing short of scandelous.

Why should i, and most of the hard working tax paying country, pay for public sector workers? I'm 23, i'll be working until i'm 70. is there any way i can retire early on some ludicrous pension scheme? Join Mr Blairs workforce.

[bucksred]

Arthur Scargill was a good sargeant but a rubbish general within the National Union of Mineworkers. Things went down hill rapidly for the NUM when Joe Gormley was deposed and the Thatcher regime took full advantage of the situation. For every turkey like Hatton and Galloway within the old Labour party there were genuine blokes like Harold Wilson, Tony Benn and Eric Heffer that did their best for the ordinary bod. Have a look at the arguments put forward by the ageing Tony Benn on any current internet site - you may not agree with some of them but he leads from the front via his often very original thinking.

don't like Benns views, but he can at least argue about it. Heffer I remember at an election rally- he was all bluster, and couldnt surprisingly cope that well wi heckling. Thing ya gotta remember Gobbo, your enemy always seeks a weakness, Scargill arrogantly thought he was too good, and got wasted. Trouble is his vanity cost what 100,000 people their livelyhood, and created a poisoned atmosphere whereever mining communities existed- and in places it still exists...there are half a bozen t@ssers like him in the movement today...Bob Crow, Serovka? (I think) to give two examples. never pick a fight with researching your enemy- Thatcher did, and Scargill got his @ss kicked all over the place. Wilson, Callahan, Healey, Churchill- and none were too arrogant to think they couldnt lose, so they didnt. We can but hope B Liar gets his.......

[Dorset_Cider]

Quite right again bristolborn_and_red, the Labour Party of olde was indeed born out of the Trades Union Movement to give the working man/woman a voice in parliament. Unfortunately, with the likes of Tony Blair running 'New' Labour ordinary people have less of a voice within Blair's ruling 'New' Labour Party.

I'd love to see republicanism back on the Labour Party agenda as in the 1970's but that will not happen with New Labour who seem committed to the Monarchy and also Thatcherite economic thinking. "Work harder, faster, for less pay" while Blair and the Royals and their massive toff/snob entourage enjoy luxury holidays in Australia at our expense. That is the message from 10 Downing Street these days. :@

Thing is Gobers........ it would work...... but the problem is you also need to reduce the cost of living and the out goings of the average man to the point where working for less would give you a better standard of living.......... I say tax the rich........... if I were rich instead of good looking....... I'd expect to pay more........ Oh yeah and take away their passports.......... stop em leaving the country.

There is something very wrong when people that are worth millions can pay less in tax than the average (or even lower) wage earner....... oh and all that Yes but they create the jobs is total bollardslocks right......

Hey................ Most of us will drop dead before we get a pension if they have their way but I don't see why we should pay for some council worker to retire at 60 ....... when they expect the likes of the rest of us to pay for it and work on to pay for it...... possibly never being able to provide for our own old age?

[Mr Mosquito]

Thing is Gobers........ it would work...... but the problem is you also need to reduce the cost of living and the out goings of the average man to the point where working for less would give you a better standard of living.......... I say tax the rich........... if I were rich instead of good looking....... I'd expect to pay more........ Oh yeah and take away their passports.......... stop em leaving the country.

There is something very wrong when people that are worth millions can pay less in tax than the average (or even lower) wage earner....... oh and all that Yes but they create the jobs is total bollardslocks right......

Hey................ Most of us will drop dead before we get a pension if they have their way but I don't see why we should pay for some council worker to retire at 60 ....... when they expect the likes of the rest of us to pay for it and work on to pay for it...... possibly never being able to provide for our own old age?

As I've previously mentioned - I'm not even in the crappy local government pension scheme (LGPS). I'll work 'til I drop if I have to - no way do I want to be paying 6% of my salary into the local government pension scheme. I've supported those colleagues in that pension scheme by striking as I am a union member - that's my duty as a union member and I have to abide by union rules. Infinite wants cannot be satisfied by finite resources with regard to living standards. However, a reasonable wage with reasonable retirement income and reasonable housing costs seem to now be just a dream to many of our countrymen and that's what worries me.

Make the royalists pay as they did during the 1650's would be my answer to correcting equality of living standards in present day England.

[Mr Mosquito]

don't like Benns views, but he can at least argue about it. Heffer I remember at an election rally- he was all bluster, and couldnt surprisingly cope that well wi heckling. Thing ya gotta remember Gobbo, your enemy always seeks a weakness, Scargill arrogantly thought he was too good, and got wasted. Trouble is his vanity cost what 100,000 people their livelyhood, and created a poisoned atmosphere whereever mining communities existed- and in places it still exists...there are half a bozen t@ssers like him in the movement today...Bob Crow, Serovka? (I think) to give two examples. never pick a fight with researching your enemy- Thatcher did, and Scargill got his @ss kicked all over the place. Wilson, Callahan, Healey, Churchill- and none were too arrogant to think they couldnt lose, so they didnt. We can but hope B Liar gets his.......

bucksred, I agree with you and I hope you'll take the time to read the following indepth left wing perspective article by Adam Buick of the 'Socialist Party' - he actually has the same viewpoint as you more-or-less - especially with regard to Arthur Scargill. Many people have analysed the Miners' Strike from various political viewpoints but the following is the best I've ever read and is a lesson to us all............

The miners' strike

Twenty-two years ago began one of the most disastrous strikes in the history of the working class in Britain. Not only were the aims of the strike not achieved but the strikers' union was split and reduced to an ineffective rump. It wasn't even a case of living to fight another day.

It used to be said that workers can learn as much from an unsuccessful strike as from a successful one. So what, then, were the main lessons of the 1984/5 miners' strike?

That in the end the logic of capitalism will always win out. The declared aim of the strike was to keep open pits which by capitalism's standards were 'uneconomic', i.e. were not making the going rate of profit (some were not actually unprofitable in the sense of not making a profit, but the profit wasn't big enough compared with what could have been obtained if the capital had been invested elsewhere). A government can keep an 'uneconomic' activity going for strategic reasons that benefit the capitalist class as a whole, such as security of supply, and the coal industry had in fact been maintained at previous levels for this reason while coal was a strategic home energy source for electricity stations to power industry. But, by the 1980s, North Sea oil and gas was being developed as an alternative and cheaper home source of energy and the government had decided that the time had come to stop subsidising the coal industry. In the absence of strategic security-of-supply considerations, no government can afford to tax the capitalist class to pay keep unprofitable production units open, but will be obliged by international competitive pressures to apply the capitalist rule of 'no profit, no production' and close them down.

That no strike can stop a government determined to have its way. Both sides the government and the NUM leadership were aware that the issue of keeping the pits open was going to be a trial of strength. We now know that the government had planned for the show-down well before it occurred, so that it took place on their terms and at a time convenient to them. It was no co-incidence that the government, via the notorious hatchet-man MacGregor they had appointed to run the NCB, provoked the strike at the end of winter when stockpiles had been built up and when the demand for coal would be less.

The NUM leadership openly declared that the aim of the strike was to try to force the government to change its policy (to in effect continue subsidising the coal industry). The NUM President, Arthur Scargill, even unwisely suggested that the aim was to bring about a change of government (as if a Labour government would have behaved any differently, in fact had behaved any differently in the mid-60s when they closed more pits than Thatcher and MacGregor were planning). This provided the government with a weapon to use in the propaganda war to win popular support.

But the government had other weapons in its arsenal, particularly its control of the police force, which was used to contain and ultimately break the strike. Once they had realised that the government was not going to change its mind, the best thing for the NUM to have done would have been to taken the government's superior strength into account and settle on the best terms possible in the circumstances , such as big redundancy payments and perhaps keeping open some of the pits that were making some profit even if less than the going rate.

This would not have been cowardice or betrayal, but a recognition of the harsh fact that under capitalism the workers are a subordinate class with only limited powers to affect the course of events, certainly far less than those of governments, an unequal distribution of power that is at the very basis of capitalism. Trade union activity, including strikes, is necessary as long as capitalism lasts but it can't work wonders. Strikes are essentially a trial of strength, testing the situation; once it has become clear what the respective strengths of the two sides are as can happen fairly rapidly, though not always then both sides know where they stand and a settlement can be negated on that basis. Once it had become clear in the miners' strike that the government was not going to concede and was in fact in the far stronger position, there was no point in going on with the strike.

Don't follow leaders.

The leadership of the NUM, and in particular Scargill (a former member of the Communist Party who had only left it because they backed someone else rather than him in an election for a union post) and the Vice-President, Mick McGahey (a member of the Communist Party), held the view that union activity consisted in an active minority 'giving a lead' to the normally passive majority in the expectation that they would follow.

In other words, they didn't trust the membership. This led to another grave mistake in the NUM's strategy: the refusal to hold a ballot before launching the strike. This was doubly stupid. First, because it provided the government with another propaganda weapon. Second, because a ballot would probably have given a majority for a strike anyway. But consulting the membership and allowing them to have the final say as to whether or not to launch it was not part of the mindset of Scargill and the others: they were leaders and they were going to lead. Ultimately, they led the miners to unnecessary hardship and disaster in a strike that went on for much longer than it need have done.

Calling a national strike without a national strike ballot was contrary to the NUM's rules. It was therefore at least understandable that some miners and union officials should not feel bound by an unconstitutional decision. Thus in Nottingham the majority of miners continued working. The Scargill leadership's response was to sent in pickets to, if it came to it, try to coerce the Nottingham miners into striking. Of course to have any chance of being effective a strike has to be a solid as possible, but coercing workers who could argue a democratic case for not striking at that moment was bound to be counter-productive. Maybe the leaders of the Nottingham miners weren't being sincere and were just using the lack of a ballot as a pretext (most Nottingham pits were profitable), but Scargill's tactics here ultimately led to the break-up of the NUM.

Socialists, as class-conscious workers ourselves, are on the side of our fellow workers involved in industrial disputes with employers, but this does not mean that this is unconditional. Strikes should not be aimed at other groups of workers and should always be run democratically with control remaining in the hands of those making the sacrifice of going on strike; paid union officials should be their servants not their masters or leaders. This doesn't necessarily mean that all decisions have to be taken by secret ballot; decisions could also be taken by democratically-mandated delegates. But whatever the decision-making procedure adopted it should be democratic.

Were these lessons learned? Not by Scargill for one, who went on to set up his own party the SLP with the same leadership-based policies and tactics as the former Communist Party. Many miners, and others too, did, however, learn the hard way that the government is a class government, or, as Marx and Engels put it, 'the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie', and that the function of the police is not to give traffic directions or help old ladies across the road but to enforce the will of the government.

But few drew the conclusion that, if the exploitation and oppression of the working class is to be ended, we need to win control of the machinery of government so as to at least ensure that it is not used against us. In other words, the way forward lies in political action. Industrial action, though necessary from time to time, is essentially only defensive and has severe limitations due to the subordinate position of workers under capitalism. What is needed is political action to usher in a classless society of common ownership and democratic control where production will be for use and not for profit.

ADAM BUICK

The Socialist Party's analysis of the miners' strike. The Strike Weapon: Lessons of the Miners' Strike, published in 1985.

[Dollymarie]

And this used to be such a simple thread.......

[Mr Mosquito]

And this used to be such a simple thread.......

This thread is about trades unions and strikes - an often controversial and complicated topic - read and learn for yourself.

[CiderHider]

No I don't, because they take you out on strike, and YOU, the workers, lose money, and possibly jobs, while they got nice fat pensions, grace and favour houses, mortgages, cars, loans & chauffer driven limos and tea and medals at every junket going, all at YOU as union members expense. AND theyve cost hundreds of thousands of workers jobs with daft/ill judged/politically motivated strikes over the decades.

Unions aint changed since the days of mass strike action etc etc. The world has moved on from there. Workers unite and all that-you ARE having a giraffe!!! Some countries workers will take your jobs as quick as looking at you-they got families to raise too.

By the way my pay rise aint decided by a union, its done by hard work- get better ones that way than I ever did under a union.

Pensions-B B & B, why should TAXPAYERS who are struggling wi their own pensions have to subsidise outreach workers, co ordinators etc etc? I have to put more into my pension-my company wont (indeed cant, economic conditions aint great)...so should council workers. They don't sub us, so why should we sub them?

Every time this kinda thing happens you will lose more rights anyway-cos theres a globe out there, and Indians, South Africans, Indonesians etc, are nearly as well educated as us, and WILL work for less than an eighth an hour we all work for. Fact. Sadly. Where are the unions on THAT topic?? s'called Globalisation, and aint it wonderful? Not. if you are a low paid worker in Western countries. As we're finding out. to our detriment.

Arthur Scargill, now, wasnt he a great example of union leader eh?????. Talk about LIONS led by a DONKEY!!!!. Now-Joe Gormley on t'other definitely was.Its all, however, in the past. This is the brave new world we live in, and unions gotta realise it. Good innit?

I don't normally take issue with what you say B, B & B, but this time I gotta.

PS Derek Hatton, Red Ken, Margaret Hodge, and George Galloway- all Labour politicians at one time or other-I wouldnt shout too loud about old Labour at times.

Well said Bucks,

People in this country somtimes don't know when they are well off, most workers to whom i spoke to over this strike did not have a clue why they were striking, so surely this is the unions, yet again, abusing their powers for their own agenders?

What did this strike actually achive? Apart from costing this country many £millions.?

I think we have it pritty cushy in the UK workwise, Unions know this and know their future existance is likley to be mothballed becuase ironicly they have done themselves out of a job, they have achived what they set out to do.

I'm not convinced we need Unions anymore, we just need competent government and simples laws to ensure ALL workers are treated fair and equally.......

Ahh we're all screwed then!!

[bucksred]

bucksred, I agree with you and I hope you'll take the time to read the following indepth left wing perspective article by Adam Buick of the 'Socialist Party' - he actually has the same viewpoint as you more-or-less - especially with regard to Arthur Scargill. Many people have analysed the Miners' Strike from various political viewpoints but the following is the best I've ever read and is a lesson to us all............

The miners' strike

Twenty-two years ago began one of the most disastrous strikes in the history of the working class in Britain. Not only were the aims of the strike not achieved but the strikers' union was split and reduced to an ineffective rump. It wasn't even a case of living to fight another day.

It used to be said that workers can learn as much from an unsuccessful strike as from a successful one. So what, then, were the main lessons of the 1984/5 miners' strike?

That in the end the logic of capitalism will always win out. The declared aim of the strike was to keep open pits which by capitalism's standards were 'uneconomic', i.e. were not making the going rate of profit (some were not actually unprofitable in the sense of not making a profit, but the profit wasn't big enough compared with what could have been obtained if the capital had been invested elsewhere). A government can keep an 'uneconomic' activity going for strategic reasons that benefit the capitalist class as a whole, such as security of supply, and the coal industry had in fact been maintained at previous levels for this reason while coal was a strategic home energy source for electricity stations to power industry. But, by the 1980s, North Sea oil and gas was being developed as an alternative and cheaper home source of energy and the government had decided that the time had come to stop subsidising the coal industry. In the absence of strategic security-of-supply considerations, no government can afford to tax the capitalist class to pay keep unprofitable production units open, but will be obliged by international competitive pressures to apply the capitalist rule of 'no profit, no production' and close them down.

That no strike can stop a government determined to have its way. Both sides the government and the NUM leadership were aware that the issue of keeping the pits open was going to be a trial of strength. We now know that the government had planned for the show-down well before it occurred, so that it took place on their terms and at a time convenient to them. It was no co-incidence that the government, via the notorious hatchet-man MacGregor they had appointed to run the NCB, provoked the strike at the end of winter when stockpiles had been built up and when the demand for coal would be less.

The NUM leadership openly declared that the aim of the strike was to try to force the government to change its policy (to in effect continue subsidising the coal industry). The NUM President, Arthur Scargill, even unwisely suggested that the aim was to bring about a change of government (as if a Labour government would have behaved any differently, in fact had behaved any differently in the mid-60s when they closed more pits than Thatcher and MacGregor were planning). This provided the government with a weapon to use in the propaganda war to win popular support.

But the government had other weapons in its arsenal, particularly its control of the police force, which was used to contain and ultimately break the strike. Once they had realised that the government was not going to change its mind, the best thing for the NUM to have done would have been to taken the government's superior strength into account and settle on the best terms possible in the circumstances , such as big redundancy payments and perhaps keeping open some of the pits that were making some profit even if less than the going rate.

This would not have been cowardice or betrayal, but a recognition of the harsh fact that under capitalism the workers are a subordinate class with only limited powers to affect the course of events, certainly far less than those of governments, an unequal distribution of power that is at the very basis of capitalism. Trade union activity, including strikes, is necessary as long as capitalism lasts but it can't work wonders. Strikes are essentially a trial of strength, testing the situation; once it has become clear what the respective strengths of the two sides are as can happen fairly rapidly, though not always then both sides know where they stand and a settlement can be negated on that basis. Once it had become clear in the miners' strike that the government was not going to concede and was in fact in the far stronger position, there was no point in going on with the strike.

Don't follow leaders.

The leadership of the NUM, and in particular Scargill (a former member of the Communist Party who had only left it because they backed someone else rather than him in an election for a union post) and the Vice-President, Mick McGahey (a member of the Communist Party), held the view that union activity consisted in an active minority 'giving a lead' to the normally passive majority in the expectation that they would follow.

In other words, they didn't trust the membership. This led to another grave mistake in the NUM's strategy: the refusal to hold a ballot before launching the strike. This was doubly stupid. First, because it provided the government with another propaganda weapon. Second, because a ballot would probably have given a majority for a strike anyway. But consulting the membership and allowing them to have the final say as to whether or not to launch it was not part of the mindset of Scargill and the others: they were leaders and they were going to lead. Ultimately, they led the miners to unnecessary hardship and disaster in a strike that went on for much longer than it need have done.

Calling a national strike without a national strike ballot was contrary to the NUM's rules. It was therefore at least understandable that some miners and union officials should not feel bound by an unconstitutional decision. Thus in Nottingham the majority of miners continued working. The Scargill leadership's response was to sent in pickets to, if it came to it, try to coerce the Nottingham miners into striking. Of course to have any chance of being effective a strike has to be a solid as possible, but coercing workers who could argue a democratic case for not striking at that moment was bound to be counter-productive. Maybe the leaders of the Nottingham miners weren't being sincere and were just using the lack of a ballot as a pretext (most Nottingham pits were profitable), but Scargill's tactics here ultimately led to the break-up of the NUM.

Socialists, as class-conscious workers ourselves, are on the side of our fellow workers involved in industrial disputes with employers, but this does not mean that this is unconditional. Strikes should not be aimed at other groups of workers and should always be run democratically with control remaining in the hands of those making the sacrifice of going on strike; paid union officials should be their servants not their masters or leaders. This doesn't necessarily mean that all decisions have to be taken by secret ballot; decisions could also be taken by democratically-mandated delegates. But whatever the decision-making procedure adopted it should be democratic.

Were these lessons learned? Not by Scargill for one, who went on to set up his own party the SLP with the same leadership-based policies and tactics as the former Communist Party. Many miners, and others too, did, however, learn the hard way that the government is a class government, or, as Marx and Engels put it, 'the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie', and that the function of the police is not to give traffic directions or help old ladies across the road but to enforce the will of the government.

But few drew the conclusion that, if the exploitation and oppression of the working class is to be ended, we need to win control of the machinery of government so as to at least ensure that it is not used against us. In other words, the way forward lies in political action. Industrial action, though necessary from time to time, is essentially only defensive and has severe limitations due to the subordinate position of workers under capitalism. What is needed is political action to usher in a classless society of common ownership and democratic control where production will be for use and not for profit.

ADAM BUICK

The Socialist Party's analysis of the miners' strike. The Strike Weapon: Lessons of the Miners' Strike, published in 1985.

In all the rwams and reams of stuff written about that strike, that has to be one of the very few intelligent pieces I have ever seen. Well done Mr Goblin. Cracking read.

And that is the first time for thirty years I have agreed with a Socialist, about anything. Hopefully a few of you budding socialists read and learn.

[Mr Mosquito]

In all the rwams and reams of stuff written about that strike, that has to be one of the very few intelligent pieces I have ever seen. Well done Mr Goblin. Cracking read.

And that is the first time for thirty years I have agreed with a Socialist, about anything. Hopefully a few of you budding socialists read and learn.

Indeed it was a cracking read and Arthur Scargill was exposed as a communist with a very selfish agenda in that article. Strikes should be used as a weapon of last resort and not as a weapon to bring down an elected government was one of the points made. Interesting to note that coal mining was seen as a strategic industry to supply energy prior to the gas that was found in the North Sea. The Labour Party of the 1960's had shut more coal pits than the Tory Thatcher regime of the 1980's originally intended to close. The gas is now running out and becoming very expensive, so will a future government re-open the coal pits to supply our energy needs?

I actually stumbled across that article by accident while perusing the net for Police piccies from the miners' strike. Below is the very famous Police piccie that accompanies the above article from the 'Socialist Party' - that I'd actually never before heard of.......