Chapter 03: A continuation of the chronology: late 60s to early 70s

Submitted by Red Marriott on July 4, 2009

[center]Chapter 3:
A continuation of the chronology: late 60s to early 70s

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...1969 wildcats...In Place Of Strife...1970 wildcats...
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In 1969, whilst productivity had risen greatly, basic wage-rates (i.e. not counting overtime and bonuses) for some mineworkers were below the official DHSS subsistence level. Relocation was proving a reliable method of keeping down wages – in some areas, only a small proportion of 'relocated' miners were paid as much as in their previous location. The rates of surface workers were such that overtime was effectively forced.

In October 1969, a wave of wildcat strikes over pay and the long hours of surface workers hit Yorkshire, Scotland, South Wales and the Midlands – encouraged by the movement forcing the withdrawal of the Labour government's In Place of Strife [7], as well as by the global atmosphere of class struggle at the end of the 60s. This strike involved the first widespread use of flying pickets – squads of cars, mini-buses and buses directed onto pre-determined targets with five, six, seven hundred miners at a time. For the first time since 1926 a strike had spread across the boundaries of a coalfield. At its height it involved 130,000 miners from 140 pits across Britain. The NUM general secretary at the time, Lawrence Daly, called for the strikers to return to work. Amazingly the NCB agreed to the wage demands in full (though not the issue of long hours) – which was unprecedented. However, not wanting to admit that it had been forced by an unofficial strike, stressed that the wage-rise had already been agreed upon before the strike had begun. The NUM president, Sidney Ford, called for an immediate return to work, but the strikers understood their own power and stayed out on strike. In several areas, non-union strike committees were organised. The NUM had lost a lot of its authority. A special delegate conference was held by the union (with a recommendation to return to work) to try to take the heat out of the movement. The NUM leadership then arranged for the non-union strike committees to meet the TUC, who promised an 'inquiry' into the hours of safety-workers if the strike was called off. Obviously non-union strike committees can be as imbued with their own leadership role as much as union ones, and at the end of the 60s such unofficial committees were generally the organisation of branch union officials only, who were pushed forward as representatives by the strike movement to consolidate and extend the concessions won (such leadership roles are made possible by the lack of confidence of those who follow.) Arthur Scargill, then a Labour Party member and ex-member of the Young Communist League, was one of them. The left of the NUM had shown its capacity for organisation.

In October 1970, a national NUM ballot achieved a majority (55%) in favour of a strike, which was less than the necessary ⅔ majority. Wildcats broke out. At one point some 103,000 miners from 116 pits were on strike. The NCB upped its offer. The C.P. was losing control of the strike it had hitherto been able to organise – other State capitalist organisations were attacking the CP in order to further their own bureaucratic aims. The chairman of the NCB denounced 'hooliganism' and a section of the bureaucracy tried to vigorously recuperate the strikes through half-feigned opposition to the NUM old guard, with the aim of reforming the union. The Stalinist McGahey urged miners to try to change the bit in the union rule about a ⅔ majority being necessary before the union could officialise a strike. Leftists opposed a further ballot and called for a special delegate conference, a very well-tried method for British unions to try to recuperate base action by means of emphasising the democratic nature of trade unionism – low-level bureaucrats being allowed a voice, unions being able to be influenced in their recommendations by base action. The left of the bureaucracy was gaining ground – through a rank and file trade unionism which had a critique of sell-outs and with the aim of democratising the union, along with having a "more representative" stratum of middle-level bureaucrats. It was a reform that balanced the conservative function of trade unions with the desire and confidence developing amongst miners - it was more a genuine representation of the contradictions of the mining community than the way the old style-Stalinists and the right wing of the Union had controlled things in the union since World War II. So the main result of the strike was a compromised change of the rule-book to making a strike official if it got 55% of the vote.

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