Exhibition review: On The Line: 100 years of strikes & solidarity (2026)

Exhibition Review from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

A hundred years on the line – People’s History Museum, Manchester

This month is the centenary of the General Strike, which took place from 4 to 12 May 1926. An exhibition ‘On the Line’ is being held at the People’s History Museum in Manchester until November. It consists of banners, photos, pamphlets and leaflets relating to strikes and other workers’ struggles over the last hundred years.

The earliest item on display is a banner ‘Union and Victory’ from the Great London Dock Strike of 1899. There is relatively little on the General Strike itself, but there are photos of soup kitchens, military convoys, and polo players enrolled as special constables policing the streets on horseback. Also, a copy of a pamphlet, written by a barrister, on what to do when arrested.

Among the other disputes covered are the UCS work-in in Glasgow in 1971, Grunwick in 1977, Orgreave in 1984, the ambulance workers’ strike in 1989, and the Liverpool dockers’ strike in 1996. As would be expected, there is a lot of material relating to the miners’ strike of 1984-5. This includes Women Against Pit Closures, with a photo of women in Barnsley supporting the miners, and a T-shirt from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (‘Pits and Perverts’ is the slogan). A strike at an Amazon warehouse in Coventry from 2023 is recalled with a robot costume: workers felt they were being treated like robots. There is documentation of recent strikes, such as those by couriers and delivery workers, and last year’s strike by resident doctors. From 1972 there is a poster about four workers arrested on a picket line, a reminder of the possible consequences of workers defending their pay and conditions. A 1986 poster ‘Murdoch is bad news’ captures the role of the capitalist media in undermining workers’ struggles.

As noted in the exhibition, Stanley Baldwin, PM at the time, described the General Strike as ‘the road to anarchy and ruin’. The 1927 Trade Disputes and Trades Unions Act, passed in response to the strike, prohibited mass picketing among other forms of resistance. The TUC ended the strike without an agreement; the miners stayed out for another seven months before being forced to return to work.

The June 1926 Socialist Standard responded to the ending of the strike by commenting, ‘The greatest Trade Union action that was ever taken in any country was closed by the most gigantic swindle in the whole history of Trade Unionism.’ It then went on to criticise other organisations’ reaction, such as the ‘Communist’ Party. There was no point, the article argued, in preferring left-wing over right-wing leaders: the very idea of leaders and leadership should be rejected. Trust in leaders was not a good idea: ‘Trust and ye shall be betrayed’. The strike itself was seen as ‘a sham fight’.

The exhibition as a whole is well worth visiting, and gives a good, if necessarily only partial, idea of industrial actions over the last century. Of course, such struggles are still needed, as workers do their best to resist the exploitation and oppression of capitalism.

Paul Bennett

50 Years Ago: The General Strike (2026)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

On its 50th anniversary the tales of the General Strike, real and legendary, will be told. The strike action of those Trade Unionists and others who took part was not based on a clear recognition of the position of the workers under capitalism and the class struggle resulting therefrom. The workers were not class-conscious, and therefore their actions were not a challenge to the existence of capitalism. Nevertheless, under the present order workers have to defend their living standards against their employers, and to that extent the General Strike must rank as a landmark in the history of the British working class; as the most determined display of solidarity we have seen this century. That is encouraging to the Socialist — if workers can unite on one issue for a limited purpose, they can certainly unite on the greater issue of Socialism. “Unity is strength”, and “A house divided against itself shall fall” (…)

Writing about the Strike fifty years later, what lessons were learned by the workers? Have they abandoned the idea of leadership inside or outside the Unions? The answer is no. Has the Trade Union organization and the TUC undergone a change of attitude on the question of class co-operation? Again, the answer is no. If anything, Trade Unions have become more insular: more concerned with the narrow issues affecting their individual members. They are completely steeped in capitalist ideology. Their world begins and ends with their members’ interests, not with the interests of the working class as a whole. The TUC is nothing other than a political wing of the present Labour government. Those who think in terms of a successful general strike with Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, Len Murray, and the other untalented servants of capital, in place of J. H. Thomas, Swales, Hicks, Tillett and Pugh, etc. are deluding themselves. The present Trade Unions are hopelessly compromised with the Labour government, and this is to their disadvantage. They are expected to co-operate on wage reductions, redundancy policies, wage freezes, and hosts of other schemes which are of direct help to the capitalists. But the general strike is not a means or an aid to the establishment of Socialism. Joint action by groups of Unions against groups of employers can achieve benefits or prevent living standards from being depressed. This is the most that can be expected. The capitalist class will not, nor cannot, succumb to any other form of economic pressure as long as they control the State machine.

[From the article. 'The General Strike' by Jim D'Arcy, Socialist Standard, May 1976.]

Editorial: Break-up of the Trade Union International? (1948)

Editorial from the October 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the incidents of the Trades Union Congress at Margate was an angry speech by Mr. Arthur Deakin denouncing the Russians for their efforts to dominate the World Federation of Trade Unions and to use it simply as a platform for Russian Government policies. It is taken to mean that the perpetual wrangling that has paralysed the W.F.T.U. since it was formed in 1945 may end in the withdrawal of the British T.U.C. along with the American C.I.O. and other non-Communist unions. This would only give organisational effect to a deep cleavage that already exists and give us two Internationals, one ostensibly representing the workers in Russia and her satellites and the other the workers in Western Europe, America and the British Dominions. “Ostensibly representing the workers” has to be used for the sake of accuracy because the W.F.T.U. and many of its affiliated bodies have moved far from the old idea of an international organisation controlled by trade unions and directly representing their vague aspirations towards international working class solidarity.

The old International Federation of Trade Unions, in the forty or more years of its chequered history, did some good work within the limits set by the political backwardness and nationalistic outlook of the affiliated unions. Disrupted by the first world war, weakened by the enforced withdrawal of Italian and German unions when those countries came under dictatorship, and for long the object of Communist enmity and attempted destruction, it nevertheless survived until in 1945 the much more ambitious plans were evolved to form a World Federation of Trade Unions to include the Russians and others not in the I.F.T.U. With all its faults and limitations the old I.F.T.U. was an organisation that consistently accepted the principle that a trade union is a voluntary independent organisation of workers, controlled by themselves, and existing for the purpose of waging the struggle of the wage-earners against the employers. Now the workers movement has moved backwards and trade unions have increasingly become organisations closely bound up with and giving expression to governmental policies. The extreme case is, of course, that of the so-called unions in Russia and Russian-controlled countries, where the idea of a trade union expressing views independent of those imposed by the Government is unthinkable ; but even where the Unions can legally be independent bodies, as in this country, it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish between the policies of union executives and those of governments.

While that condition continues a trade union International is almost superfluous, a mere duplication of governments. It was, therefore, almost inevitable that, just as the Labour Parties of Western Europe have no connection with the international Communist organisation, so the trade unions of the world would be divided according to the division of world governments.

The dissensions in the World Federation of Trade Unions have partly been concerned with Marshall Aid and partly with the question of the degree of autonomy that the International Trade Departments (i.e. the occupational internationals such as the Miners’ International, Transport Workers’ International, etc.) should retain inside the world organisation of national bodies like the Trades Union Congress, but this was only the form not the substance of the conflict. The real issue has always been whether non-Communist unions could usefully associate with government-controlled Communist bodies in Russia and elsewhere. It now seems probable that the attempt will be abandoned and the groups form rival trade union federations.

It is another reminder that internationalism is not something that can be created out of optimistically drafted paper constitutions in advance of the workers’ understanding.

The Dispute in the Textile Trades (1932)

From the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

In January, 1931, the Textile employers declared a lock-out over wages and the attempt to secure the introduction of the more-looms-to-a-weaver system. The workers put up a stronger resistance than the employers had anticipated (all the stronger because the trade union members resolutely refused to give their officials power to negotiate), and on February 16th the lock-out was withdrawn. The employers continued to press this year for wage reductions and more looms—and on July 25th a strike began at Burnley, followed on August 29th by a general stoppage of work by the weavers. After a dispute lasting for a month, work was resumed on September 28th, most of the strikers being taken on again. The terms were a heavy defeat for the workers; wages are reduced by about eight-and-a-half per cent. (1s. 8½d. in the £), the more-looms system is to be introduced as soon as a Conciliation Committee is appointed, which is expected to be within two months, and the provision for reinstating strikers is most unsatisfactory. The Employers’ central organisation is merely bound “to recommend its local associations strongly to persuade all their members to offer employment as speedily as possible to all operatives who have been displaced.” How unsatisfactory this is will be seen from the fact that one of the questions at issue in the general dispute was the employers’ refusal to reinstate strikers already out at Burnley.

Part of the weakness of the textile workers is plainly due to disunity and faulty organisation. The Weavers’ Amalgamation consists at present of 36 district associations, each of which has complete autonomy and can act independently of the others. One of the results of the strike failure is a renewed move to form the 36 associations into one centralised union. On the other hand, the Nelson Weavers’ Association is balloting on s proposal to withdraw from the amalgamation because of dissatisfaction with the settlement, and at Burnley a new local union has been formed in opposition to the Burnley Weavers’ Association, which is also a local organisation. The new union is stressing the principles (embodied in its rules) that “no strike will be initiated or ended without members meeting” and “members’ decision in any dispute shall be final” (Manchester Guardian, October 17th). One of the provisional officials said that the members thought it would be easier to form a new body than to reform the old, and that considerable support is being given among the weavers.

A still further cause of weakness is the failure of the textile workers as a whole to act together. Emboldened by their victory over the weavers the employers then pressed their demand for reductions of pay of the spinners. At first the employers declared that on no consideration whatever would, they agree to a smaller reduction than 1s. 8½d. in the £ (the figure accepted by the weavers in their settlement).

The unions had already agreed (Manchester Guardian, October 19th) to accept a reduction of 9¾d. in the £, and when a lock-out was threatened for Monday, October 24th, a settlement was reached on the basis of a reduction of 1s. 6½d in the £.

One lesson of these disputes is obvious. The workers cannot hope to put up the maximum resistance that conditions will allow if they are hopelessly divided, giving the employers the opportunity of depleting their funds by sectional disputes and defeating them piecemeal.

Edgar Hardcastle

BA strike at Warton (1984)

From the October 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

For three weeks during the height of summer the local communities where the employees of the Warton Division of British Aerospace live were buzzing with talk of “the strike". This is the time of year when most of the local carnivals are held, when brass bands, rosebud competitions, Morris dancing and a host of other pleasant things are supposed to put all thoughts of discord and strife into the background. This strike, however, was not the miners' strike, which is still with us, but involved so-called white-collar staff, members of AUEW-TASS. Compared to the prolonged miners' dispute the local Warton affair inevitably looks small beer. It only just managed to reach the national press, its start and finish being briefly reported in a few inside page sentences. The idea of white collar workers with degrees and smooth, uncalloused hands withdrawing their labour was almost unthinkable a generation ago. Times have indeed changed. Earlier this year a similar strike at Westlands, the helicopter firm based at Yeovil, lasted four weeks. The GCHQ situation at least shows how civil service employees have become unionised. The writer can even recall a long dispute involving the drawing office at Handley Page in the late 1950s, but that was really exceptional for those times.

Since 1970 when certain departments at Warton organised under the TASS banner there have been a series of actions such as go-slows and one-day stoppages, so that the final resort to a strike should have surprised no one. The situation which escalated quickly into a major confrontation started with a course of computer software training. Many who were put on this course came from the production side (the factory floor), reflecting the increasing importance of newer branches of technology in comparison with traditional industrial skills. As a result of the long period during which the shop floor unions have exhibited greater militancy, newly trained operators transferred from production were found in many cases to be on higher rates of pay than workers with some years experience of computer software operation. This led the union ( TASS) to demand a pay adjustment and the employers in turn to stall, saying that this could not be considered until the next round of pay negotiations at the end of the year. TASS then applied a policy of refusing to operate what was termed "new technology”. The company- responded by suspending those who refused to perform tasks within their job descriptions. The next TASS move was rather more controversial; suspended members were temporarily appointed as union officials and thus remained on site although not working, contrary to company rules on suspensions. A strike became inevitable when this breach of rules was used as an excuse to sack workers, but a stoppage would obviously have occurred anyway had the suspension policy been carried to its logical conclusion. The point here is that the company was in fact disciplining individuals for taking part in a collective industrial action.

The strike ended after a package had been agreed including unconditional reinstatement of all sacked and suspended employees but on the question of pay only offering to accelerate talks on a new structure. It still remains to be seen whether anything will be gained in the end. At the time rumours were rife that the employers planned to reduce the workforce and had engineered the strike situation to help towards this end. The projected merger with GEC was mentioned as a possible reason for a policy of contraction. However the current situation was that short term commitments had led to contract labour being employed in certain areas. Unless it was proposed to back out of these contracts the firm could scarcely consider losing the suspended workers permanently, contract labour being considerably more expensive. There is also the brain drain of young able workers to more lucrative contract work overseas. Israel. West Germany and the United States are the most popular places at present. Here the firm is probably unable and certainly unwilling to compete. Therefore it was always likely that reinstatement would be the outcome. Where however TASS do appear to have been successful is in disproving the persistent idea, widely held outside the actual membership, that despite all the evidence accumulated over the previous 14 years, the union need not be taken seriously. One head of department put it like this: "When their wives hear that there will be no pay packet next week, they will clonk them one and that will sort it all out”.

By comparison with the miners' strike certain similarities and also certain differences can be noted. The former are the more fundamental but there is value in discussing points from both categories. There have been some strikes which arose purely from sectional rivalry and which were not in the interests of the working class. The great majority, however, are directly attributable to the subject status of the workers under capitalism. There is no other means open to the workers to gain access to the means of living than to sell their labour power to the capitalists in return for a wage or salary. There is an inevitable struggle to increase the price of this labour power (and reduce the capitalist's profit margin resulting from the difference between wages and the value of the work actually performed) sometimes by striking or otherwise producing more slowly than the employers wish. Viewed like this there is no basic difference between the Warton strike and any others.

Indeed it can be argued that in one respect Warton actually puts one over the current miners’ dispute. The NUM protest centres on pit closures and impinges on reformist politics by implicitly arguing for a different energy policy (a greater use of coals from seams harder and therefore more expensive to mine) from that favoured by the government. On the other hand TASS has compromised itself in the recent past by joining hands with the employers in begging for government funding for new aircraft projects. As the Lytham St Annes Express put it (19 July 1984):

It is perhaps ironic that many of the men and women who went on strike in Warton's "Black June" were among those who fought most fiercely to aid the “Save British Aerospace" campaign launched last year.

And while no violence occurred. Warton saw both picketing and a police presence which the strikers rightly regarded as provocative. Generally speaking lorry drivers turned back of their own accord when they saw the official picket line. The refusal of drivers to deliver aircraft fuel led to a request from the firm that different drivers be sent next time! In the main the only awkward ones (who insisted on going in) were from small local firms staffed by non-union labour.

The differences arose largely from the inexperience of the strikers. Whereas miners from bitter experience have come to expect fairly frequent strikes and make communal provisions to ease the inevitable hardship, the Warton technicians had never really faced up to the possibility and had mostly made commitments to house purchase and so on which assumed continuation of current levels of finance well into the future. At Warton lack of solidarity was also apparent although in a somewhat different form to the NUM. The problem for TASS has been its inability to recruit members evenly throughout the technical area. In areas where membership was weak, those who were in the union tended to drift back after a few days and hand in their union cards. This sort of situation has obvious dangers as it opens the way for the employers to maintain a tolerable level of work overall by transferring labour from non-union departments. Contingency plans to do this were allegedly in preparation, but the virtually complete solidarity of the strike within the drawing office and among all but the newest recruits in the stress office meant a virtual halt to design work. But greater solidarity will obviously be necessary before a longer stoppage could be contemplated.

So-called junior management were put into an unusual position by the strike. These are group leaders whose job it is to decide on the share of work within their area of responsibility. Consequently their decisions could directly lead to suspensions. Yet whatever title they are given they are clearly members of the working class in no fundamentally different position to those whose efforts they supervise. Indeed many have recognised this to the extent of trying to organise themselves within TASS in what are termed Senior Staff Branches. During the Warton strike the local senior staff branch found itself unable to join and limited itself to advising members not to undertake work normally done by those on strike. This naturally caused some resentment among the strikers who expected fuller support from fellow union members, but the membership of what is known locally as Supertass is not yet widespread enough to adequately protect individuals who may have been disciplined by the employers. The main point here is that there is a growing recognition by sections of the working class who have previously adopted superior "middle class" attitudes, that they are in fact in basically the same position in society as the rest of their class. Maybe organising within different branches (effectively not greatly different from being in different unions) is not a good idea, but a further development of this encouraging trend will reduce the friction which has developed. A revealing incident occurred when the chief stressman criticised group leaders because fewer TASS members had been suspended in his department than elsewhere. "I get the feeling that you aren't going to do this, but it’s your job to do it" he said.

One of the things highlighted by the dispute was the persistence of the idea that a solution could be found that would not only end the immediate conflict but prevent any confrontations in the future. Those who talked like this, as though the strike had arisen only because of stupidity on both sides, were ignoring the class structure of capitalism where capital and labour clash as buyers and sellers of labour power and capital lives on the difference between what labour produces and receives. An illustration of this ignorance was the objections raised to making an interim payment to bring the more disadvantaged workers up to the level of those transferred from the shop floor. This, it was argued, would merely lead to other groups claiming they were hard done by, taking action themselves and the process would never stop. Internecine struggles often take place as one section of workers seek to keep another in their place. At Warton some strikers tended to sec the issue in these narrow terms rather than as part of a larger inevitable conflict. Expanding class-consciousness. backed up with the intensive efforts on the political field by the Socialist Party, will ensure that the bitterness between various sections of the working class gives way to an unshakeable realisation of the essentially common interests of all workers everywhere.

E C Edge

Trade Unionism, Wherin it Fails, and How it can be Rendered Effective. (1905)

From the September 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many are the discussions that have taken place on this subject between Socialists and non-Soeialists alike. The question is, does Trade Unionism as we know it in Great Britain, help or hinder the development of the workers into class-conscious Socialists ?

The answer undoubtedly is that it materially hinders it. It does not necessarily follow that because any Trade Union or body of Trade Unionists elect a supposed Socialist to an official position that Union has progressed in a Socialist direction. On the contrary, it is generally because this particular individual has swallowed those Socialist principles he may have understood, or because it is hoped his election to office may close his mouth and cause him to refrain from the fearless advocacy of Socialism within the Union and the exposure of the unsound position in which Unionism stands today that he is elected. It is then, not the capacity for securing jobs that is the test of Socialist activity, but the number of Union members who understand the root principles— economic, political, and historical—of Socialism, and are prepared to take action consistent with that knowledge.

Let us briefly examine what has come to be known as

“PURE AND SIMPLE” TRADE UNIONISM

with the object of seeing whether Socialists can honestly support it.

Socialism implies a knowledge of the class war which is being waged between the working-class on the one hand and the capitalist-class on the other, a war which can only be fought out by labour organised in a proper manner.The “pure and simple” Unions do not organise workers for that struggle.

Paradoxical as this may seem, it is nevertheless the fact. In evidence let us take what is generally considered the wealthiest and most powerful union in the country the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.

In the Annual Report of this Union for 1904 we find an increase of 703 members. This is the smallest increase since the days of the eight hours strike, a significant fact in view of the development in recent years of the motor industry. Mr. Geo. Barnes, the general secretary of the A.S.E.—fairly well known to readers of this journal as one of the many “labour leaders” who delight in rendering assistance to the capitalist-class wherever possible emphasises this significance and urges upon existing members the importance of securing fresh members. But as the report shows, 4,517 have been excluded from membership ! These are men who, by the aid of improved machinery, continually being introduced, can do work that previously only highly trained men could do. They can work for less money, and the A.S.E. excludes them therefore. All over London this spectacle of a Union working its own destruction by the

MANUFACTURE OF POTENTIAL BLACKLEGS

can be observed, while at the same time in the shops of Harland and Wolff of Belfast, A.S.E. members themselves act as blacklegs to the electrical workers by working under price, and this after having refused to undertake the organisation of the electrical workers, who are really engaged in a branch of the engineering industry !

In the slate club (or coffin club) side of this Union impending disaster is again apparent. It returns a monthly average of 5,427 unemployed members, 2,444 in sick benefit, while 4,696 are superannuated. Altogether a total of 12,567 members drawing upon the financial resources of the Society. On the year’s working the average income per member is shown to be £3 15s. 9½d. against an average expenditure of £3 16s. 1d. !

The case of the Operative Bricklayers’ Society is not more inspiring. During last year they lost 2,333 members, and the returns of the preceding three years show decreases also. The amount expended in strikes and lockouts for 1904 was £5,105 5s. 11½d. in excess of the previous year, while sick, funeral, and superannuation funds all have increases on the expenditure side. The jealous eye with which the bricklayers regard the masons, plasterers, and even the labourers, and the disputes which the Unions of these trades have engaged in, do not compel the conclusion that the O.B.S. is desirous that all workers in the trade should be in their Union, but even if it could secure the additional membership for which it is asking, on its present base it could not escape bankruptcy unless subscriptions were raised considerably. An appreciable increase of subscription, however, would inevitably result in the withdrawal of many existing members through sheer inability to pay, and the last condition of the Union, therefore, would be as bad as the first.

A further instance of how

PRESENT TRADE UNIONISM DISORGANISES

the workers can be found in the six organisations which the builders’ labourers consider necessary in London. These, together with the three other unskilled workers organisations also existing, necessitate the payment in the London district alone, in salaries, rent, etc., of eight times the amount that would otherwise be sufficient. In addition, of course, an enormous quantity of quite unnecessary work is caused, and much jealousy and strife engendered. Attempts at amalgamation have, it is true, been made, but without result, the officials of existing Unions being in the nature of things opposed to alterations that would affect them detrimentally, although Mr. Davenport, the general secretary of the United Order of General Labourers—the Union that opposed federation about three years ago—has fathered a scheme of his own. However, as the principle plank in his platform seemed to be the appointment of himself to the post of secretary at £3 10s. per week, the idea was not taken up with enthusiasm.

All the evidence, therefore, points to the fact that the existence of the Unions grows more and more precarious owing to the inability of Trade Unionists to appreciate the requirements of industrial warfare. Assailed on the one hand by capitalism, and on the other by the competition of the ever increasing number of men whom the Unions will not admit, they cannot in their present form survive. The question therefore arises:—

CAN THE UNIONS BE OF SERVICE

to the working-class ?

The answer is undoubtedly yes. But their object must be the organisation of the working-class, not a select two millions out of an adult working-class population of sixteen millions as at present. All the members of the trade, whether they can pay dues or not, whether they be unemployed or not, must be taken in. Otherwise the Union will, as previously pointed out, be creating its own blacklegs. Moreover, organisation must involve the closest of associations between members of allied trades, otherwise, as happened in the case of the Operative Bricklayers’ Society—which records 67 disputes to maintain trade customs, and four actions against reductions in wages during last year—we have the effect of any action nullified by the workers in allied trades remaining at work while the strike is in progress. The workers must be organised on a class war basis, that is, on the principle that there is and can only be, hostility between labour and capital. They must be organised to fight, not to form committees after the manner of the Bricklayers’ Society for “closer union” with the employers—surely as absurd a proceeding in view of the fact that this Society expended about £6,000 last year in struggles against the encroachments of these same employers, as it is possible to conceive.

The position of Socialist Trade Unionists is clear. They should, it seems to me, endeavour to effect the

SOUND ECONOMIC ORGANISATION

of the workers by systematic propaganda of Socialism inside existing Unions—a work which, it must be remembered, has, hitherto, never been seriously undertaken, in the result should it be found that the “pure and simple” element, aided and abetted by Trade Union leaders, many of whom are interested in maintaining the present sectionalism among the workers, and are, as can easily be demonstrated, consciously playing the capitalists’ game, are too recalcitrant for satisfactory progress to be made, there will be no other alternative left than that of forming separate Socialist Trade Unions and crushing the existing Unions from the outside.

Trade Unions will play an important part, perhaps the most important, in the overthrow of the capitalist-class and system. The political party of the workers,—the S.P.G.B—while building up the political side, bears in mind the fact that both are essential. As we get nearer and nearer to the time when there will be a Socialist majority on the administrative bodies, particularly the executive of the nation, the capitalist-class will not sit quietly and watch themselves legislated out of existence. When we

REMEMBER FEATHERSTONE

Hull, Michelstown and Grimsby it stands to reason that they will oppose by all the means in their power the attempt of the class-conscious workers to capture the State machinery in working-class interests, and undoubtedly if the Trade Unions have not achieved their highest purpose—capacity and readiness for the organisation of production and the carrying on of industry—they will, when the Socialist working-class have secured their majority, endeavour to effect a counter revolution by closing down all works of importance.

Therefore it is all important that the economic organisations of the working-class should be as sound as their political organisations. Neither can be sound unless founded upon a clear recognition of the causes underlying and

THE REMEDY FOR PRESENT CONDITIONS.

Well grounded upon knowledge and thoroughly organised, the working-class, in the day when they have attained to the position of the dominant class in the legislature, need have no fear of any measures the capitalist-class may take in their endeavours to secure themselves a longer lease of life. They will be able to take over and work the industries of the country which the capitalist system itself is even now rapidly ripening for the change in face of any difficulties capitalism may attempt to thrown in the way, and so usher in the Socialist Republic.

E. J. B. Allen

50 Years Ago: The Five Jailed Dockers (2022)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The dockers are worried about their jobs, or rather about the drop in standard of living they will suffer if they lose them. Since 1967 the number of dockers has fallen by a third, from 60,000 to 40,000, mainly as a result of the so-called container revolution. One aspect of this problem has been that much container work, even in dock areas, has been done by workers other than dockers, some non-union, some members of other unions, but all generally at lower wages.

It is the policy of the dockers’ unions, the Transport and General Workers Union and the rival National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers (expelled from the TUC in 1959 for ‘poaching’ TGWU members), that the work should be done by dockers, at dockers’ wages. To this end, the dockers have taken various forms of industrial action, official and unofficial, legal and illegal, from blacking container firms to a national docks strike.

A number of the blacked container firms took the TGWU and some of the shop stewards (from both unions) to the National Industrial Relations Court complaining that the blacking was an ‘unfair industrial practice’. The Court agreed: the TGWU was fined at least £55,000 and, eventually, five dockers sent to prison for ‘contempt of Court’.

The reaction to the jailings shows that working-class, or at least trade-union, solidarity still exists. Besides other dockers, thousands of newspaper workers, miners, train drivers and others (including those at the blacked Midland Cold Storage depot) stopped work. Such was the pressure that even the TUC would have called a one-day general strike of all its ten million members if the five dockers hadn’t been released, an unprecedentedly daring move from the Knights of Congress House. And of course they were released, obviously as a result of this working-class resistance. The government itself may not have directly influenced the Courts, but the workers on strike did. The House of Lords and NIRC were left with no alternative but to hurriedly concoct some legal excuse for letting the men out.

This was a successful defensive action by the working class and one which the Socialist Party of Great Britain welcomes just as we would have supported the one-day TUC general strike.

(Socialist Standard, September 1972)

Editorial: The Printing Dispute (1959)

Editorial from the August 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the ordinary trade union point of view of a struggle to enforce more pay and shorter hours, the printers' strike seems to have been well conceived and executed and well timed.

The claim was for a 10 per cent. increase of pay and a reduction of 3½ hours, from 43½ to 40. After lengthy negotiations the employers offered 2½ per cent. and 1 hour, but tied up the offer with a long list of demands for the reorganisation of the industry to increase production. The Unions rejected this offer and rejected also the employers manoeuvre of trying to get them to take the claim to arbitration. Having taken a ballot of their members the printing unions came out on strike on June 17th, over 100,000 men and women being involved. The dispute affected the Newspaper Society and the British Federation of Master Printers, but not the Newspaper Proprietors' Association or the Scottish Daily Newspaper Society, so while the Provincial newspapers, the magazines and periodicals and general printers were brought to a standstill the national and Sunday papers and London evening papers carried on, as did a certain number of firms which accepted the Unions' demands. A second dispute affecting printing ink threatened to stop the other papers, but this was avoided.

The timing was favourable for the workers because trade was recovering from the depression, unemployment was falling and the imminence of a general election made the employers, the Government and the big political parties worried lest a long-drawn out strike should hold up the very big volume of literature of various kinds needed for the election.

In the third week of the strike, discussions started under the chairmanship of Lord Birkett. Towards the end of July, at our time of going to press, the employers made an improved offer, of 3½ per cent. increase of pay, and a reduction of 1½ hours. The unions rejected this. They considered that the substantial concessions they were prepared to make to make to increase productivity justified more than 3½ per cent. on pay and at least an undertaking of a further reduction of hours at a later date. Settlement was then Expected at 4½ per cent. proposed by Lord Birkett.

The Sanctimonious “Guardian”

The dispute produced several surprising, diverting and instructive incidents. As was to be expected the Manchester Guardian led the Press in its sanctimonious comment of June 13th, laying down the usual employers' line that everyone believes in the right of the workers to strike so long as they never exercise the right:

The right to strike is a fundamental human freedom, but its exercise ought to be justified by some great cause. There is no great cause in the printing dispute—it is a piece of market bargaining over money.

Can anyone remember the Manchester Guardian ever supporting a strike (except a strike of foreign workers)? The Guardian editor’s further remark was equally hypocritical.

In the nineteenth century, when Britain had few industrial rivals, and when the main domestic industries had well-hedged fields to themselves, a strike or lock-out did not matter much, except in terms of personal suffering.

If some diligent student were to study the Guardian’s attitude to strikes in the nineteenth century, we do not doubt that he would find that the Guardian always managed to find overwhelming reasons for condemning those strikers too.

Lord Sourgrapes

It might have been expected that the newspapers that continued to be published would have solidly defended the employers, though Labour Party supporters doubtless hoped that their two mouthpieces, the official Daily Herald and the unofficial Daily Mirror, would line up with the workers against the employers. It turned out otherwise and some of the liveliest abuse during the strike was to be found in a fierce battle between the Daily Express and the other two. Beaverbrook’s Daily Express roundly accused the big magazine combines of having precipitated an unnecessary strike by their "tough and unaccommodating attitude," and said (4th July) that the provincial newspapers were the “victims of the tycoons of the magazine trade. They are paying a heavy price for their association with these richer more powerful and more belligerent allies." The biggest printing union, NATSOPA, promptly endorsed the charge. The Mirror and. Odhams (the latter owns the People and the Herald) are the “magazine tycoons" referred to, and they angrily denied the accusation. The Mirror of July 6th, in a slashing leader headed “ Lord Sourgrapes—and the drop of poison," explained that Beaverbrook has no magazines except “a couple of inconspicuous comics," called it a “smear campaign,” and passed the buck to the smaller printing firms and smaller newspapers who feared that the Unions' demands would put them out of business. The People (July 5th) blamed the Unions for not having let the claim go to arbitration in the first place. The Herald itself tried to ride both horses. It held that the men have a good case for their original demands, but that the employers “think they have a good case for insisting on increased productivity as a condition of any wage rise" (June 19th). It tried to escape its dilemma by blaming the Government for not immediately setting up a court of inquiry, which, of course, the Unions did not want, anyway.

The “Principle” of Shorter Hours

A weakness of the trade union position (to be found in many other industries as well) is the ambiguous attitude to shorter hours. Mr. Willis, one of the Union leaders and Chairman of the T.U.C., declared at the conference of the Miners' Union that the printers were striking “in support of the principle for which every trade unionist would fight, the shorter week." (News Chronicle, July 8th.) But what are the facts? Though the standard hours are now about four less than in 1938 the actual hours worked in industry are no lower than they were then. The claims for shorter hours have turned into claims for more overtime pay. In 1946 printing hours were reduced by 1½ to 43½, but within a few years the actual average hours of male workers in the paper and printing trade were higher than they were before, and in 1957 were 47 a week.

Confusion about Arbitration and Impartiality

The trade unions are in a muddle about arbitration. The printing unions consistently opposed it on the ground that it would not be “impartial,” but later in the dispute they were asking that Lord Monckton be invited—though he declined the invitation—to preside over the negotiations “to advise, guide and control” the discussions, but not to have power to be final arbiter. Lord Monckton was for four years Tory Minister of Labour (described by the General Secretary of the railwaymen in 1955 as “a very able friend of the N.U.R.! ”) and is now chairman of the Midland Bank, which refuse; to recognise the union of bank employees! Arbitration is established by the Government to settle industrial disputes and it cannot be impartial in the sense of deciding the merits of a case on some abstract principle of humanity. No such principles are laid down for the present court or the one abolished last year. The job of the arbitrators is to find a basis on which the workers can be persuaded to carry on working and the employers can keep in business—with, as an inescapable background, the continuation of Capitalism.

To illustrate the general confusion in the trade union movement it has only to be recalled that last year the T.U.C. and many trade union leaders were deriding the Government for abolishing the arbitration tribunal, which other unions declare they will not have anyway. The Daily Herald then (October 24h, 1958) called it a move to help the employers by abolishing the “referee to see fair play.”

And in the present dispute Mr. Willis, in the matter of strike pickets, was calling on the Government to observe “strict impartiality” (Times, June 26th), as if a government committed to keeping Capitalism going (as all governments must be that take on the administration of Capitalism) could “impartially” stand aside and not defend the property rights of the propertied class.

The International Aspect

The fact is that the trade union movement still broadly accepts Capitalism though prepared to strike against the Capitalists. This was clearly shown by the attitude of the printing unions. They belong to the printing workers Trade Union International, the International Graphical Federation, and some at least of the continental unions acceded to the request that they should advise their members not to do “black” work sent abroad during the strike. But in the middle of the strike NATSOPA released a plan it had drawn up suggesting a deal between the British unions and the British employers. If the latter would concede the demands on hours and wages, in return the unions would cooperate on a joint productivity council: “ The essence of the plan is that the prosperous big groups with stable and profitable home markets will help the small and medium printers, and particularly the printing concerns working on export printing. The plan should make British printers highly competitive in markets abroad.” (News Chronicle, June 23rd, 1959.)

So the unions, while fighting the employers, are quite prepared to collaborate with them to capture foreign markets—where, of course, they will clash with foreign printers who. again with the collaboration of the workers, will be resisting the invasion and trying to counter attack. This, of course, makes nonsense of the object of the printers' trade union international: “To safeguard the economic, occupational and general interests of graphical workers in all countries and to promote their solidarity.” (Our italics.)

In the nineteenth century Socialist critics of the trade union movement used to ridicule the illogicality of workers fighting the employers in the industrial field and electing the same people to Parliament and supporting them nationally. The present outlook of the trade unions shows that they have still a long way to go before they realise that the workers’ interest demands real international working class solidarity against the employers—and for Socialism.

50 Years Ago: The Dispute At The London Docks (1999)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The trouble at the London docks is an excellent illustration of the capitalist outlook of the Labour Government. The dockers are willing to unload all ships except the Beaverbrae and Argomont, the two Canadian ships which are involved in a Canadian trade union dispute. The dockers are also prepared to see troops unload the Canadian ships but are not willing to unload them themselves because they contend that these ships are “black ships”. The Dock Labour Board refuses to allow the dock workers to unload other ships unless they are prepared to unload the two Canadian ships. At the moment of writing the government has threatened to declare a state of emergency unless the Port of London is working fully on Monday, July 11th: thus the Labour Government, like all previous capitalist governments, is taking the side of the employers against the workers.

On July 10th Reynolds News contained the following:

“Mr Sam Watson, chairman of the Labour Party, said at Brandon (Co. Durham) yesterday that the dock strike was the work of foreign agencies, was purely political and could be solved if the members of the unions threw out the anti-British agitators.”

What a familiar ring this statement has. For a hundred years every strike of any size has been put down to the nefarious influence of “agitators” sometimes foreign, sometimes home-grown. Many of the Labour leaders who are fighting the dockers were included in this category long ago; now that they support the Labour administration of capitalism they take up the capitalists’ cudgels and sing his tune.

(From the Socialist Standard, August 1949)

The General Strike (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

On its 50th anniversary the tales of the General Strike, real and legendary, will be told. The strike action of those Trade Unionists and others who took part was not based on a clear recognition of the position of the workers under capitalism and the class struggle resulting therefrom. The workers were not class-conscious, and therefore their actions were not a challenge to the existence of capitalism. Nevertheless, under the present order workers have to defend their living standards against their employers, and to that extent the General Strike must rank as a landmark in the history of the British working class; as the most determined display of solidarity we have seen this century. That is encouraging to the Socialist — if workers can unite on one issue for a limited purpose, they can certainly unite on the greater issue of Socialism. “Unity is strength”, and “A house divided against itself shall fall”.

In 1925 the mine owners, faced with the re-emergence of Germany as a trade competitor, served notice on the Miners’ Federation to terminate the National Agreement ending the minimum wage and demanding severe wage cuts. Working hours were to be increased from 7 to 8 hours daily without extra pay, and District Agreements were to replace the existing National one. The miners put their objections before the TUC at a joint meeting held on 10th July 1925. The TUC supported the miners, set up a special commission, and issued instructions to all railway and transport workers forbidding the movement of coal and the handling of export coal. “All men engaged in delivering coal to commercial and industrial concerns will cease Friday night 31st July”. A specially summoned conference of Trade Union executive committee members gave unanimous support to these instructions.

Baldwin (the Prime Minister) summoned miners and mine owners to 10 Downing Street on the morning of Friday 31st July 1925 (“Red Friday”) and announced the granting of a subsidy to the coal industry amounting to about £25 million, extending over nine months. The wage cuts and other demands of the mine owners were postponed until April 1926. Evidently the government was not ready, but the nine months’ respite gave them time to set up their strike-breaking organization OMS (Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies), the appointment of civil commissioners, and the enrolling of large numbers of special constables and the formation of mobile police squads. Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: “We therefore decided to postpone the crisis in the event of averting it, or if not averting it, of coping effectively with it when the time came”.

In the meantime a Royal Commission, presided over by Sir Herbert Samuel, presented its report. The report was very definite in demanding wage reductions and the lengthening of the working day, and it became clear that the government would back the mine owners. A. J. Cook, the miners’ leader, in his pamphlet The Nine Days recalls the attitude of Ramsay MacDonald and the Parliamentary Labour Party in relation to the evidence placed before the Commission. “The only difference of opinion was between the industrial movement and the political movement regarding compensation for the royalty owners. Strange to say, the leaders of the Parliamentary Labour Party who had been preaching Socialism for many years were the ones who opposed the policy of the Miners’ Federation and the Trade Union Congress in regard to the question of compensation or confiscation of royalties”.

Before the Commission report came out, the British coal owners declared publicly that they would never again meet the miners’ representatives, nor submit to National agreements, and that they would insist on District agreements. This was an attempt to break the solidarity of the miners since the building up of the Miners Federation. The Federation, at a meeting held on April 9th 1926, re-affirmed its total opposition to the mine-owners’ proposals. Later, on 14th April 1926, the TUC Negotiating Committee passed the following resolution: “This Committee reiterates its previous declaration to render the miners the fullest support in resisting the degradation of the standards of life, and to obtain an equitable settlement of the case with regards to wages, hours and a National agreement”. In April 1926 the coal owners announced that unless the miners accepted their terms, a reduction in wages and the working day lengthened by one hour, they would close down the mines as from 1st May. This effectively “locked out” one million miners.

A conference of the Trade Union executives was held on Saturday 1st May at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon St, London, and two decisions were made: (1) That no negotiations should take place until the lock-out notices had been withdrawn, and (2) that the General Council of the TUC should be empowered to go ahead with a General Strike. 3,653,529 voted for, 49,911 voted against, and 319,000 were unable to reply in time. Further, it was agreed that no-one should return to work at the end of the General Strike unless all Union agreements were maintained. The General Strike was set to commence on Monday 3rd May. On Tuesday 4th May, the absence of trams, railway trains, buses, newspapers, and road transport were the first obvious indications that the workers in the mass supported the strike decision. The strike was on in earnest.

The General Strike will be remembered for two things. Firstly, the enthusiasm and solidarity of the workers, and secondly, the cowardice and treachery of the TUC in calling it off nine days later behind the backs of the miners, and ratting on every resolution upon which the strike call was issued. The inglorious betrayal of the finest effort of the British working class on the industrial field should surely have taught the workers not to place their trust in leaders. Not a single concession was gained, and one million miners were left alone to fight the mine owners backed by the government with the tacit approval of the TUC and the Parliamentary Labour Party led by Ramsay MacDonald and J. R. Clynes. The miners were locked out for over three months after the strike, and forced by starvation and privation to accept the coal-owners’ terms of reduced wages (below 1914 level), more unemployment, and an increase in the working day by one hour. It is a sad commentary on the present attitude of the National Union of Mineworkers that their recent ballot within the last few weeks was a demand for the retention of overtime working.

The idea of using the weapon of a general strike as a means of abolishing capitalism is still held by anarchists, syndicalists, International Socialists, Communists, and others. Daniel De Lon, the patron saint of the SLP (now defunct), held that the political revolution would fail unless the workers backed up the political organization by the strike, which he described as the economic organization. The 1926 strike showed all too clearly that when there is a class struggle those who hold political power are in control. The workers in their millions had only two years earlier voted to power the Baldwin government, and it was that government which said that wages must come down, and was prepared to use the whole machinery of government to give effect to their policy. This task was made easier by the miserable collection of renegades, led by that arch swindler “Honest” Jimmy Thomas who would have sold his own grandmother. True to character, a few years later he was accused of selling secret information about the contents of the Annual Budget.

Had the general council of the TUC been composed of men of principle, loyal to the class they had the honour to represent, the capitalists would not have gained the victory they did. Union after Union was forced to accept wage cuts or increases in working hours. The Trades Dispute Act, passed a year later, was only opposed by the Labour Party because of the contracting-out clause which affected their income from the Political Levy.

Writing about the Strike fifty years later, what lessons were learned by the workers? Have they abandoned the idea of leadership inside or outside the Unions? The answer is no. Has the Trade Union organization and the TUC undergone a change of attitude on the question of class co-operation? Again, the answer is no. If anything, Trade Unions have become more insular: more concerned with the narrow issues affecting their individual members. They are completely steeped in capitalist ideology. Their world begins and ends with their members’ interests, not with the interests of the working class as a whole. The TUC is nothing other than a political wing of the present Labour government. Those who think in terms of a successful general strike with Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, Len Murray, and the other untalented servants of capital, in place of J. H. Thomas, Swales, Hicks, Tillett and Pugh, etc. are deluding themselves. The present Trade Unions are hopelessly compromised with the Labour government, and this is to their disadvantage. They are expected to co-operate on wage reductions, redundancy policies, wage freezes, and hosts of other schemes which are of direct help to the capitalists. But the general strike is not a means or an aid to the establishment of Socialism. Joint action by groups of Unions against groups of employers can achieve benefits or prevent living standards from being depressed. This is the most that can be expected. The capitalist class will not, nor cannot, succumb to any other form of economic pressure as long as they control the State machine.

We do not make a distinction between workers organized in Trade Unions and those outside. Both have to understand how to use the political weapon. Both have to renounce leadership, whether it be industrial or political. Both have to understand the consequences of their social action before embarking on that action. Socialist understanding must come first, it cannot be learned later, because without this understanding and knowledge Socialism cannot be established.

May Day is the day upon which the working class of the world demonstrate their international solidarity. So far the working class have ignored the splendid proposition or prospect of a Socialist society. In doing so, they have denied themselves the opportunity to cleanse the world of the scourge of capitalism. Men live their lives in time, so why squander it? There is nothing we cannot do if we have a mind to. There is no force on earth which can prevent the establishment of Socialism when the will is there.

Jim D'Arcy

Flags of Convenience and the Boycott (1959)

From the January 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The International Transport Workers’ Federation four-day boycott of “Panlibhonco” shipping began on 1st December. The West German Unions, although they originally voted for the ban, did not in fact support it, following upon a Court award of £30,000,000 damages in a strike case just settled. The Italian Unions refused to take part, and the boycott was ineffective in France where the great majority of the dockers belong to a Communist-dominated union not affiliated to the I.T.F. In Holland, where two-thirds of the dockers are non-union members, the situation was confused. An Amsterdam Court granted port employers an injunction to restrain the unions from joining the boycott. In Rotterdam, however, the Court refused to grant an injunction and the boycott was observed. Japanese supported the boycott in principle, but did not take active measures.

But union members in Britain, the East and Gulf Coasts of U.S., Australia, Belgium and Scandinavia, and in several other countries throughout the world, and the International Petroleum Workers’ Federation, supported the boycott, and by the last day 192 ships were idle. 

What is it all about ?

Many people have become bemused and bewildered and consequently not particularly bothered, because, in spite of the volume of discussion on flags of convenience in the newspapers until the recent boycott, the concern has been regaining the advantages or otherwise from the ship owners' point of view. The recent action by the unions has come as a surprise element of the situation.

Panamanian registration of ships was first invoked in the days of American prohibition to enable liquor to be sold to passengers aboard liners. It was not long before other advantages became known in other countries. Registration was a simple and inexpensive procedure for foreigners; there was no taxation of profits, and owners were not subject to a variety of rules and regulations such as those which had accumulated in maritime countries over the centuries. Some of these were advances won at the cost of great sacrifices by the seamen in the class-struggle with the owners for better conditions and pay. Post-war currency restrictions in the non-Panlibhonco countries have been an additional factor. Above all, American shipowners, by registering ships in Panama, were able to avoid the obligation to ship American crews at (by European standards) much higher wages.

The man who bought the Bank at Monte Carlo

Some of the “Flag of Convenience” owners are public characters and are frequently in the news. Mr. Onassis, owner or controller of a fleet worth an estimated US$300 million, is one of them. According to Time (19th January, 1953) Onassis lunched with Prince Rainier several times and bought him a 137 ft. diesel yacht. The directors of the Casino were kept out of the Palace gates by royal carabinierii and they resigned to make room for Onassis’ representatives. The Casino had been losing money and the Prince was looking for new capital amounting to US$1,000,000. Onassis planned to register ships in Monaco after moving his offices into the Casino building.

Pictures from Ships

His brother-in-law, Mr. Niarchos, also a millionaire shipowner, is another character sometimes in the news. A fairly recent Tate Gallery exhibition of Mr. Niarchos’ pictures gave pleasure to a vast public. He has bought originals of Renoir girls. Degas dancers, Gauguin Tahitans and Van Gogh landscapes at prices which run into tens of thousands. Toulouse-Lautrec’s Aristide Bruant cost him £22,000; Renoir’s Mosque at Algiers, £24,000; Van Gogh’s small Thistles £16,000.

But manoeuvring with “Flags of Convenience” is not Mr. Niarchos’ only occupation—buying pictures such as these is another, for those with American incomes can spend 30 per cent. of their income, tax free, on works of art. provided they are destined for a museum. And during his lifetime he can enjoy them in his own home. Obviously it is more attractive to spend £50,000 on a picture like Renoir’s Girl in a Plumed Hat than to hand the money over to the Inland Revenue. The museum get the pictures when he dies, but he could not take them with him, anyway.

Patriotism—for workers only

For the workers, patriotism is held up as one of the greatest of the virtues, and countless war memorials throughout the world pay tribute to the effectiveness of this teaching. Surely it must be for the workers that the poem, “ My country, ’tis of thee . . . Land where my fathers died . . .” is applicable, for millions of workers have been maimed or killed following the dictates of their ruling-classes. This recalls the story of the monkey who used the cat’s paw to pull his chestnuts out of the fire. But in the case of the Panlibhonco shipowners it seems to be a case of rather “Don’t do as I do, but do as 1 tell you”, for these characters seem intent on finding out ways of not paying taxes to not merely their native country, but to any government at all. How misled are such workers who risk life and limb fighting to protect, or extend the property of their employers, when they themselves own nothing worth fighting for.

The I.T.F. and the Boycott

A statement from the International Transport Workers’ Federation says that the boycott has two main objectives: —

“ Firstly, to draw the attention of governments to the problem and to protest against their inactivity on it. 

“ Secondly, to secure properly-regulated wages and working conditions on all ships flying flags of convenience. We would agree that conditions on board many such ships not under trade union agreements are no worse than on most European-operated ships, and in some cases are even better. But this this largely due to the campaign which the l.T.F. has carried on during the past ten years. There is. in any case, no guarantee that these standards will be maintained, because the crews have no trade union protection at present. Nor do they enjoy the security of employment or the benefits of social legislation which are generally to be found in the traditional maritime countries. What we are trying to do is in fact a straightforward trade union job, the kind of job which unions in all civilized countries have accepted as part of their normal function.”

The Statement later on says:—

" A further very vital aspect of this situation is the question of national defence in time of international emergency. How, for example, can any country claim to exercise effective control over ships which fly the flag of another nation? This is, in fact, a complete negation of the concept of national maritime sovereignty. In any case, as past emergencies have shown only too clearly, the real factor in exercising control over vessels is not their ownership or country of registration, but their crew. Here we would stress that Panlibhonco ships have become a haven for politically undesirable seafarers and others; consequently there can be no guarantee as to how such crews would act in an emergency situation. 

“ The l.T.F. has never adopted such a narrow-minded attitude and has no intention of doing so now. Our campaign is not based solely on the interests of the seafarers, but on those of the community at large—which arc equally threatened.”

Apparently these workers are more patriotic than the shipowners themselves.

Greek shipowners have accused British, Scandinavian and Dutch shipping interests of having inspired the boycott and the Greek Shipowners’ Union, acting on behalf of their co-operation committee of London threatened to lay up ships throwing their crews out of work. About 10 million tons of Greek shipping sails under the flags of Liberia, Panama and Honduras. Almost all the crews on them are Greek.

The owners’ declaration said: —

“ ' It would be obvious to all by now that this boycott . . . is simply one more manifestation of the hostility of certain shipping interests towards their competitors.' Greek shipowners, the declaration went on, already had to face the bitter campaign by owners in the so-called traditional maritime nations, who were frustrated over bureaucratic restrictions and heavy operating costs in their own countries. The l.T.W.F. was inspired by British interests trying to blackmail flags of convenience to give advantage to British and Norwegian shipping which was not threatened by eventual repetition of the boycott.” (Times, 2nd December, 1958.)

The Daily Mail (5th December, 1958) published a feature article written by Mr. Niarchos, who on behalf of the Niarchos Group refuted in detail the charges of the I.T.F. After dealing with working conditions aboard his ships he said this:—

” If international federations of unions are to become concerned in matters of international business and relations between nations, they are assuming a new empire-building role far removed from their original mission of furthering the true interests of their dues-paying members . . . and the handling of genuine union problems will be completely obscured.”

Trade Union action

Trade union action to maintain or improve workers’ living standards commends itself to any Socialist, and particularly when it is international action, for this implies a greater degree of working-class solidarity, and it is this factor which is so encouraging about the boycott. The Capitalist press expressed satisfaction that the boycott was only partial, but it must also be remembered that much of the support which the various workers gave was not to advance their own sectional interests, but that of the seamen generally. The Financial Times in its editorial (2nd December, 1958) said of the boycott:— «

“ It is also international and this use of the international strike weapon could be a precedent for much more undesirable exertions of trade union power.”

We couldn’t agree more, but, of course, although a boycott may or may not serve one section of the Capitalist class, working-class solidarity is liable to be undesirable for the Capitalist class generally.

Frank Offord

The Miner’s Strike – Why (1984)

From the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why did 120,000 miners join what has become the longest, bitterest and most controversial strike in the British coal industry since 1926? Clearly, it is no answer to say that they are motivated by subversive political aims or that they have all been hoodwinked by nasty Arthur Scargill and the NUM leaders. We can read this kind of facile substitute for an explanation in the propaganda press.

Economics under capitalism are concerned first and foremost with price and profit. Production is regarded as “uneconomic” when investment of capital shows little or no prospect of leading to profit for the investor. Being “uneconomic” is not at all the same as being “useless”. For example, dairy farming is currently “uneconomic” within the EEC countries because more milk is produced than can be sold profitably. However, milk is desperately needed by the 40,000 children who, according to UNICEF, die of starvation or malnutrition-caused diseases every single day. So, when the economic experts say that miners are producing too much coal, this excess relates to profit rather than need. Similarly, when they say that investment in certain miners is “uneconomic” this does not mean there is not plenty of coal in them, but that capital investment in mining such coal would be unprofitable.

Politicians like Thatcher have never forgiven the NUM for the success of their last strike. Responding to the feelings of many capitalists, her government wants to weaken the power of the miners. A leaked Cabinet Minute of 1979 explained that 

A nuclear programme would have the advantage of removing a substantial proportion of electricity from disruption by miners and transport workers.

Economists are not paid to think about the devastation of the old mining communities which pit closures cause: destroying long-established ways of life does not appear on their balance sheets. Economists are not paid to register the harsh facts that more than half of the men attempting suicide are unemployed and that the rate of successful suicides in Britain has shot up during the present recession. Nor are they paid to bother themselves about the old workers who will die this winter because they are too poor to switch on a heater. Electricity output has been reduced because there is much less market demand for it by domestic consumers, while the non-recognition of real human demand leads to the totally unnecessary social disease of hypothermia. But none of these factors is of economic significance under capitalism: let communities be converted into industrial wastelands, let thousands of useful and energetic miners be forced into idleness, let thousands be cold for lack of coal-based heating.

Myths about the State

There was once a time when miners, in the company of many other workers, were easily persuaded that the solution to the problems of the profit system was nationalisation of industry. If only the mines were owned and controlled by the government rather than by private capitalists, it was asserted, the miners would have little to worry about. Forty years ago Will Lawther, the President of the Mineworkers’ Federation of Great Britain (the predecessor to the NUM), asked readers to imagine what could be achieved through nationalisation:

It would win the complete confidence of the miners and their families. Generations of suspicion and hatred would be wiped out, and an entirely new attitude developed towards the coal industry . . . Only through public ownership can you really plan the effective use of Britain’s coal resources, plan production on the basis of modernisation or mechanisation, and bring about complete unity between your export and domestic coalfields . . .” (Foreword to Britain’s Coal by Margot Heinemann, 1944).

Lawther goes on to predict that nationalisation would “enormously improve output and make use even of old coalfields that are looked upon as being worked out” and that “only the nationalisation of the mines can win the confidence of the miners”. One can forgive miners for having been taken in by these hopes for capitalism at the time, even if—it must be added—the Socialist Party of Great Britain was then pointing out to those who would listen that nationalisation offered no solution to the workers. But now, after decades of experience of state capitalism in action, it is politically inane for workers to imagine that nationalised industries are in any way immune from the economic laws of capitalism. The NCB, as the state employer, is just as exploitative and antagonistic to the workers’ interests as were the old mine owners.

The second myth which needs to be dispelled is that the state—the government, the law, the judges, the police commanders—is neutral. The state must be the political defender of the ruling class. When thousands of miners are stopped from picketing, when hundreds of miners are beaten by the police and when the funds of the South Wales NUM are stolen by the courts, it is clear that the state exists to reinforce the needs of capital. It would make no difference if the Labour Party was running the state instead of the Tories. That is why, when the Labour Party was in office between 1964 and 1970, they closed down 48 pits and made over 50,000 miners unemployed in the South Wales region alone.

In the first three months of the strike one miner was arrested every twenty minutes—3,282 arrests in all. Over 80 per cent of these arrests were for “breach of the peace” or “obstruction”. Obviously the government has instructed the police to use tough tactics in dealing with the strikers. The well-known television picture of a police officer beating a defenceless striker with a truncheon is but one of numerous examples of police brutality in a battle initiated by the state. But as ordinary workers, paid to do an unpleasant job, it is not the police workers on the picket lines who are to be blamed: the real culprits are the legally respectable and physically secure boot-boys who pull the strings of the state.

The NCB has increased its importation of cheap Polish coal which is one of the factors weakening the effects of the British miners’ strike. The NUM now has an official picket outside the Polish Embassy, calling on the Polish bosses to suspend imports in order to strengthen the effects of the British strike. But when Polish miners attempted to set up an independent union of their own the President of the NUM (writing in his personal capacity) argued that such action constituted “sabotage” and that the Polish miners should be loyal to their state bosses. The capitalists, who not for the first time are benefiting from the tactic of Divide and Rule, must be laughing all the way to the bank as they import cheap coal from their “Communist” enemies. Reproduced below is the full text of a resolution published by the underground Solidarity union in the Warsaw region, first published in their illegal journal, CDN. It shows that the writers and supporters of this Polish resolution are thinking along internationalist lines:

“For four months the British miners have been on strike against a programme of mass closures of mines for economic reasons. The miners are threatened with unemployment. The government has rejected compromise solutions and has resorted to severe police methods against the strikers. Thousands of miners have been arrested; hundreds have been hospitalised and one has been killed.

The government of the Polish People’s Republic, despite hypocritical condemnations of the activities of the British police in the columns of the regime press and by the regime’s pseudo-trade unionists, is profiting from the export of coal to Britain. It sells dirt cheap coal which has been mined in scandalously neglected working conditions and with reckless condemnation of the labour force and the coalfield. The slave labour of the Polish miner serves to break the resistance of the British miner.

British miners! The true sentiments of Polish trade unionists towards the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic and their practices was shown in the recent electoral farce which was boycotted by the workers. In the prevailing conditions of terror, the Polish workers’ movement is at present not in a position to undertake protest actions. But you may be certain that as you have supported and are supporting our struggle, so we are in solidarity with you. We strongly oppose every case where force is used against workers struggling for their rights and interests.” (Published in CDN, Mazowsze region, 26 June, 1984).

How painful it would be for the workers who produced the above resolution to know that the President, and several other key leaders, of the NUM believe that Solidarity should not exist.

What the miners struggle has shown

As the miners’ strike has not been organised by socialists, it is not surprising that tactics have been employed with which we disagree. It is possible that the division within the NUM could have been avoided; full, democratic decision-making within the workers’ movement is always the surest guarantee of strength.

But the miners’ struggle has shown the importance of solidarity between workers of one county and another one country and another. The sense of common purpose and dedication which thousands of miners have shown during the strike contrasts sharply with many previous struggles in trade union history, where workers have been conned into co-operating in their rulers’ interests. Let any miserable little cynic who says that workers are incapable of self-organised co-operation take a look at the tremendous achievements in communal self-help which strikers have set up.

Secondly, the strike has shown the Labour Party and its Leftist followers to be quite unable to point the miners in the direction of socialism. According to the theory, Leftists are supposed to wait for major struggles like this one in order to move in and tell the workers about the alternative to capitalism. In fact, the SWP, CP, WRP, RCP and numerous other inflatable vanguards have not produced a single leaflet between them urging the miners to transform their demands into the political aim of abolishing the wages system. As for the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock and his fellow mis-leaders have had little to offer but empty rhetoric. After all, every time the Labourites stand up in the House of Commons to tell the Tories how wicked they are, the Tories have been able to quote chapter and verse showing that previous Labour governments have run the mines in just the same way—to meet the demands of the profit system.

In any strike between robbers and robbed (with the exception of political strikes, such as when the dockers opposed immigration or the Labourites ran their phoney day of action) the Socialist Party is unequivocally on the side of the robbed. In the class war no worker and no political party can be neutral. But in expressing solidarity with workers in struggle, we point out that our sympathy and their temporary gains will be meaningless unless victory involves winning the war and not just one battle. To win the class war workers must organise as a class for the conquest of the earth and all its resources. No lesser victory is worth settling for.

Steve Coleman

50 Years Ago: “Black Friday” (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

When in 1914, the Miners joined up with the Railwaymen and the Transport Workers in a loose federation called the Triple Alliance, for the purpose of defence against just such an action as that now being taken by the mine owners (Notice of big pay reductions), it was hailed by all as the ‘Direct Activists’ and ‘economic power’ phrasemongers as the greatest step forward the workers had ever taken. Although each of the constituent bodies forming the Alliance have, at different times, been engaged in hard fights with the masters some excuse has always been forthcoming to explain why the Alliance should not use its power to assist such a body. Now it was going to show this power. After several meetings it was decided on the 8th April that, unless negotiations were re-opened between the Miners and the Mine-owners, the Railway and Transport workers would be called out at midnight of the 12th April. Having reached this decision Messrs. Thomas, Cramp, Abraham. Bevin, Gosling, Sexton and R. Williams were formed into a deputation to carry on negotiations between the government and the Miners Executive.

Late on Saturday night, April 9th, the latter agreed to issue a notice calling upon their members not to interfere with volunteers working the pumps and engines, and upon this condition a meeting between the miners and owners was fixed for the Monday morning. On this arrangement the strike was called off.

The meeting was a failure. No agreement was reached and the miners, faced with essentially the same situation as before, left the conference.

Then the Executive of the Triple Alliance called another strike on Friday 15th April at 10 p.m.

This was to be ‘the thing’. No more dallying, no more shuffling or waste of time, but a strong and determined blow against aggression.

The blow came alright, but to the utter amazement and confusion of the rank and file it was a blow by the Executive of the NUR and the Transport Workers against the miners. They had decided to cancel the strike.

Seldom has such treachery been exposed in the industrial field. It was a complete betrayal of the miners by their own associates . . .

The Labour Leader (ILP) and the official organ of the several times united Communist Party joined in putting the bulk of the blame upon J. H. Thomas, but this condemnation proceeds from a desire to make him a scapegoat for the actions of members of the ILP like Sexton and of the Communist Party, like R. Williams, who were not one whit less guilty than Thomas.

(From an unsigned editorial 'The Betrayal of the Miners’ Socialist Standard, May 1921).