in its tracks." That was how Ivor England, secretary of the South Wales Mardy Lodge, described the outcome of the miners' strike last month.
Within days of announcing that 50 pits would have to close, the Thatcher government was making a humiliating U-turn as it faced the angry response of the backbone of Britain's labour movement.
It pledged that the pits wouldn't be closed and agreed to pour up to £500 million into the mining industry. Cabinet member John Biffen admitted on radio that they were frightened of taking the miners on.
MISCALCULATED Clearly, the government's earlier decision to back the Coal Board's decision to close 50 'non-viable' pits was a major miscalculation.
They no doubt thought that with unemployment at nearly three million - and having notched up a series of victories as at British Leyland - the miners would be reluctant to make a stand.
If so, they were sorely mistaken. Within hours of the pit closures being announced, over 24,000 South Wales miners downed tools for an all-out stoppage.
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The call for similar action spread to "The government has been stopped other areas such as Scotland, South Yorkshire and the Kent coalfields where plans were already being laid to picket the power stations in defiance of the Tory Employment Bill.
It soon became clear that even attempts by right-wing union leaders such as Gormley to restrain action until a national ballot was held were talling on deaf ears. Incensed at the attack on jobs, miners nationally were responding with direct action.
Moreover, support for the miners was beginning to escalate among other sectors of the labour movement who saw them as the spearhead of the fightback against the Tories. Both the steel and railwayany large-scale dispute.
FUTURE The explosion among rank-and-file miners was undoubtedly due to, in part, the government's rundown of the pits over the past few years.
Over 6,000 workers have been lost th one year alone through 'natural wastage and lack of investment means that many pits were destined to die.
It was not only for their own jobs, however, that they struck.
JUIVILL SUBSIDISE DUE COAL NUR workers had agreed to back them in They were aware that their fight was a fight for all workers faced with the Tories' offensive. As Kent miners explained "unless we show an interest in the unemployed, we'll be joining them".
It was this understanding of the miners' that frightened the Tory government. the spectre of the Heath government looming up before them.
What they feared above all was the possibility of the miners' strike escalating into a head-on col lision with ever-wider sectors of the labour movement which could Miners' determination forced Thatcher to back off.
lead to their defeat. every point.
They began to see VICTORY INERS:
This is why, within days of throwing down the gauntlet to the miners, they beat such a fast retreat. Union leaders were invited to emergency talks in which the government capitulated on virtually What the miners' victory shows is not only that the British labour movement is not demoralised by the Tory offensive. It is also a vital lesson on how to combat that offensive which has led to over 3 million all. unemployed It exposes more clearly than ever before the weak-kneed attitude of the union bureaucrats whose sole answer to date has been to launch a few protest actions combined with pleas to be admitted to Number 10 to talk to Mrs Thatcher.
It is not talk that will defeat the Tories. It is force - the force of the labour movement. The miners' strike was the clearest example that, faced with a determined section of labour, the Tories dare not take them on.
EXAMPLE The impact of the miners' victory has already been widespread. It was reflected on the mass Glasgow demonstration, on February 21, when over 75,000 protested the Tory jobless strategy.
It has also been felt among other groups of workers, such as the gas, electricity and water workers, who have all lodged claims above the government's 6% Such action will give renewed confidence to the rank and file nationally and give a real boost to the attempt to make the Labour leaders lead a determined struggle to remove this government once and for
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