ON 3 December the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation puts in a claim for a 20 per cent wage rise. The offer from the British Steel Corporation is 2 per cent, tied to local prodactivity deals.
In the same week they announce a further 52,000 redundancies.
strike over the pay claim. Ine walk-out from Boe plants on 2 January is virtually total. The demand is for 20 per cent.
Within a few days engineers and other workers who have remained behind join the picket lines.
militancy. The policy of the strike committees is that no steel should move, and flying pickets are despatched to the private sector steel firms, stockholders, and the ports.
- _he redundancie Llanwern galvanise the South Wales miners.
turDacks coula close i our or tne so pils. 'Un ¿i january, says George Wright, general secretary of the Wales TUC, 'we want a mini-general strike."
increased its pay offer to 8 per cent. Len Murray says it is "festooned like a Christmas tree with conditions'. His role 1s to be a go-between, looking for a compromise settlement.
By mid-January, there tations. Arrests have already started outside Hadfields, the private steel firm in Sheffield, which is to be a major focus in the strike. "The strike is forced to get bloody,' comments a local ISTC branch secretary. It's a fight against the Tory government. Sour When Sir Keith Joseph visits Birmingham he is greeted by a thousand steel strikers who chant: 'Maggie out.' Events are turning sour for the Tory government sooner than almost anyone cemen.
Joseph is still maintaining a policy of 'non-intervention' in the strike. No one takes him seriously.
The Wales TUC gives way to pressure from Congress House.
January is postponed for a week.
•Un 21 january. workers at a rally in Sheffield: interfering in this strike. I plead guilty (massive applause)... They can introduce whatever laws they like we'll picket whatever targets are necessary to win this strike.' On 26 January Lord Denning rules in the High Court that "secondary picketing' is illegal. Two days later public industry comes to a halt in Wales when 200,000 workers strike.
At a rally that night, Bill Sirs is moved to tears by the tremendous show of solidarity, but this does not prevent the ISTC genetal scarclary. judgement until it is reversed by the House of Lords.
In Swansea, numerous other towns strikers confront the police on picket lines in an effort to halt the movement of all steel.
With Employment Secretary James Prior's anti-union law on the stocks, the cabinet divides into "hawks" and "doves' in their debate over how best to break the power of pickets and make strikes ineffectual.
On 8 February, Bill Sirs brings together the ISTC's negotiating committee to consider the Steel Corporation's new pay offer of 2 per cent plus a 12 per cent pay-for-jobs deal. national coordinating committee of the craft unions also rejects the offer. Blockade The private steel sector becomes the main focus for the pickets, the police, and the media. To the jubilation of South Yorkshire workers at Hadfields in Sheffield agree to join the strike after the plant is blockaded.
But then come the first reversals in the strike. After the Pori Talbor and Llanwern steelworkers decide that there scould be no return to work until their jobs are secured, the didsh miners are balloted on all-out strike action, to begin DE 25 February.
The proposal is rejected by 22,000 votes to 4,000. With evident relief, the Wales TUC calls off the general strike which was to start on 1g March.
The private steelworkers at Hadfields and other firms decide to scab on the strike. A mass nicket of Sheerness Steel in Kent fails to halt the plant, and 600 ISTC members there are expelled from the union.
On 18 February the first national meeting of steel strike committee representatives is heid in some secrecy. They discuss how to make the picketing more effective, and decide to meet again. socialist Challenge The steel bosses are confident of a meek response.
On 8 December the ISTC executive calls for a national South Yorkshire comes to the fore as a centre of scheduled for Port Talbot The steel Within a week of the start of the strike, BSC has are picket-line contronThe regional general strike due to start on 21 Arthur Scargil tels two thousand I've been accused of accepting Denning's Blackburn, Pontypool, Aberdeen and The committee shouts it down. A week later the miners, and engineers. week.
'Locally, morale is low with the return of the private sector,' Brian Molyneux considers.
'People are obviously getting more desperate for money, with mortgages and electricity being cut off. But in BSC we're absolutely solid.
'Morale boosters are being organised, and we're trying to get wives and families involved. More people volunteering for picketing than at the beginning of the strike.
Ine involvement of WItC and families was shown week when two at the House of Commons. Whole communities turned out in a five thousand-strong march Rotherham on Sunday.
Despite the scabbing role of the private sector, Brian Molyneux opposes the removal of their union cards as an answer.
"The South Yorkshire divisional strike committee decided that all officials who have * gone back to work should credentials removed,' explains. "This has already been done in some areas, such as Corby.
'But I don't think it's on to expel members. It's a gift to the Tories. And it is not the members' fault; it's the fault of the officials. IF the private steelworkers support us now we should divisional strike committee, and a newly-elected member of They should have argued for the deciston to call out sector to be upheld. It's that lack of leadership which problem,' he maintains. 'It was apparent when we met the Confederation of Shipbuilding managements have been using the old Tory profitability and more threat against supporting us.
are 'What engineering and other workers must arguments which they're accepting local now will be UNPO when they put in their pay claims. 'We sent Bill Sirs a telegram last week saying that he had to give the private sector some encouragement, but making it clear that if they support us we would back them in any fight on jobs or closures.
Ballots Despite the has tie sector, Brian Molyneux ölvinced that the strike is beir have effective, particularly in engineerhe ing. Plants in Sheffield are being affected, he believes In South response Corporation's ballot overwhelmingly in support of a boycott. 'A CONTINGENT from the Warrington 'Brick Brigade" — see story next page the private the Unions that about closures as a BRIAN MOLYNEUX realise is that the against them "They're using the delay negotiations.
of BSC BSC in this area, problem of the In Briar would not be getting a cent pay rise, originally put forward.
Yorkshire the the Steel has been arawn executive council.
and response ballot to It'll take a month to get the sort of procedure Murray. they've started - organising the win. ballot, and presenting the results.
In the meantime they can get on with plans for hiving off sections Molyneux established *From Rotherham we are now hearing at board level that there are firm plans to hive off parts of in particular Stainless Steel and Stockbridge.
Molyneux's view Liaison antone who backs the BSC offe 14.4 per ISTC but the 2 per cent He explains that the claim now being put forward by Sirs had been union's negotiating committee, but by the again.' "The claim is an exact copy of BSC's with all the same strings.
lasting months. south Yorkshire has made it's position absolutelyaclear cent and no strings, with a 12 month deal.
Murray back our general secretary's previous stand against arbitration, unless we can have - Arthur Scargill as the mediator.
'We're going to get as many people as possible down to the TUC demonstration on 9 March. We're pissed off with the lack of from the TUC They should be calling a general strike for a starter. They should be giving the Tories a set time to settle, and then call a general strike.
'And it's time we got rid of He's done nothing to union after strike, says: 'We've already the divisional commies and made the first steps to a national committée.
'The South Yorkshite divisional committee agrees the demands of the Committee for Constitutiónal Reform in the for policy-making conference and a changed basis for the election of delegates, to the executive council.
"Views changing on the election of full-time officials. Fhis will never be the same
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• March 1980 Page 4 back them in any fight on jobs or closures.
the ISTC national negotiating committee, spoke to Clive Turnbull about the state of the strike as it enters its tenth