MARGARET Thatcher's hit squad swooped on pickets outside Hadfields private steel works in Sheffield on Wednesday of last week.
Socialist Challenge reporter CLIVE was among the 90 pickets arrested. He was charged with obstruction and using language.
MARGARET Thatcher doesn't like workers. She has made that plain, very plain. Most of all she doesn't like them because they haye refused to lie down and accept her job-slashing philosophy.
So what does she Outside Hadfields last week she Baye Une alswer → sena 1 ne. inues in blue uniforms to arrest and beat up pickets.
There were about 800 of us there on 12 March. As well as trom Sheffield, pickets come Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Warrington.
We assembled at 1pm, time for the afternoon shift.
•The aim of the picket was not to close Hadfields. It was a demonstration aimed showing the steel union leadership, the Tories, the British Steel Corporation and all the rest that steelworkers are fighting on as hard as ever and would not be sold out.
Five coach loads of cops were waiting when the pickets arrived. George Burgess, chairperson of Warrington Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, later described what happened:
•There was a body of police outside Hadfields' gate. They were standing across the road with their arms linked.
stood ten yards away, shouting Hadfields to come out and the strike. Without warning the police made a rush. We stood our ground, thinking the police would stop.
foul do? had in for "The next we knew the Two police dragged him along the floor by his hair, kicking and Hadfields 12 March: 'There was one lad who just stood there. was like a bloodbath!' thumping him... they charged at us like a troop of soldiers. It lines, police coming in kicking, thumping and punching. There was one lad who just stood there, completely terrified. Two police dragged him along the floor by his hair, kicking and thumping him.
'There were 50 of us who got through the police line only to find another body of cops. They charged at like a troop of soldiers. I1 was like a blood bath.
"They sealed us off. Police at the front, police at the back. An inspector came down and said we were ali under arrest.
Then the cops found they hadn't enough room in their vans to take us all, so they forced us to walk back, one at a time like school children, through their lines. ' Many militants were handcuffed after arrested. Some spent up to four hours at West Bank police station with their arms 'cuffed behind their backs. The arresting officers were still down at Hadfields the keys. Some of the pickets were "cuffed plastic straps.
When they finally gol round to booking charges ranged threatening behaviour, obscene language to, in most cases, assault.
The scab lorry driver who threatened pickets with an iron bar was noi arrested.
And yer no way was the picket a failure or defeat. pickets had shown their determination to keep up their Photo: CLIVE TURNBULL struggle. That Thatcher and her cops needed to be as vicious as they were at Hadfields was a sign of their fears and their anger at the pickets strength.
whether it's inside or outside police cells; Hadfields or er Picker the morale South' Yorkshire remains high. That's the message from Sheffield.