executive members round building.
The near unanimous view of the strikers was return to work. But these were only a minority of the total work force, which had by and large passive during the strike and subject to the pressure of the capitalist media.
local generally took the view that a united return to work was the best way to preserve fighting capacity. In the face of the executive's decision to settle, which was endorsed delegate-based negotiating committee — the militant areas considered that if they were sLay become isolated and be picked off. Prestige Even so in South Yorkshire, a key militant strong-hold, required all their prestige to win a small majority for a return to work at a mass meeting.
strike - the longest national strike in Britain since the Second Wore War - Wak unexpected, not least by the Tories. The government's plan, while opposition Ridley MP, was to pick on and defeat a significant group of workers as an example to the rest of the class.
What the Tories had learnt from the Heath administration was that they could not immediately take on the militant sectors encouraging the sort of conflagration which Heath had touched off with the miners in 1972 and again in 1974.
Thatcher's policy was therefore to compromise with the core unions in the present wage round. Miners won 21 per cent without any struggle and British Oxygen workers received over 30 percent. Such ›annot continue if the fories are Ic out British capitalism expansionary basis.
A swingeing defeat for the steelworkers was considered necessary preparation to take on the stronger sectors in the next. wage round.
: + ISTC seemed to be well chosen.
Socialist Challenge local leaders leadership had redundancies, by the the lowest Europe.
completely Spark hatched by Nicholas was spark following weeks a picket operation aimed particularly increases back on an many cases cent with demand. 10 April 1980 Bill Sirs, its general secretary, was reknowned for his 'moderation' there had been no national steel strike since the General Strike in 1926.
Over the past two years the union agreed to 40,000 and in the last wage round it had accepted eight per cent when everyone else was obtaining. 15 per cent. British stee! workers are by paid Western The British Steel Corporation's initial offer of two per cent on top of the massive reaunaancy programmic ISTC into motion.
Despite the union's leadership, the strike brought a total walk-out from Coll day one, on 2 January. Even workers from plants such as Shotton, Corby, and Consett which were facing virtual closure came out solidly in support of the strike, even though they appeared to have nothing to gain from it.
Within days the whole of the Steel Corporation was at a standstill. In the massive flying • WaN organised, at steel stockholders, docks, and private steel. Such actions were against the policy and in the explicit instructions It was the local strike leaderships which formulated the strike aim of 20 South Yorkshire strike committees no strings, with the to the fore in putting forward this The scope of the flying pickets, the range of their targets, and the number pickets involved exceeded the previous highest level of struggle set by the miners in 1972.
The level of rank and file self-organisation in the strike remarkable. This was coupled with a widespread distrust of the union leadership which led popularisation of the demand for Sirs' resignation.
The policy of Bill Sirs was to attempt to find a compromise with management at every turn. With the backing Len proposed the form of the final sell-out formula — eight per cent plus five per local productivity - just one week into the strike.
It quickly became obvious that a strike leadership had to be forged.
The delegate-based negotiation committee was somewhat responsive to rank-and-file demands Thus the committee took just minutes to throw out the 2 per cent plus 12 per cent pay-for-jobs deal offered management recommended by Sirs in the fifth week of the strike.
But this body did not act as a day-to-day leadership virtually no tradition struggle, it was militants at local level who took the lead in extending the strike. Their actions were not only independent of the bureaucracy but officials.
The attempts to private sector, particularly the mass pickets at places like Hadfields and Sheerness; the was picketing to stockholders docks; the attempt to steel users such as Metal Box, Fords and British Leyland all came from this the layer of local leaders.
mittee which by the role of establishing day-to-day leadership of the immediately forming themselves into Sirs divisional coordinated command The South decided organised pickets. il War developing rank community participation in the strike, national demonstrations to keep the mass of strikers informed and involved. The South were often elected and subject to mass meetings.
and Region region did not have the authority to openly seek the of strike on a things had to be This laid the basis emergence of the unofficial national strike committee.
sabotage of the top South pull out the dispute with most areas. extension ana lne Ford close major It was the South Yorks strike comand large played strike almost It committee Yorkshire leadership and plant In and financed the flying threat exemplary in body and file and rallies and sell-out.
strike Yorkshire strike committees But a committee based on a single leadership of the Many done behind the contacts key • Yorkshire. The first meeting was held in the seventh week of the representatives From then on it held regular weekly meetings.
The objectives of the unofficia nationally the strikers' determinatio WELC to make good to stop the movement of all steel; t extend the action to major steel users and to popularise the objective of 21 per cent with no strings.
was the unofficial nationa strike committee which decided to tr and close Ford Dagenham, the large Britain, which in the fina week of the strike was under seriou of imminent closure. also took the initiative lobbies or une nanoth leadership meetings to try to prevent The emergence of such a nationa committee based on clas struggle militants in the localities ha no precedent • In asputes l years, and it threatened to take th running of the strike out of the hand of the ISTC bureaucracy.
To be sure, it never achieved ti credibility to challenge Sirs.
For a the initiatives it was able to take. weakness lay In the lack of fini across industry, th difficulty of gaining the confidence c and ineir tradition and experience. But for th
It is hypocrisy to say that there