Be steelworks - Hadfields in Sheffield W CLIVE TURNBULL Photo: wasn't support in the working class for the steelworkers. From the start of the steel strike miners, railworkers and dockers in militant ports offered solidarity to the steel workers and implemented a boycott.
'It was the refusal of the TUC to organise solidarity across the board that limited this. The real situation was seen in the docks. Dockers in the militant ports of Liverpool and Hull responded immediately. But action in other ports was patchy.
When an issue presented itself in the port of Liverpool, 6,000 dockers walked out. The day the steel strike was called off was to nave been tne start of an all-out national dock strike decided upon by a national delegate conference.
Such action could have been organised from the beginning, except the refusal leadership of the Transport General Workers Union - the main dockers' union.
The TGWU leadership was the FRUSTRATION national and first BSC only of resources their of BSC the total Demoralised The be the guaranteed be of committees extended on inside the strike.' for of South Wales Steelworkers Monday, 31 March, a confident meeting of 300 pickets voted to campaign for their branches to carry on the strike on the jobs issue — whatever the results of the Lever inquiry. But that was before the national leadership of the steel unions instructed their members to return to work.
A recall meeting following these instructions on Wednesday of last week produced a different mood. This was summed up by one picket who explained: 'I voted to stay out on strike on jobs, whatever the inquiry came up with. But I now see that we have been undermined by everybody - BSC, Thatcher, the police, the TUC, and now our own leaders.
'We have been in the minority while we've been on strike but at least we've been official. We'd be in an even smaller minority if we stay out on unofficial strike. It would be suicide.' At the recall meeting picket leaders from the platform tried to counter this mood of demoralisation. Arguing for the strike to continue, Ray Hill, a TASS representative on the Llanwern strike committee, said: 'I'd rather go down fighting than on my hands and knees. Most struggles are started by a minority, and are unofficial to begin with. We have to take a lead, by action. Support will follow when people see that we are committed to fighting for jobs.' This argument was backed by other pickets. Phil Christensen, a member of the National Union of Blastfurnacemen, pleaded for the meeting to reaffirm the decision to remain on strike. But the feelings of isolation were too great. Reports that South Yorkshire and Port Talbot were returning to work sealed the fate of the 'stay out' resolution. After the vote Phill Christensen explained to Socialist Challenge how he felt:
'We've been out for 13 weeks to save jobs in South Wales Acceptance of the inquiry offer threatens to put a line right through Gwent. Steel jobs, coal jobs, other jobs in the community will follow this sell out. We should be staying out on strike to fight redundancies. Once we go back it will be very difficult to get people out again. I just feel sickened blowhat has happened. We are being forced to crawl back with our heads low. At least if we'd taken on the jobs strike we could have gone back with our heads held high.' Redundancies But the steelworkers at Llanwern are far from defeated. While they agreed to return to work, the four hundred strikers at the meeting voted: 'Not to accept redundancies at Port Talbot and Llanwern. ourselves to take industrial action against redundancies, if necessary. We should canvas unions nationally and locally to organise the fight against Plans are now being laid to set up a campaign committee to put this resolution into practice. Miners, dockers, and transport workers will be So steelworkers in Wales may have suffered a set-back in the jobs fight but they have not been hammered into the ground. Roger Tovey from the Caldicot Steelworks offered this conclusion in the Llanwern "The momentous 13-week struggle is now at rest. But if the battle is over the war is not. We pickets did not lose. We won new confidence in our own ability, new energy and tenacity. This new-found defiant unity must neyer again be sacrificed on the alter of divisive leadership; it has cost us too much. Let us go forward with new confidence in our future. Never again leave union business to the bureaucrats. Use your branches and lodges as your platform. We can show again the strength and unity we found on the picket line; but this time for the most important fight of all — the defence of our jobs and those of our children. .
Ray Davies, an ISTC member of the Llanwern strike committee, echoes this feeling in his Steel Sheet contribution:
full-time officials. The people we pay to lead our union have been among our biggest enemies. This is the lesson of the strike. We have to make changes in our own union. Our officials should be subject to election and re-election. This is something we were campaigning for in the Labour Party, and it should be extended to our unions.
'Steelworkers from picket lines throughout the country feel the same as we do. In Yorkshire, Warrington, Scotland, and Corby they are as fed up as we are with our union leaders and structures During the strike we made links with members of other strike committees unofficial national strike co-ordinating committee. We should now make every effort to keep up these links so that we can get things changed after Thatcher and the trade union leaders are warned. They have not heard the last from South Wales steelworkers.
Wales last week. On through the Socialist Challenge 10 April 1980 : Page 7
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"The feeling on the picket lines is that we were not so much set back by BSC and the government but demoralised by our own union leaders and