Of course the miners' strike was financially supported by communists!

On July 9th an article, written by Dr Norman Laporte, was published on the University of Glamorgan website. This article was, strangely and grammatically incorrectly, entitled “Was the Miners’ Strike was "secretly financed by Communists"?”. The first response that came to mind as soon as I had read the article was simply ‘I am so glad he doesn’t lecture me’. Now that is not because I disagree with him, as any of my lecturers or peers can testify as I am quite happy to debate out any and every issue with any lecturer or fellow student and do so on a regular basis. My simple reasoning behind it is that Laporte just seems to be so bad at what he does!

Firstly he starts the article with the massive assumption that this revelation comes as some surprise as if no-one expected it, hence the title. In fact there was no secret at all! Communists openly supported the miners’ strike, yet Laporte in a very tunnelled-vision manner seems to ignore all the open evidence; that communists in Britain and internationally for that matter openly supported the miners’, raising funds to support them amongst many other things. The cheek of the man to call himself a historian whilst omitting such obvious facts!

The article is based around a book he has written in order to publicise it ahead of its impending release later this month. The thrust of the argument appears to be documents from the East German Communist trade union federation which suggest they gave considerable financial support to the National Union of Mineworkers’. I don’t dispute this in anyway whatsoever, in fact I would be more shocked if it was revealed that they didn’t add any financial support. Laporte unfortunately doesn’t display the capacity to understand this.

The miners’ strike lasted from 1984-85 and was a heroic stand of the working class. On strike for a year the miners and there families made huge personal sacrifices in the face of an onslaught from the Thatcher government. With no income for the duration of the strike, the miners were forced to live of the unions strike fund. However it was impossible to maintain this over the course of the strike, the strike fund of the NUM was simply not equipped for this task. Organised workers in trade unions and socialist or communist organisations in Britain and internationally rightly saw this as a class war and rushed to the aid of the miners, spawning miners’ support groups throughout the country. Money was raised throughout the world to offer financial support ,in order to help the miners maintain their stand. So of course finance was raised in a basic act of class solidarity, something of which Laporte once again fails to understand.

Laporte claims in the book that “the Communists perceived the NUM as an ally in the international class struggle against capitalism – hence the close interest in the strike” and in this he was absolutely right. It seems to suddenly dawn on him, as if for the first time he decided to open his eyes and take a peek over the blankets.

But this is where Laporte goes in for the ‘kill’: he adds ““It was, above all, the anti-capitalism of left-of-centre British trade unionists which made them believe that East European Communism was on the right path.... But the British Left ignored massive human rights abuses and the lack of basic freedoms behind the Iron Curtain because they believed that the basic development in the direction of Socialism was right.” As if he thinks that once and for all he has stumped all advocates of communism and won the argument! How wrong can one man be? Well, apparently quite a lot. He is quite right in his assertion that anti-capitalists in Britain saw those who had over-thrown capitalism as ‘along the right track’. Yet he returns to his anti-historical perspective almost immediately when he adds that the British Left ignored massive human rights abuses – a statement which flies in the face of reality.

The British left is, of course, not a homogenous unit in any way shape or form, and much of the British left were and still are very critical of the undemocratic and totalitarian nature of the Stalinist regimes. Whilst at the same time explaining that the economic system, the planned economy, was something worth defending. In such an anti-historical move Laporte chooses to omit this, as well as omitting the human rights abuses of capitalist states, including those of the British government at the time and the violence dished out to the miners.

It is clear that Laporte is trying to present a false image on the past and could teach McCarthy a thing or two. I hope his students are aware of how much is academic work is void of legitimacy!

The Right to Strike?

Once again the scheduled BA cabin crew strike has been ruled out as illegal. The story is reported by the BBC here. The ruling of this strike as illegal comes after the scheduled strike at Christmas time had previously been ruled out by the High Court as illegal and since then another strike this time of RMT members had also be ruled out by the high court once again on a technical basis.

This all comes out even with Britain having already got the most restrictive trade union legislation in western Europe. The high court has ruled the strike out on this occasion as Unite had failed to inform every member of the result of the ballot. This of course seems to be an absurd notion for several reasons. There was no mention of any problem with the election process or with any member of the union being unable to vote or any problem with the result. The only problem is that not every member had been informed of the result! Unite had stated that due to the international nature of the industry they did the best they could have done, posting results on key notice boards, on the union website and via the use of e-mails and text messages. The only conclusion that any sane person can come to is that this has been a blatant attack on the democratic right to strike.

So we have the situation where three scheduled strikes have gone through a democratic procedure and voted for strike action only to be ruled illegal by a completely unelected High Court judge! A Unite official said it was "an affront to democracy in this country". And Steve Turner, Unite’s national officer said that "decent citizens had voted in an open ballot which had then been ruled out by the judiciary”. And went on to say “the union would hope to be in the Court of Appeal as early as possible, possibly on Tuesday”

But all this does beg the question should a legal challenge be the only route? It is not simply a case of High Court judges acting out of turn but the problem is systematic and the Court of Appeal is part of the same system. It is clear that this is a class war at this stage initiated by the ruling class against the organised working class and there is no indication that the Court of Appeal will be any different.

The situation trade unionists now face on top of the already restrictive laws on the right to strike are several recent precedents set in law now which further curtail or could even be said to make strike action virtually impossible, furthermore this attack comes in the most blatant and class biased of ways and therefore the time to defy the anti-trade union laws and these recent court rulings and launch wildcat strike action is now.

It is only by the trade unions defying these laws with the help and support of the rest of the labour movement that we can show these laws to be worth less than the paper they are written on and enter the coming struggles for jobs and public services in a position of strength. If the anti-trade union laws are not defied then it seems clear that this will continue to happen and possibly even worsen under a tory government and will mean that at the most critical time the entire trade union movement could remain stagnant and paralysed.

For further updates on the BA cabin crew strikes check out the AirStrike blog.

Uskmouth demo

Having been at the demonstration only a few hours ago my head is still spinning with all the events that happened. It was by far the best political event I have ever attended and I have been active in politics for the last 7 years! My report here for those reasons may become more of a ramble than a structred report.

The demonstration was called as there is a large amount of workers in the local area who are not being taken on at the site despite their being jobs available, the companies of course simply finding the cheapest labour possible to smash the proud history o the trade union movement in winning the pay and conditions they currently have. Instead choosing to bring in ununionised foreign labour on cheaper rates.

I left Cardiff to head to Uskmouth power station at 4.30 am this morning, upon arriving everyone gathered in a small car park just off the road that leads to the power station. About a hundred people congregated, this included construction workers from other sites, unemployed construction workers largley members of Unite and some from the GMB, young apprentices, unemployed youth, and members of other trade unions in other sectors such as the RMT, PCS and NUM. Of this 13 were members of the Socialist Party (many of whom Youth Fight for Jobs activists) and 2 were members of the Socialist Workers Party.

At around 6am everyone moved out of the car park and onto the road to form a blockade. The road was blocked in order to cause maximum disturbance at the site and to call on workers who have jobs on the site to take wildcat action today. There was a very militant mood at this point so much so that a potential scab was attacked physically by one protester. The protester was the restrained by others and explained that we were not at that stage as the worker had been turned away anyway. The cars and mini-buses began to queue up very quickly and soon it was impossible to see just how far! Members of Unite along with members of the Socialist Party walked along every car explaining to as many workers as possible the issues and requesting on them to either join the blockade or turn away, many workers did either one of those options. This continued for some time and we maintained the blockade until 8am.

The period of 2 hours we spent at the blockade there was a fraternal atmoshpere amongst all the comrades involved and discussions about the issues and the tactics and strategy flowed between many protesters. There was only 1 banner which had questionable content, it read 

'Gordon Brown REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE British workers on British Contracts' 

subsequently the discussion amongst some protesters did cover this area. A few of the unemployed workers I spoke to were very bitter and down trodden. They have seen their jobs and other dissappear and saw foreign workers as scabs. It was said that I live in a different world to them as I don't work in the industry. I agreed that to a certain extent it was true that I lived in 'a different world' but pointed out that I have been involved in the labour movement since I was 17 as a shop steward for a number of years and now as an unemployed 24 year old I face the prospect of a decade on the dole, so my world and the battles I face are very similiar which is why I was at the protest in the first place. I explained that although the concerns of the workers present was to secure jobs for themslves and their community the only way to do that was to understand why we are in the current situation. That foreign workers are being used because it is cheaper because of a century of trade union struggle in Britain we have won great victories which gives us the pay and conditions we currently have in national agreements. That the only way to secure a future for them and their children was to fight to organise foreign labour into the union.to be on the same pay and conditions as to cut across the race to the bottom. In general the discussions I and various other SP members had with protesters on this subject convinced themm of an internationalist approach. It must be noted however whilst all these discussions were taking place no members of the SWP intervened despite their heavy handed criticisms of the LOR strikes!

Whist at the blockade sky news did a series of interviews with protesters including a live interview with Newport Socialist Party member Mike John, that is really testament to the position of respect we have been able to build up at Uskmouth that the workers in struggle would be willing to put an SP member forward to speak on their behalf as Mike is not directly inolved in the struggle as he is not a construction worker!

We then decided to march from the blockade right up to the entrance of the site. This is where it  got really interesting for me because Youth Fight for Jobs were asked (and in some cases workers demanded) to head the march with our banner. This was a truly humbling experience, having been around and involved in the labour movement to understand the significance of YFJ's being asked to lead the march was a very proud moment for me personally but also for YFJ as a whole, something we did not nor ever will take for granted. It is something I will never forget.

But the fact that YFJ was at the front of the march had even wider ramifications than that! There were 2 banners of the demonstration, the YFJs banner calling for an end to cheap labour apprentencies and for a living wage and free education. The other banner being the one mentioned earlier calling for Britiish workers on British contracts. As we began the march the YFJ contingent lined up in the front line along with the other banner, but as we set off we purposely but subtley moved in front of the other banner without question, so that the slogan was only visible to the back of my head. This really is a microcosm of the whole campaign that when a serious alternative is posed to the status quo backward ideas in the labour movement will easily be sidelined.

We marched down to the entrance and then the police allowed slowly all the workers to go in which included both british workers and polish and german workers and maybe more nationalities. Chants of 'solidarity brother were shouted to polish workers in a basic appeal of solidarity mindful of language problems. There were again 1 or 2 questionable comments to foreign workers but this was by and large isolated. To the British workers chants of 'scabs' and many shouts such as 'take the day of, we are skint we have families to' and 'have a good day in work, but you will work on other jobs with us and we know who you are now'. Other workers who had jobs on the site turned away and refused to go in, from what I heard particularly scaffolders, and other workers consulted with Unite stewards whether they should go in or not on safety grounds and it was agreed that certain workers should.

During this time YFJ activists were engaged in discussions with many members of Unite, particularly around the role that we had played of organising a demo in the Rhonndda valleys which one of the Unite convenors had seen. It was agreed that YFJ would formally contact the Unite branch for a request to finance a coach to the November 28th demo and also to help build for it amongst Unite members.

 I had to leave at this point to return to Cardiff but it seemed to be winding down. This is definately not meant to be a complete account of events but simply what I saw at the time. It was definately something to be proud to be a part of and to be proud of the role of YFJ in the coming period.  Watch this space.