Scargill sound the retreat
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-05-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 14 →
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IF ANYONE doubted that Arthur Scargill is in retreat over the jobs issue, his latest proposed tacties to fight closures should spell matters out clearly.
Speaking to delegates at the NUM's NW area conference, Scargill mapped out a plan to oppose closures of 'uneconomical' pits by partial rather than national strike action - in which the 30 most profitable pits would be brought out on indefinite strike action, subsidised on full wages by a levy on the rest of the union's membership, who would remain at work.
As if to underline how futile and demoralising this partial stoppage would be, Scargill himself argued that in this way 'We could keep a war of attrition going for a year or two years.' To even imagine an action in these terms is to ignore the fact that the Coal Board would be supplied with coal continuously throughout that period, and to ignore the fact that miners whose jobs are not threatened would be transformed willy-nilly into the battering ram for those whose jobs are threatened but who would still be working!
It is hard enough in recent experience to secure solid supporting action to defend jobs even when the workforce facing redundancy takes strike action or occupies the workplace. It is nigh on impossible to envisage mass supporting action for a week or two, let alone a year or two, to back up workers who do nothing themselves.
What would Scargill advise the strikers at the 30 key pits to do for the year? There would be no sense in them picketing other pits - or in picketing Coal Board customers, since the tactic depends on coal supplies being maintained. Does their part in the struggle come downto spending a year or more on the allotment or decorating?
Like so many 'innovative' partial strikes in recent years, the Scargill plan is not a plan for elass struggle but an avoidance of the necessary fight to raise the consciousness of the membership as a whole - not least in the 30 "top' pits - on the scale of the NCB attack need for united, all-out strike action to defend jobs.
Instead Scargill and the NUM Executive should be pumping out pamphlets, leaflets and verbal information popularising and explaining the statistics the Union has accumulated on the threat to jobs - to ensure that when the next crunch comes the members are prepared to vote for a strike.