NUM setbacks affect the whole movement

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IAN MacGREGOR is now in control of the National Coal Board and is programmed to do to jobs and conditions there what he has already done in BL and the steel industry.

Even before he had taken office, however, the success of the management offensive and the virtual collapse of the Scargill leadership: in the face of it has been a very major and central gain for the Thatcher Government, a collapse which has a serious affect on the whole working class.

For this reason. it needs looking at in more detail.

After 1972 and 1974 the miners were seen by workers as by far the most powerful section of the working class. Many saw them as invincible. They, rightly created this respect because in 1974 they had removed a Tory Government.

Scargill's election extended this and had widespread support in the working class.

Workers would often hope when things got tough that the miners would come along and sort everything out.

The Tories feared this possibility as well. At first they handled the miners with kid gloves giving them, bigger than average wage increases to avoid a confrontation whilst - following the strategy worked out by newly promoted Minister Nicholas Ridley - they concentrated their fire on industries like BL, Steel and Rail. IN THE FIRST part of a discussion article on the situation in industry, Alan Thornett looks at struggle in the pits. Part 2, dealing with other industries, next week.

The image, however, was not the whole picture. The miners were more vulnerable then they appeared. Up to 1972 the miners had fought very little for years.

The new generation: had little experience of local struggles and the Stalinist/rightwing leadership at national level had allowed massive pit closures to take place without resistance while wage levels fell well below most organised workers.

After 1972, of course, the NUM became much stronger at all levels and Scargill personified that. But there were still very few local struggles. The main experience remained the national strikes of 1972 and then 1974.

One of the problems of the 1974 settlement was a bonus scheme which was designed to divide the miners. This helped management at a later date to weaken the miners Scargill: incapable of rising above the conditions around him at the profitable' pits isolate them at the more antiquated 'loss-making' pits.

It was a successful exercise. After first retreating over closure at Deep Duffryn, the Tories began to take a firm stand.

The NCB won the 1982 ballot on wages and closures, through a mistake of the leadership of the NUM, - who made the miscalculation of tying the jobs issue to a vote on wages - and gained an important advantage.

Then came the Kinneil colliery betrayal in the New Year of 1983, and the cracks were wider.

The crunch came, however, with the decision of the NCB to close Lewis Merthyr in South Wales™ which was met by an allout strike in South Wales and an explosion of militancy.

A crucial developing national strike movement, however, was turned back by the failure of the NUM left and Arthur Scargill to confront the rightwing on the NUM executive, thus allowing them to block the fight for spreading the action and to turn the tide towards a national ballot.

In a demobilising situation the ballot could not be won and it was not. After that things got rapidly worse. Pits were left to fight on their own.

Cardowan miners were offered only 'moral and financial support' by a national conference of the NUM and the Scottish Area Executive. This was under conditions where the pits facing closure do not on their own have the basis to defend themselves.

It was the same at Monktonhall, which struck when miners were sent home after being 5 minutes late on shift after an NUM meeting to discuss 300 redundancies. Miners had been out on strike for two weeks before they were told that their case for support would be discussed at a national conference of the NUM to be held on Friday of-this week - October 21 - i.e. 4 weeks later! Even then they were only offered 'moral and financial support' GREAT BRITAIN PIT LOS UR HE NEC BAYS, A STOP PIT BUTCHERYI VOTE VESXT SOUTH