['When the working people of thi murder, shooting…]

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'When the working people of thi murder, shooting several dozen pickets and killing two of them.

But despite all this and even the intervention of the National Guard, the transport firms couldn't break the strike and had to give in. Minneapolis was on the way to becoming a union town.

Over the next few years the drivers won big improvements in conditions, including paid holidays and a seniority system for lay-offs.

Wages were pushed up from an average of $11 for a 60hour week in 1933 to $*3 for 44 hours in 1940.

The growing militancy within the ranks did not go down at all well with Daniel J. Tobin, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In April 1935 he revoked the Lucal's charter with the inten'In Minneapolis saw the native militancy of the workers one can see the power that will conquer the whole world JP Can The picket of Saltley Gate in February of 1972 was an event of historical importance for the British trade union movement.

Like virtually all innovations of working class struggle. the flying mass pickets of the miners' strike. of which Saltley was the most dramatic. came from rank and file initiative.

The major core of the pickets trom the Yorkshire Area were under the leadership of Arthur Scargill. at that time a minor local leader.

The first few days brought small numbers of miners from other areas. The determination of the pickets. numbering a few hundred at that time. to stop the lorries taking coke out of the depot. soon captivated the imagination of both the miners and other trade unionists.

Generally. they were unsuccessful in physically preventing scab lorries getting across. But the demonstration of mass solidarity by the pickets and the implicit consequences for future picket line breakers. turned many from other areas of the NUM were received, but promises of more pickets • never materialised.

A trainload of Scots miners was reported to have been cancelled by their officials.

The Yorkshire pickets were billetted in Birmingham through local trade unionists and those unable to find a bed often slept on the floor of university student Many meetings were organised at workplaces with shop stewards, where rank and file miners explained the reasons and the need of their new tactic of the mass picket.

Talking with student revolutionaries of the post-'68 generation, the miners were warm in friendship but bemused at their refusal to unite inside the left of the Labour Party.

Condescendingly the student revolutionaries explained the obsolescence of the Labour Party. and in more drunken moments, some talked about guerrilla warfare to the further bemusement of the miners.

But after the first week of the mass picket. it was clear that the police were growing in confidence in dealing with the picket lines.

In between the confrontations the police turned round and chatted to the pickets and offered them Polos.

The police on the lines were replaced at very frequent interArthur Scargill vals so that the convivial atmosphere would not affect their determination. And it didn't stop the police laying into the pickets when the time came arresting them by the dozen, and snatching the identified leaders.

If the miners were to be successful it was clear by the weekend that they needed drastic reinforcements. And it was to come in the following week, in an amazing wave of solidarity.

Responding to the Birmingham East District Committee of the AUEW call for a strike. 40.000 downed tools on the Thursday. On that morning. the workers of Birmingham turned up in their thousands on the picket line. It was nothing less than a festival of solidarity.

The Chief Constable of mingham, seeing the situation was impossible, agreed to close the gates. A roar passed down the streets outside as they clanged shut.

And still the trade unionists poured in. Hundreds of workers from Fort Dunlop marched on the depot chanting 'Close the Gates! Close the Gates!' On hearing that the gates were closed they changed their chant to 'Open the Gates! Open the Gates!' wanting the moment of victory to be relived in their presence.

Arthur Scargill, addressing the assembled thousands, from the roof of a dilapidated toilet outside the gates claimed the Saltley Gate closure to be a major victory for the working class in this country. And despite TUC codes of conduct and declarations of abhorence and intimidation of mass pickets by trade union and Labour leaders, flying pickets were firmly established at Saltley in the arsenal of the British working class movement. violence.

Atter a lengthy trial before a luader jury they were all cleared of conspiracy to overthrow the guvernment. But 18 were convicted of advocating violent overthrow and jailed for terms of between one year and 18 months.

The law used for the purpose was the 1940 Smith "Gag" Act and the case brought a storm of protest from trade union and liberal sources. They included the national CIO, the United Auto Workers, the United Rubber Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and various black organisations.

Although in the end, Local 544 was smashed, its history is fuli of valuable lessons in trade union and revolutionary tactics - most of which can still be applied today.

The basic print is one made by Farrell Dobbs himself at the end of Teamster Bureaucracy, where he says: "The principal lesson for labour militants to draw from the Minneapolis experience is not that, under an adverse relationship of forces, the workers can be overcome; but that, with proper leadership, they can overcome. Farrell Dobbs

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fused with a politically con- scious leader ship. In that combination

The first days brought many frustrations. Messages of support