Category: Trade Union Reporting
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“Don’t panic” is the advice to car workers from Len McCluskey, the Unite union general secretary, as Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt step up their Brexit No Deal preparations, amid further evidence of the precarious nature of the British automotive industry.
In response to questioning on the Andrew Marr Show (30.6.2019) about warnings that jobs and investment in the car industry could take a 20 per cent hit in the event of the UK leaving the EU without an agreement on October 30, Mr McCluskey insisted six times that there was no need for car workers to panic.
But when Marr pointed to a YouGov opinion poll of trade union members that showed that 65 per cent of Unite members wanted to remain, Mr McCluskey denied that was the case.
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While post-Brexit job losses continue to mount in the wake of the accelerating downsizing of the British car industry, the workforce lacks the support of a coherent or cohesive voice speaking up on their behalf.
Motor manufacturing is just one of many industrial sectors where employees are being let down by the failure of the labour and trade union movement to mount a vigorous campaign to safeguard future employment.
Instead of a jointly agreed strategy identifying where jobs are being lost – and then explaining how they might be protected – the largest unions seem to have coalesced around the fallback position of simply rejecting a no deal exit rather than facing head on the impact of Leave or Remain.
Uncertainty about the UK’s future relationship with the European Union is without doubt the greatest current threat to job prospects in the automotive sector and a wide range of other industries.
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The sight of Labour MPs from former mining constituencies expressing a readiness to accept cash for their localities in return for a vote in favour of Brexit is a haunting reminder of how easily the Conservatives bought off miners in the past.
Offers of ever-higher redundancy payments enticed many miners back to work during the 1984-85 pit strike, and finally it was these cash incentives that helped secure Margaret Thatcher the victory she craved.
Almost a decade later, when Michael Heseltine pushed through the massive 1992 pit closure programme, he was convinced the £1 billion he had secured for redundancy pay-offs would again prove irresistible – and he was proved correct.
Once again, we see how the offer of Conservative cash – this time for investment within their constituencies – is again proving all-too tempting.
John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, in Nottinghamshire – a constituency that he says was “devastated pit closures” – is the most vocal supporter of Theresa May’s ploy of offering cash investment opportunities to former mining areas in recognition of Labour MPs voting in favour of her EU withdrawal agreement.
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The 31 pit closures announced in October 1992 were a point of no return for the British coalfields, the eventual death knell for deep mining and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
A botched announcement, a Tory party revolt, and an embarrassing U-turn for John Major only months after being re-elected Prime Minister, did bring about a temporary reprieve, but the closures went ahead, ready for a slimmed down British Coal to be privatised.
There was a public outcry that had shocked the Prime Minister: 200,000 people marched through London in protest, and the miners’ leader Arthur Scargill was hailed a hero.
Cabinet papers revealed confidential Downing Street memos that contained excoriating criticism of the then President of the Board of Trade, Michael Heseltine, for mishandling public sympathy for the miners, and for allowing accusations of a government “betrayal” of men in the Nottinghamshire coalfield, who had stayed loyal to Margaret Thatcher in the 1984-85 pit strike.
After the shock announcement of the closures, and news that a pay-off for the 30,000 redundant miners would cost £1 billion, Major was forced to order an immediate inquiry into energy policy.
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The recent death of prominent trade union leaders demonised during the industrial conflicts of the 1980s was a reminder of the price that can be paid when public figures get on the wrong side of shifts in public opinion -- a fate that might well await the Brexit cheerleaders.
Union officials involved in the so-called Winter of Discontent and the momentous strikes of the Thatcher years were already unpopular enough with large swathes of the public, but they became hate figures after being constantly traduced by the tabloid press.
Three decades later, the late NUPE leader, Rodney Bickerstaffe -- vilified at the time for calling out on strike grave diggers, hospital workers and the like -- found himself hailed as a hero by countless thousands of lowly-paid workers who credited with having done so much to help establish the national minimum wage.
The irony today is that that the popular newspapers that helped to turn union leaders into hate figures might find their slavish support for ardent Brexiteers -- such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith, Jacob Rees Mogg et al -- is nowhere near enough to save their "heroes" if public opinion swings against them once Project Deception is exposed for what it is, and the nation has come to terms with the full consequences of a hard Brexit.
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40-year-old secret is out: coal board chiefs were Arthur Scargill's source of secret "hit list" for pit closures Article Count: 0
A tantalising secret has finally been revealed about the source of a controversial “hit list” for pit closures which became a critical issue in the year-long miners’ strike of 1984.
Throughout the long dispute and its bitter aftermath, Arthur Scargill prided himself on his ability to obtain confidential documents from high-level sources about the future of the coal industry.
He always claimed the information he had received proved the accuracy of his predictions about the true intentions of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her ministers.
For 40 years Scargill refused to reveal either the source or status of what he declared was a secret plan prepared by the National Coal Board to “butcher” the coal industry.
He changed his mind when invited to speak at recent events to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the strike – and the secret he revealed was that the source of the leak was the then deputy chairman of the coal board.
Scargill was determined to use speeches commemorating the strike’s 40th anniversary as an opportunity to correct what he said were myths and lies perpetuated by the news media and historians.
In seeking to set the record straight, he told me he was anxious to unlock some of the secrets about those with inside knowledge who had supplied him with confidential information about what was afoot.
Perhaps the greatest unresolved mystery was the origin of the “hit list” which Scargill used to great effect to warn that thousands of miners’ jobs were at risk.
The timeline started in November 1982, shortly after his election as President of the National Union of Mineworkers and well before the start of the strike, when he told a news conference that he had been given a confidential report indicating that “75 short life” collieries had been earmarked for closure.
Journalists who had crowded into the union’s former London headquarters in Euston Road were waiting to hear Mr Scargill’s response to a crushing ballot defeat.
In what newspapers had already dubbed a personal humiliation for the union’s newly elected president, miners had voted in a pit head ballot against an NUM recommendation to reject an 8.5 per cent pay offer and to endorse industrial action over future pit closures.
To the surprise of the media pack, Scargill seized the agenda by holding up what he said was a copy of a secret document on plans for a drastic cut back in the mining industry.
A coal board briefing prepared in March indicated that “75 short-life pits” would close within the next five years.
Scargill chose a 40th anniversary rally at Goldthorpe miners’ welfare in South Yorkshire (29.6.2024) to reveal “certain important facts” about the lead-up to the union’s “historic struggle”.
He said that during the early summer of 1982, in his first months as NUM President, he was told – “obviously in great confidence” – by the board’s director of public relations, Geoff Kirk, that the NCB and the Tory government intended to launch a pit closure programme in the autumn of 1982.
“On the basis of our union’s experience and without betraying the source of my information, I warned that a pit closure attack on our industry was looming.
“On the evening of 1st November 1982, Don Loney, the NUM chief executive officer, came to my office with a sealed package.
“He said it had been given to him by John Mills, the NCB deputy chairman, to hand to me privately. I opened it and read it.
“The following morning, 2nd November, I reported to a meeting of the NUM national executive committee that I had been handed documents which showed that the coal board intended:
“A. To close 30 pits which were described as uneconomic, and according to the board accounted for operating losses exceeding £200 million.
“B. To close 75 short-life collieries (including Coegnant in South Wales, which had already been closed).
“There was a note: included in the list of short-life collieries were 10 of the uneconomic pits. The total number of threatened pits was 95.”
In his report to that day to the executive committee, he said the documents were dated March 1982, eight months earlier, at a time when the board had been denying that there was any “hit list” or closure plan.
Once the executive committee finished its meeting, Scargill met journalists waiting for his briefing on the ballot defeat only to find that he succeeded in upstaging their hostile questions by what I later said on BBC Radio was a master class in how to seize the news agenda.
In my book, Strikes and the Media (1986), I explained that Mr Scargill’s sense of timing can best be appreciated by listening to a tape recording of his news conference.
“In front of him are the outstretched microphones of the radio and television reporters, the newspaper cameramen and the journalists with their notebooks.
“At the precise moment that he announces he has some secret information, he holds up the document in his right hand, just beside his face, ready for the instant pictures for the television and the press.
“On the tape the clicking of the flashlights can be heard coming precisely on cue. Next day Fleet Street gave its account of the news conference:
“Scargill had pulled out a white rabbit, a coal board briefing on pit closures. It was his only shot.” (Daily Mail, 3 November 1982)
I concluded this was proof if proof was needed that Scargill thrived on confrontation with the news media:
“The incident demonstrates to the full Scargill’s resilience and ingenuity. He never seemed daunted on entering a room packed with journalists, baying like hounds...”
Perhaps the most significant historical footnote regarding the revelation about the source of the secret document was that it illustrated the unease within the coal board’s management over Mrs Thatcher’s determination to downsize the coal industry.
The briefing papers had been prepared by the board for the Monopolies Commission and the board’s hierarchy knew the writing was on the wall.
Mrs Thatcher was ready to seize the opportunity to slash the coal industry’s losses – an opportunity which had arisen with the imminent departure of the then board chairman Sir Derek Ezra and the outgoing NUM President Joe Gormley.
The two men had worked behind the scenes to do all they could to sustain the coal industry, but the management knew that era of co-operation was about to change with the expected appointment as chairman of Ian MacGregor.
He was quite prepared to take on the trade unions, as he had done during the action he had taken to slim down the British Steel Corporation.
The two coal board chiefs named by Scargill as the source of leaks – public relations director Geoff Kirk and deputy chairman John Mills – were both known to have great sympathy for mining communities.
Perhaps they were hoping that by taking Scargill into their confidence there was a possibility the industry might be able to continue the behind-the-scenes management-union co-operation that had been so effective in the past.
As events would demonstrate there was never any likelihood in reality of replicating the cordial relationships of the Ezra-Gormley era.
Mrs Thatcher was determined to smash the consensus that had developed within the nationalised industries; Ian MacGregor had no intention of becoming a patsy for the trade unions; and Scargill would not waver in a lifelong commitment to refuse to accept pit closures unless coal stocks had been exhausted.
Illustrations: Morning Star (3.11.1982); London Evening Standard (2.11.1982); News Lines (3.11.1982); Daily Mail (3.11.1982).
Nicholas Jones presents "The Art of Class War", a look back at the 1984-85 miners' strike through the eyes of newspaper cartoonists, at the South Yorkshire Festival on Sunday 18 August, Unison Room, Wortley Hall, Sheffield