Help Needed Now More Than Ever

On March 6 we see the anniversary of the Miners Strike. Twelve months of hardship for the mining communities: sometimes having to fight alone, sometimes getting support none would have imagined possible.

As in 1926 the TUC has failed to provide the sort of physical support that was needed to ensure a victory. Many trade unionists have done what they can. The rail workers and the dockers and seamen in particular. And the Support Groups have organised on a scale unprecedented, with the women at the forefront of the struggle from the very beginning.

There has been much said about the significance of the strike and how the government is not only determined to smash the NUM but trade unionism also. But the calls for mass solidarity action have gone unheeded. There has been no mass strike action, apart from selective and token action in a couple of industries, or the odd, partially heeded, ‘day of action’ in certain regions.

The tendency to scab is a cancer that appears to be spreading in the wake of the many who refused to give solidarity. This now leaves the way for two classes of working people: those who are for justice and those who are pleased to appease the State at all costs. As for those who sit on the fence, those who talk but don’t do: they have sold out and are to be as despised as much as those blacklegs who took management money, accepted government advice and helped create the laws for the entrapment of their sisters and brothers.

But, as it becomes more and more obvious how much the government is prepared to go to achieve total defeat on the miners, it is equally obvious that there is no such thing as too late. One week of all-out strike action or a longer period of selective action in key plants from the power workers could bring this strike to an honourable end. Indefinite action by workers in other key industries (eg, rail, the docks, etc), would have the same affect. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO CHANGE TACK AND TO SECURE A VICTORY. Nor is it too late for those who have fallen to scabbing to act with honour and join their erstwhile comrades on the picket lines.

The consequences of this strike will be faced for years: not content with a victory at the Falklands, not content with changing the face of trade unionism, not content with securing nuclear fortresses in the wake of a planned Military State, not content in creating a vast sub-class of wageless and lower waged, this government seeks the breakup of communities and to impose the strict obedience to central authority.

This need not be so. We have the power to stop it. We have the power to send all these megalomaniacs packing. We’ve the power to curb the trend to greater poverty and injustice. We have the power through our collective action. And when we use that power, those who only knew how to exploit and how to create suffering – these mandarins of Business and State – will tremble and capitulate, providing our will and our determination is sufficient.

It is never too late to act in the interest of justice. The miners need our physical support now – they need not words but industrial action. Not one day strikes, but indefinite strikes. Not just money and food, but action that could have ended this strike 11 months ago.

But if such industrial support is still not forthcoming then it will be up to those of us at rank and file level, those of us who are part of the wageless ‘sub-class’, and those of us who have stood by the miners from the moment the strike began, to join together on March 6 to make certain this government knows the extent and depth of anger our class feels. Whatever else happens we should make March 6 a day that will truly commemorate the strike. March 6 should be a Day of Direct Action, throughout the country. And in London, where a mass march is planned to head for Whitehall – where the strike began in its embryo – nothing less than major disruption and a blockade of parliament itself – reminiscent of the near-storming of the House of Commons that took place last summer – will be good enough.

N.B. February 24 is also a day when many miners and support groups from around the country are planning to converge on the capital. Whether this day or the anniversary itself proves to be a day for massive retaliation remains to be seen.

Black Flag: Anarchist Fortnightly 25/2/85 Vol. VII, No.127 https://libcom.org/article/black-flag-vol-07-127-1985