Would it have killed Arthur Scargill to have held that national ballot? He would have won it. And then he might very well have saved from the totally anti-conservative Margaret Thatcher so many jobs that provided the economic basis of so many fathers’ authority in their families and communities, and so much of this country’s independence (in this case, from Arab and other oil, and from Russian and other gas).
This country, her main island standing on coal, might then have become a world leader in clean coal technology. And still could. That, along with nuclear power, now offers the possibility of returning to the family values and the national self-government destroyed, in this as in so many other ways, by Thatcherism.
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"Would it have killed Arthur Scargill to have held that national ballot?"
ReplyDeleteNo, but it would have killed the strike. Why? Because that's what ballots are designed to do: when you're filling out a postal ballot its usually at home, not in the workplace where there's a chance of working out what decision everyone else is making.
Here's what would've happened if a national strike ballot had been held. The number of announced pit closures would have been reduced drastically - a barrage of propaganda would have gone out hailing this as a compromise by Thatcher. Miners not facing the closure of their pit would be reluctant to get involved in a national strike that wouldn't affect them, and so a no vote would be returned. A few years later, the old plan would be revived - by which time it would be too late to stop the rot...
Even if the ballot had been won, the ruling class would have used the same arguments it used against NUM members who voted with their feet by walking out - that Scargill had somehow tricked these poor folk with his wily Marxist ways, like some kind of Mesmerist.
Aside from that one small point: good post. Totally agree - we need coal not dole more than ever. Less keen on nuclear, as it happens, but one assumes that new builds will be on existing sites which is the least worst scenario (I don't want to live near one!)
"Here's what would've happened if a national strike ballot had been held. The number of announced pit closures would have been reduced drastically - a barrage of propaganda would have gone out hailing this as a compromise by Thatcher. Miners not facing the closure of their pit would be reluctant to get involved in a national strike that wouldn't affect them, and so a no vote would be returned."
ReplyDeleteNot ideal, but better than what happened. In that he did not and does not believe in negotiation, Arthur Scragill was and in an incomprehensible trade union official. He should never have been one. He should have been a full-time revolutionary, which being a trade union official is not.
"A few years later, the old plan would be revived"
Says who? Scargill would probably have been gone because of the No vote, and an historically normative NUM leadership installed in his place.
The Tories had drawn up plans, years before Scargill even became NUM leader, to tackle workers organisations in each nationalised industry with the aim of preventing resistance to "managed decline".
ReplyDeleteThe Ridley plan was put together in 1978 by Nicholas Ridley, one of those crazies who thought we could make do without a productive economy, relying instead on financial wizardry in the City. The government took on fights with various unions, leading up to the NUM, the aim being to ensure that there would not be united action to stop the destruction of the productive economy.
This was a fight that neither Thatcher nor Scragill deserved to win. Just a shame about the people in the pit villages.
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