By Phil Hearse by riii nearse
[On May 14, between one and two million British workers went on strike and more than 100,000 demonstrated as part of a Day of Action called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The one-day protest was against cuts by the Conservative government in spending for social programs, and against the antiunion Employment Bill.
[The strike was strongest in Scotland, where some 250,000 took part, and in the industrial areas of northern England. Demonstrations took place in Glasgow, where 20,000 marched, and in Edinburgh, where 7,000 participated in what was probably the largest demonstration there since World War II.
[Nearly 10,000 people marched in Sheffield, including more than 3,000 miners and 1,500 engineering workers and steelworkers. Nine thousand people demonstrated in the Manchester area, and there were numerous demonstrations in London. Protests also took place in smaller cities- 1,400 marched in Aberdeen, 1,000 in Barnsley, 3,000 in Bristol, 2,000 in Bradford, 1,400 in Nottingham.
[The following article evaluates the impact of the May 14 action. It appeared in the May 22 issue of Socialist Challenge, the newsweekly sponsored by the International Marxist Group, British section of the Fourth International.]
with
Revolutionary Communist the League, the French section of the Fourth International.
JCR members attended meetings leading up to the demonstration. Raiman said they "explained that students should not re main separate from the rest of the working class, and that the students should call for a meeting and a demonstration of the workers organizations together with the students against the government."
This proposal, he said, "was rather popular in the universities because most of the students understand that they cannot win their fight against the government just by their own strength alone. They need the workers movement to change this government and repeal the racist laws."
The May 14 demonstration occurred the day after the General Confederation of Workers (CG1), one of the large union confederations in France, organized a one day strike that closed down many enterprises in Paris and brought 50,000 workers into the streets to protest government cutbacks in health care.
14 May represented by far the largest action so far against the Tories. At first sight, between one and two million on strike and tens of thousands of demonstrators against Tory policies hardly repre sents a "victory" for the Tories.
But in the period leading up to the Day of Action, the Tory leadership and the unprecedented press barrage upped the stakes enormously.
A challenge was thrown at the feet of the TUC leaders-to carry out an enormous mobilisation of their members, or have 14 May counted as a defeat. [TUC head Len] Murray and Co. entirely failed to rise to that challenge; the only effective reply they could have made was to go all out; to vehemently denounce the Tory press; to make it clear they were not prepared to be bullied.
But instead the TUC leadership prevaricated.
The strategy of the Express, the Sun, the Mail and the rest was to appeal over the heads of the trade union leaders to their members. The mass media effectively said to rank-and-file trades unionists: "Murray is leading you nowhere. On 14 May you will lose a day's pay for nothing. Not many people will strike. Don't put yourself on a limb for nothing.'
This line of argument was backed by the
May 14 'Day of Action': Victory or Defeat? May 14 'Day of Action': Victory or Defeat?
Protest by Unions decision of the High Court against the print unions; that their instruction to members at Express Newspapers to strike was illegal. NATSOPA's refusal to withdraw the instruction provided the high point of resistance to Thatcher's rule on 14 May, and Express management duly withdrew its threat to sack the printworkers who took action.
The only reason that the Tories' onslaught could be effective was because most of the unions had made strike action optional. They did not issue clear instructions for mass strike action. Yet it was not only a firm lead at this level that was lacking.
Millions and millions of copies of the Tory newspapers argued the case against the TUC action, but hardly anything was done by the unions to counter this with arguments of their own.
They should have produced tens of thousands of leaflets. Union districts should have organised hundreds upon hundreds of meetings to explain the case for 14 May. In the event the case of the unions, the working class point of view, went by default.
In light of this, the fact that so many thousands of workers took strike action is remarkable, and represents a glimpse of the deep-seated hatred and frustration with which this government is regarded.
The response to the call was uneven, area by area, sector by sector. The biggest response came in areas like Scotland, South Wales, South Yorkshire and Merseyside. This repeated the pattern of the general election, reflecting the militant traditions of those areas. More than that, it showed that where there was a militant lead; where there was even the inkling of a class-conscious leadership-as in South Wales and the Yorkshire mines-there was a good response.
By raising the stakes of this conflict, the Tory offensive put the TUC leadership on the spot. Murray and the other members of the General Council could only have turned the situation around by going allout to have a massive mobilisation of the rank and file. This they were not prepared to do; they never wanted a one-day general strike or anything like it.
As Murray said: "We achieved every. thing we wanted to on 14 May." Precisely. Nothing scares the union bureaucrats more than the thought of the membership, in their millions, taking strike action. The dynamic towards a general strike petrifies them. They wanted just a "protest." If the propaganda barrage of the press made that protest ineffective, that was a price they were prepared to pay.
There was a deep-seated cynicism about the Day of Action, even among the militants. The reason for that is obvious. The arguments of the Tory press-that one-day action would affect little-struck a chord. The one-day action was completely unconnected with any perspective for on-going action or long-term plan to kick out the Tories.
14 May, as a "protest," had no specific demands attached to it. It was simply "to raise the level of public debate," and to "get the government to change course."
Such a perspective had an air of complete unreality about it. Anyone with the least bit of sense could see that the Tories are not going to be turned aside by "protest." This is the most determined and right-wing government since the war. What is needed is mass industrial action leading to a general strike. That's the only thing which will succeed in throwing the Tories out.
Whatever the short-term demoralisation resulting from the relative lack of impact of 14 May, it will continue to have reverberations inside the labour movement. Thousands of people could see that they were being let down by their leaders; they could see that if a fight against the media offensive took place, it was possible to build a much bigger action.
Socialists have the job of turning this frustration from demoralisation and anger into determination to push the struggle forward. We have to continue a fight inside the labour movement to commit it at every level to mass action against the Tories. The targets have to be the special Labour Party conference on 31 May, and then beyond that the Trades Union Congress in the autumn.
But it is impossible to fight the right wing and to commit the trade union leaders to action without building an organised left wing in the unions. That is the key to the whole situation. Without an organised left, 14 May will be not a beginning, but the precursor of more demoralisation and defeat.