1972 WAS a year of mass struggles. The working class fought against incomes policy and anti-union legislation; national strikes and occupations were used against job loss; Manchester engineers occupied over 30 plants to pursue a national wage claim; there was the first ever national building strike. And of course there were the miners and the flying pickets and the dockers and the freeing of the Pentonville 5.
PAT HICKEY looks at different components of Arthur Scargill in 1972. His flying pickets won the day the struggle in 1972 and at the crucial role of leadership — and lack of it - during that time. In the wake of the horrendous sell-out by the TUC over the train drivers' strike last week, there are both parallels and the roots of today's crisis to be found in the events of a decade ago. PAUCE LING THE PACE for 1972 was set at stockpiled at Saltley.
Friday
Led, at times waving iron bars.
solidarity bulding sites use of force.
Saltley.
safety'. battle of Saltley Gates.
hook. It set up the Inquiry.
had won the day.
Led Arthur events of today will police brutality.
picket lines for scab labour, about it.
defied: that Minister Saltley would be closed the labour postal about a socialist revolution.' defeated.
These words the many ly organised of the strike. The totally women cleaners won wage rises.
would said NUM labour But it was not that simple. reverse Picketing by the miners began February. Large numbers of police were mobilisoutnumbering the prison. miners. Scab lorry drivers drove Steer, at the picket lines at high speed Monday saw the first day of action when from SU Carburettors and from joined the miners.
Throughout that week the police kept the depot open by the sheer union But on the Thursday, 10,000 Birmingham engineers converged The police were swamped. The lorries stopped. By 1lam the officer in charge closed the gates 'in the interests of public The miners had won the After that the government had to find someway of getting off the Wilberforce The result was a big setback for Heath's income policy Once again it was the actions of the rank and file going far beyond what the leadership wanted that When Saltley Gates were closScargill said 'The go down in the history of the British working class movement as a historic day, when not just individual unions but British trade unionists decid ed that they had had enough of They had had enough of intimidation by police in obtaining passage through the and they decided to do something 'We had a lesson in workers blems. control. For the first time in many years the workers of this land decided that the nation would be the system would be defied and the gates of It is a situation like this, 1 suppose, in the future which will bring about the kind of unity in the trade volved. union movement that is necessary to combine the whole forces of . movement to bring the of Arthur Scargill echoed the sentiments of After Saltley, there was a huge wave of militancy. Millions took action against the Industrial Relation Act. The well-organised engineers went into a national pay fight. The poor.
building workers pulled off the first truly national unorganised In Whitehall under May Hobbs organised and To many militants it seemed that deepening militancy and ever growing solidarity would indeed Courtiy usher in the British Revolution.
dio, Industrial Relations Court (now ne ly appointed Masters of the Rolls place of Lord Denning) was maki an order committing five dockers The five, Vic Turner, Berna Anthony Merrick. Der Watkins and Cornelius Clancy, refused to obey a court order to st picketing the Midland Cold Stora depot in East London.
At the heart of the dispute lay t hated Industrial Relations Act. T Act attempted to make the tra leaders police their members by making unions respon ble for the action of its shop stewaro Hence the transport union was fin £55,000 because lorries were black at Heatons Transport, St Helens, al The line of the TUC on the I dustrial Relations Act was to enga in protest achols and in a poncy non-cooperation. It had refused commont une Act nead on Inste:
leaders had engaged in tal with the government and the boss NATIONAL INDUS Confederation of British Industry o 'solving' the country's economic pr An incomes policy was at the hea of these talks. The mood in the cla was in stark contrast to the attitude ( the TUC. 1971 had seen 13.5m da Ost sunke - the highest since tr General Strike of 1926. By the first s months of 1972, 15.5m days had bee lost with nearly 1 million workers it The jailing of the Pentonville was the first big test of the Industri Relations Act which aimed to tack pOWe shop flor organisation in British industry. Th rank and file were not prepared to s five of its comrades jailed. In th growing mood of militancy the TU was forced to call a one day gener strike for 31 July. Within hours that decision taken on 26 July. decision which was opposed amon others by David Bassnet and Fran Chapple — the dockers were freed The working class hadn't waite for the one day general strike. Th docks were at a standstill; there wer no national newspapers; nearly all th London buses were off the road; th train drivers were preparing to tak strike action. And so on around th This great wave of industrial a tion culminated in a huge demonstra tion that moved from the Industri