WHEN THATCHER and MacGregor broke up the negotiations between the NCB and the NUM ten days ago they thought they were on a winner. The police had defeated the miners at Orgreave. Every major paper was calling for the government to drive the miners into the ground.
But within a week determined action by the NUM and the NUR around. v Tuesdav it was clear that the strike was beginning to bite more sharply than ever before.
What is vital now is that individual groups of workers are not left to fight alone. Mockade aid boy coves it is vital nak hat the ei tire weight of the movement is thrown behind the NUM That is why Tony Benn's statement on Monday night calling for strike action and a national because it is Tony Benn. But because what he said is right on what is needed to win the strike.
To break up the isolation the government is trying to create around the miners, and those engaged in tire weight of the Labour Party must be thrown them. national - With head, is the best way to achieve that.
The way to get effective solidarity strike ac tion however is not to leave it to groups of workers. The only way a strike call can be made effective is for the NUM, tion with other unions, to name the day for such solidarity strike action.
Following the successful regional days of ac strike, caribe buily of action, a can be built.
Building on the boycotts and local support the demands which are needed to win are: • A national Labour Party demonstration in support of the miners. unions called by the NUM • A day of national strike general strike in support of the miners.
The whole labour movement has to concentrate on these goals in the weeks to come.
An unwelcome visitor ON 14 JULY a most unwelcome visitor from France will be arriving in Britain. No, it won't be a consignment of French golden delicious apples, nor those other things the Sun likes to carry on its revolting tirades against. It will be a visit by French fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Le Pen is coming to celebrate Bastille day in Maidstone with the National Front.
It is ironic really. The 14 July is one of the greatest days in human history. The anniversary or the cav prison fortress earnest the in turn, did more than anything before October 1917 to spread democracy, liberty, and the concept of equality throughout the world It was, in short, a revolution which the reverse of everything which Le Pen stands for which only revolution and not the country that made it which is important.
Unfortunately the policies of the French Neil Kinnock, Francois Mitterand, in france. The SDP. Liberal controlled Maidstone in France.
orough council has appealed to the goverr rent to ban Le Pen's vis We disagree. sieur Le Pen. Only we propose the labour move ment ensures it organises a suitably internationalist 'greeting Perhaps 'the represent a suitable festivity for Britain on 14 July?
Editor: ALAN FREEMAN Published weekly except two weeks in August and the last week of December.
Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily represent Socialist Action's views. cultullals.
has turned that situation Line govern right. Not active solidarity with them, the enArul scargil at its individual , in collabora24 hour general conference for the trade action, a 24 hour nor French lorry drivers, Bastille and began in French revolution. That revolution, stands for goes to show that it is the allowed Le Pen's Please come to Britain monstorming of Maidstone' would These are expressed in THE WEST GERMAN strikes for the 35 hour week are-the biggest labour conflicts in that country since the Second World War. JOHN ROSS looks at the development of the campaign by the West German metal and printing trade unions.
union launched its first wave of indefinite strikes on shut down.
The effects of the strike spread rapidly outside West Germany itself.
Among the key companies picked out for strike acIG Metall were Robert Bosch, producer of LUC systems, Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen (ZF), turope s largest producer of transmissions and steering asseniones Mahle, of pistons for virtually all Europe's high performance cars.
Dy Ima June not only German vehicle producers the General Motors Antwerp Belgium, which has a normal capacity of 240,000 cars a year.
By mid June Saab and Volvo in Sweden were run. ning down production due tion equipment imported West Germany Vauxhall and Ford in Britain were running short of similar parts. Scania and Leyland vehicles were running out of power steering gear.
It is difficult in Britain to imagine the sheer scale anetall. Weit of the IG With 2.6 million members, the union is best visualised as combination of the AUEW and the manufacturing sections of the TGWU rolled into one - with the ISTC added on It is now quite obvious that the vast majority of miners are opposed to this strike! Given the weight of West German industry in for good measure.
In the last three years IG Metall has raised £112 million for its strike fund. The total assets of the calculated at £375 million.
addition to the metal workers fight for the 35 hour week parallel campaign for the same de mand is being waged by the printers Druck. The printers union has called out 12,000 workers in a series of rolling strikes which included shutting down, , or crippling, the main West German newspapers Frankfurt, Berlin Munich On 18 June the public workers OTV.
with 1.2 million members the second largest union Western Germany, also adopted the demand for a 35 hour WCCK Confronted with this campaign the West German employers have taken an ultra-hard line, concensplitting the West German unions and defeating the demand for the 35 hour week at all CUSES Their chief negotiating weapon has been introducing the idea of 'yearly working time' and propos ing early retirement as an alternative to reducing the travelled the length and breadth of the country you'ld be lucky to find more than dozen miners working week. Reduction of the retirement age to 58 on 75 per cent of overall pay has been agreed in the textile industry for examhas been for the employers The other alternative propose workers individual days off. But the bedrock of the bosses' position has been to refuse any reduction in the basic 40 hour week for the entire workforce.
The advantage of these partial proposals to the employers is that they do not involve the hiring of extra workers. The days off would be taken times of the year when production is slackest anyway and would not involve closing down the factories The workers who retire early would not be replaced.
means of reducing Germany's 2,100,000 employed - which is one of the chief goals of the 35 hour week demand - the proposals to reduce the working year would simp ly be used to launch a campaign for flexible working productivity increases.
The employers' tactics have been successful in breaking off the right wing of the West German trad federation, the DGB, from support of IG Metall. The chemical workers, miners, construction workers, textile workers catering workers have all accepted the lowering of the retirement age as an alternative the shorter working week.
The second tactic of the employers has been to ...Who totally support this action!
The rest, I take it, are intimidated by the demon Scargill? solidabreak up te Metall solidarity IG Metall itself. The employers have ottered reduction of the work week to 38 hours for shift workers - but this would affect only CelI ot the IG Metall': members. A proposal is being floated to extend this to piece workers which would mean more than a third of the membership. But the bedrock of the employers' position remains no reduction of Lne workweek below hours for the bulk of the IG Metall's members.
Arbitration around the metal workers' claim has been set : up under the exright wing Social Democrat Georg Leber and will be reporting this week.
The printing employ. ers, probably in consultation with the metal dustry bosses, have taken an ultra hard line. Arbitration over the print workers claim led to a report by Christian , Democrat arbitrator Biedenkopf proposing a settlement on the lines of reducing the work. ing year but not the working week. This was accepted by the union, but then rejected by the clovers Faced with this hard line the two union leaderposite directions. position of IG Druck has hardened with an extension or surike action. The IG Metall leadership has retreated by accepting bringing forward the annual holidays companies such as Volkswagen demobilising the workers involved Largely verbal support tor the unions CallbagI has come from the leadership of the West German How else could one explain it? Striking German metal workers Social Democratic Party (SDP). This in practice, a compromise en urging Metall. compromise The 'Green' party, the ecologists, who won a major success in the Euro-elections, have radical position on paper demanding the granting of the 35 hour week and positive discrimination favour of women and im. migrants among the be taken on. But the Greens organisea support in tne trade unions scarcely exISUS At the parliamentary and state level the Greens demanded Hamburg that the lockouts staged by the employers be declare illegal. But they made no such demands in the state Hesse durıns their negotiations with the SPI over forming a new state government.
The long term effect of the strikes on West Ger man politics however are going lo be profound West Germany already has largest anti-missiles movement in Europe. In the Greens it has a party to the left of the SPD with a spit natular turo..ne Euro elections. What was lacking in the political situa tion in West Germany was major struggles by the movement itself.
The struggle over the 35 hour week,-however has for the first time well and truly shaken a section of the West German union movement from its post-war allelalice social peace.
The effects of that step reverberate through European politics for many years to come.
•Cormäc I shouldn't be surprised to learn that he was taking lessons from Sinn Fein on 5 how to intimidate! 5 Perfectly simple, "aren't
Socialist Action
----- pull-quotes -----
Europe it didn't take long for the strikes led by the German metal workers union IG Metall to bite. The
14 May. By mid June 80,000 workers were on strike and 300,000 locked out by the employers in retalia- tion. The great bulk of German car production was
APIECE Of the ACTION :6389 In fact, if you h
Goals ans of reducing inest