When the present government came to power the entire British economy was in a total mess. When Labour had been in office it had tried to Increase the rate of growth of the economy from around 24% up to around 4%. Its basic strategy for doing this had been to promote monopolies and 'rationalisations'. Its weapons for dealing with the working class had been incomes policy, productivity deals and eventually the "In Place of Strife" anti-union laws. All this had been just tinkering with the system and had failed completely. The rate of growth fell to around 14-2%. The competitive position of British capitalism got worse. A far more decisive attack on the working class than Labour had been prepared to mount was called for. Labour tried to show that it was prepared to face up to the need for tougher measures by its decision to try to enter the Common Market and by "In Place of Strife", but it was too late off the mark. The Tories were dected with instructions from the ruling class to weaken permanently the power of the trade unions and improve the position of the economy. In their plans for an attack on the strength and living standards of the working class, the go. vernment had two long and medium term measures. The first was to enter the Common Market. Membership of Europe would create a large market for British goods, would weed out the weak businesses, and higher food prices could be expected to reduce the standard of living of the working class. However, competition in the Common Market would be To prevent that, the organisations of the working class had to be weakened so that any fight back would be ineffective. The weapon for doing this was the Industrial Relations Bill. However the IRB would take time to have an effect. No-one but a madman would think that the way to use it was to fine every unofficial striker in sight. That might have led to a revolt against the IRB on the scale of the half million strong demonstrations in Australia against the imprisonment of a trade union leader. The IRB would have to be used gradually so as to build up a suitable atmosphere of fear. If, however, neither the Common Market nor the IRB could be seen as short term solutions to capitalism's problem, then a more immediate weapon had to be found.
The first weapon used by the government was unemployment. This had gone soaring under Labour and was traditionally regarded as an excellent weapon for cooling of militancy. The fear of the dole queue was believed to be a perfect persuader for preventing worries about a declining standard of living. The economic theory of the time was that a level of unemployment of about 600,000 should be enough to put a stop to high wage increases. The government sat and waited as the dole queues reached 700,000, 800,000, 900,000 and moved steadily on towards a million. The policy was not having the expected effect. The working class was not cowering in fear. At the same time the employers, particularly in engineering, were becoming more and more frantic. A stagnant economy was sending profits tumbling and preventing the rate of investment in new plant necessary to maintain a long term competitive position.
What is more, unemployment was not doing the job it was supposed to do. During the winter of 1970-71 strikes and wage increases soared.
A stagnant economy was bearable if it taught the workers their place. Ifit did not achieve this, then it was worse than useless. If unemploy:
ment was really to bite it needer sending up to a figure around a million and a half at least. For the present the government decided that the risk was too great: Grudgingly and reluctantly Barber began to give some stimulus to the economy.
Now however, a real dilemma was faced. High unemployment might not have cooled wage militancy, but in an economy that was expanding hit by a real round of wage rises. The government and ther employers were desperate to find some way of preventing this.
THE TACTIC OF CONFRONTATION Faced with a danger of a strong trade union movement in a period when the economy was expanding, the employers began to look around for drastic measures. The Engineering Employers Federation circulated a sectet document with a plan to smash DATA. The lock-out returned to fashion. GEC launched a generalized attack on its workers. However, for the main attack, the employers looked unhesitatingly to the State. Only the State machine had the resources in terms of finance, publicity etc. really to weaken the power of the unions. The State was only too willing to oblige. It embarked on a series of clashes with the unions.
The first attempt at a showdown came with the local government workers in Autumn 1970. Here the government got a bloody nose. Tremendous support and obvious complete working class solidarity won the strike. The government however learned a great deal from that strike. In particular it learnt that it must control working class opinion more directly through the press and television. Things were therefore more carefully controlled for the power workers. A carefully managed campaign of hate was built up. The newspapers and television, including people such as David Frost, responded magnificently. Every trivial expression of hostility to the power workers was built up until, to judge from the reports, you would have thought that lynch mobs were roaming the country looking for power workers to murder. This careful campaign worked and the power workers were dealt with. However, it was a rather messy operation and more suitable victims were needed. They were found in the Post Office Workers. Every government resource was used to grind the UPW into the dust. After a heroic six weeks strike the union was defeated. The Tory plan of beating a section of the working class into the dust by careful use of human hardship and misery was successful.
If things were going reasonably well for the government on the public sector workers side, it did not care how much money the strike cost because it could always get it back from the working class in the form of increased charges and taxes anyway. The situation in private industry was more complex. A prolonged strike here could cost millions. Firms were therefore not exactly queuing up to be the guinea pig for the Tory policy. When therefore a big strike did blow up in Fords the outcome was not nearly as decisive as the government would have hoped. Jones and Scanlon intervened to stop the strike but by then the company had been engaged in a far longer strike than it had ever expected. It was by no means seen by the majority of the working class as a clear cut defeat for the Ford workers. The government therefore found itself in a position of stalemate. In the public sector it had won. In heavy industry, which is where it really counts, it had by no means been successful. Certainly the government had seized the offensive-the number of strikes last year was down by nearly a half compared to 1970-but it was by no means clear that it would be able to maintain the initiative once industry started picking up. What the State needed was to pick on some section of workers and beat them so completely that the rest of the working class would be demoralised and believe it impossible to win wage settlements over the level set by the government. If this could be achieved the government could expand the economy, profits and share prices would boom, the increase in the cost of living caused by entry into the Common Market would occur, the standard of living of the working class would be cut, and the trade unions would Be too scared to resist. This is what the government's toughness throughout the coal industry negotiations has meant. It is determined to inflict a decisive defeat on the working class that will allow the problems of British capitalism for the next two or three years to be solved with practically no resistance from the working class. It is for this very direct and immediate reason that in the case of miners, even more than most groups of workers, the ensuring of victory in the strike is something that affects the whole working class.
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