Why are other countries militant?

[Brainaddict]

It didn't rise by one and half million members in the 2nd half of the 70s because of closed shops no - if this were the case then these people would already be in unions. So many many myths. They rose because people needed their conditions defended from the combined attacks of state and capital.

That's interesting but there was a change in voting patterns, right? So what accounts for that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1979

"An analysis of the election claimed that the Conservatives gained an 11% swing among the skilled working-class (the C2s) and a 9% swing amongst the unskilled working class (the C1s)."

 

[butchersapron]

So not because they were pressured into doing it by fellow workers? Not for any negative reasons whatsoever? Given the bile reserved for scab workers, and the militancy of unionism in the 70s, are you asking me to believe that peer pressure wasn't a major contrinuting factor to TU membership rising during the 70s? That everyone who joined did so out of a completely free choice and not because they would have been ostracised or abused at work for not being in a union?

Yes, because of attacks on their conditions that arose from the post 72 & 74 crisis. Not because of nasty nasty unionists battering them into their groups. Fucking hell, i really did expect you to be able to dig past the latter-day construction of a 70s narrative by certain interests on this. I should have guessed not from your crude use of 'the public' above though.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If they were that vehement in their dissapproval why did so many waste their votes on the lib dems instead of voting labour back into power in 1983 & 87? No different to the 15 million who voted against Labour in 1974 - you have to go back to 1929 to find any government elected with more than 50% of the vote so sorry, that's a non-starter as an argument.

Thatcher won in 1983 because of the Falklands. End of, really. Her economic policies had proved an utter disaster. And if you read the Labour manifesto for 1983, it reads like a well reasoned democratic socialist agenda. Another myth is that Labour became extreme in the 80s. They didn't – the rightists held sway at the top just as they've always done. It was the Tories that became extreme.

As for the fact that governments in the UK are invariably minority governments, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be extreme, but it opens up the possibility. With PR, Thatcher could never have pushed through her radical reforms. Any Tory government would have had to veer towards the 'wet' side of the party to form a working coalition.

Pinochet needed a military coup to do a similar thing in Chile – sufficient support from the minority middle classes plus military backing. In the UK, all that was needed was the former.

 

[kyser_soze]

OK, so there was never any peer pressure to join; there was never any deliberate alienation toward those who didn't join. Yes, of course. The only reason people joined was for wholly positive reasons.

OK.

 

[Streathamite]

The OP has already said that he doesn't want that kind of debate on this thread.

ahh, fair enough....then I suppose it is because all those centuries of relative political stability/inertia (compared to most of europe, 1 medieval dynastic war, 1.25 civil wars and one decapitated monarch is pretty small beer), a larger middleclass, and the deference/conservatism inculcated in some as a byblow of the class system may explain. howver, the 1930s, 1960s and 1970s were pretty rebellious

 

[butchersapron]

That's interesting but there was a change in voting patterns, right? So what accounts for that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1979

"An analysis of the election claimed that the Conservatives gained an 11% swing among the skilled working-class (the C2s) and a 9% swing amongst the unskilled working class (the C1s)."

..and even with that swing, they still only recieved 13.7 million votes. They were easily outvoted by the other two parties (even with a terminally ill Liberal lot). So even if every single one of those tory vote was an explicit anti-union vote, it can in no way be said to constitute the opinion of 'the public', that 'the public' was simply anti-union . Of course, those whose still have an interest today in attacking unions will pretend the swing was imply to with unions. Why would they do that?

 

[Belushi]

Thatcher won in 1983 because of the Falklands. End of, really.

IIRC the Tories position had started improving in the polls prior to the Falklands (81 was the real low point for them) - may be wrong on that as its a long time since I studied the period.

 

[kyser_soze]

Thatcher won in 1983 because of the Falklands. End of, really. Her economic policies had proved an utter disaster. And if you read the Labour manifesto for 1983, it reads like a well reasoned democratic socialist agenda. Another myth is that Labour became extreme in the 80s. They didn't – the rightists held sway at the top just as they've always done. It was the Tories that became extreme.

As for the fact that governments in the UK are invariably minority governments, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be extreme, but it opens up the possibility. With PR, Thatcher could never have pushed through her radical reforms. Any Tory government would have had to veer towards the 'wet' side of the party to form a working coalition.

Pinochet needed a military coup to do a similar thing in Chile – sufficient support from the minority middle classes plus military backing. In the UK, all that was needed was the former.

There are those that argue the Falklands Factor won her the 83 election, there are those who also argue that Foot and Militant managed to lose the election for Labour.

Thatch won because she expanded the tory vote upwards from the 1/3 or so of w/c voters who had previously voted conservative, just as Labour increased their vote among the urban m/c during the same period.

 

[butchersapron]

OK, so there was never any peer pressure to join; there was never any deliberate alienation toward those who didn't join. Yes, of course. The only reason people joined was for wholly positive reasons.

OK.

Well, kyser, if you can argue that a consistent rise in union membership is an indication of public disgust at unions what can i really say to that? Is it really so far fetched to think people would join a union in period whenh working condtions are coming under attack? I'm crazy.

 

[Brainaddict]

Well, kyser, if you can argue that a consistent rise in union membership is an indication of public disgust at unions what can i really say to that? Is it really so far fetched to think people would join a union in period whenh working condtions are coming under attack? I'm crazy.

So your answer to the question of why TU militancy disappeared is: Thatcher did it, in the interests of the moneyed classes? There's nothing more to the explanation?

 

[kyser_soze]

Well, kyser, if you can argue that a consistent rise in union membership is an indication of public disgust at unions what can i really say to that? Is it really so far fetched to think people would join a union in period whenh working condtions are coming under attack? I'm crazy.

Then clearly I'm crazy for thinking that there would have been other reasons for such a surge to, ones related to the reasons I outlined above.

 

[Belushi]

I spent the first half of the Eighties in South Wales and the second half in a Peterborough, I remember my shock when I first met ordinary working class people who loved Thatcher and thought she'd saved the nation

 

[butchersapron]

So your answer to the question of why TU militancy disappeared is: Thatcher did it, in the interests of the moneyed classes? There's nothing more to the explanation?

First off, i didn't mention union militancy in that post - i mentioned union membership, something very different. And second, we had a long drawn out battle over the 15 or so years after thatcher got in. Miners, ambulance workers, printers, dockers, steel - almost every major unionised industry - huge long running struggles. But struggles that took plae because a) people were willing to fight them, not because they were fed up with unions and b) because thatcher had made plans to attack them to destory any union power in order to free up wage rigidity. The answer that some people are groping for and which is the bedrock of the neo-liberal narrative - that the unions declined because people ('the public' even!) just didn't want them - has to ignore these two utterly central facts.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So your answer to the question of why TU militancy disappeared is: Thatcher did it, in the interests of the moneyed classes? There's nothing more to the explanation?

That's largely correct, I'd say. Thatcher fought a dirty war against the trade unions and won.

The anti-union laws that she introduced are profoundly undemocratic, infringing significantly on the right to organise and the right to withhold labour. I worked at a non-unionised place a few years ago and there was a vote on whether or not union membership should be allowed. It is a legal requirement to have such a vote under certain circumstances – and people get to have a say as to whether or not their colleagues should be allowed to join a union!

The Thatcher years represent a significant breakdown in democracy in this country. We still haven't even begun to recover.

 

[butchersapron]

Then clearly I'm crazy for thinking that there would have been other reasons for such a surge to, ones related to the reasons I outlined above.

You didn't really outline any -you just hinted darkly at malign force bullying poor innocent workers into the unions.

This does though, handily demonstrate one other possible reason for the current low level of activity - a whole series of myths were constructed about the 70s and 80s and union and the labour movement, that some people swallowed whole and that continue to do damage today. Just read some of the tripe around times of high profile strikes. He who controls the past and all that.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

First off, i didn't mention union militancy in that post - i mentioned union membership, something very different. And second, we had a long drawn out battle over the 15 or so years after thatcher got in. Miners, ambulance workers, printers, dockers, steel - almost every major unionised industry - huge long running struggles. But struggles that took plae because a) people were willing to fight them, not because they were fed up with unions and b) because thatcher had made plans to attack them to destory any union power in order to free up wage rigidity. The answer that some people are groping for and which is the bedrock of the neo-liberal narrative - that the unions declined because people ('the public' even!) just didn't want them - has to ignore these two utterly central facts.

Yep. And you only have to look at the difference in pay and conditions between here and Scandinavia to see the difference strong trade unions can make.

Another reason for the decline in trade union membership is, of course, the decline in manufacturing. The NUM has very few members now. Is this because the miners turned against union membership? No, of course it isn't. It's because there are very few miners left.

 

[Streathamite]

we're talking here specifically about W/C militancy, and I think the fall of that is due to
a) the workers lo,sing the war with the bosses, due to a combination of Thatch AND the massive erosion of britains mining/manufacturing industrial base (blue collar labour by nature much more militant than most white collar labour) - this did not happen on the continent like it happened here, where we lost 30% of our manufacturing base, most of our mines, our hime-owned car industry and a huge slice of the steel industry.
b) a changing class structrure and increase in the size of the middle class. face it, the only things most m/class folk have ever got enraged about is profanity on TV and hunting!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Long-term, Britain could be seriously fucked economically due to the decline in manufacturing. Soon there may be nothing much the rest of the world wants from the UK. Then what?

 

[Belushi]

Long-term, Britain could be seriously fucked economically due to the decline in manufacturing. Soon there may be nothing much the rest of the world wants from the UK. Then what?

We go back to Piracy

 

[kyser_soze]

you just hinted darkly at malign force bullying poor innocent workers into the unions.

Hinted darkly - lol. So suggesting the idea that peer pressure to conform in a potentially hostile environment is a dark hint? I've seen how hostile some lefties are on here - why wouldn't I expect that same behaviour to not have been a factor when the TUs had real power in the workplace? It's not some 'malign force' - it's human interaction; the need to conform to wider social norms in the workplace, in the wider community - I'm not saying your narrative isn't true, what I'm saying is that it isn't the only one that's true.

 

[Fruitloop]

Long-term, Britain could be seriously fucked economically due to the decline in manufacturing. Soon there may be nothing much the rest of the world wants from the UK. Then what?

I think there is already very little the rest of the world wants from the UK. All they are bothered about now is whether they'll ever get back all the money they lent us in any usable form.

 

[Brainaddict]

First off, i didn't mention union militancy in that post - i mentioned union membership, something very different. And second, we had a long drawn out battle over the 15 or so years after thatcher got in. Miners, ambulance workers, printers, dockers, steel - almost every major unionised industry - huge long running struggles. But struggles that took plae because a) people were willing to fight them, not because they were fed up with unions and b) because thatcher had made plans to attack them to destory any union power in order to free up wage rigidity. The answer that some people are groping for and which is the bedrock of the neo-liberal narrative - that the unions declined because people ('the public' even!) just didn't want them - has to ignore these two utterly central facts.

What I might be groping for, rather than the extremes of 'people loved the unions' or 'people hated the unions', is some kind of thinking about whether the unions made mistakes. If they made mistakes, what were the mistakes?

For instance, how had they failed to communicate to those 10% of workers who swung to Tory why Thatcher would not fight for their interests? Were they simply beaten in the PR battle by a more powerful opponent? Were there mistakes in how they communicated?
What about tactical mistakes? Ideological mistakes? Misjudgements of any kind?

If you want militancy in this country then surely you've got to look at why it failed last time - and 'Thatcher' doesn't seem to me like a complete answer.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The war between Thatcher and the trade unions is, though, largely the answer. Remember that Thatcher prepared for the miners' strike months before it happened. She wanted the miners to strike, and was prepared to use the full force of the state, both legally and illegally, to defeat them.

 

[Fruitloop]

we're talking here specifically about W/C militancy, and I think the fall of that is due to
a) the workers lo,sing the war with the bosses, due to a combination of Thatch AND the massive erosion of britains mining/manufacturing industrial base (blue collar labour by nature much more militant than most white collar labour) - this did not happen on the continent like it happened here, where we lost 30% of our manufacturing base, most of our mines, our hime-owned car industry and a huge slice of the steel industry.
b) a changing class structrure and increase in the size of the middle class. face it, the only things most m/class folk have ever got enraged about is profanity on TV and hunting!

I agree with a, but with regards to b I would say that while the size of the apparent middle-class might have expanded, what has really happened is the proletarianisation of a lot of previously middle-class jobs. The real middle-class - the opinion-formers, people with financial and job security who are by nature of their skills or cultural capital indespensible intermediaries between capitalists and the working class, are a rather small group now. I don't think that the full social implications of this have really hit home yet, but with the economic crisis it's likely that they will pretty soon.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That's a good point, Fruitloop. And this current recession is different from previous ones in that it is precisely these people – the proletarianised middle classes – who are losing their jobs.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A question someone might be able to answer:

Why didn't Scargill hold a strike ballot? And would it have made a difference if he had?

 

[Belushi]

A question someone might be able to answer:

Why didn't Scargill hold a strike ballot? And would it have made a difference if he had?

This one always goes well

 

[butchersapron]

What I might be groping for, rather than the extremes of 'people loved the unions' or 'people hated the unions', is some kind of thinking about whether the unions made mistakes. If they made mistakes, what were the mistakes?

For instance, how had they failed to communicate to those 10% of workers who swung to Tory why Thatcher would not fight for their interests? Were they simply beaten in the PR battle by a more powerful opponent? Were there mistakes in how they communicated?
What about tactical mistakes? Ideological mistakes? Misjudgements of any kind?

If you want militancy in this country then surely you've got to look at why it failed last time - and 'Thatcher' doesn't seem to me like a complete answer.

i didn't mean you, i meant kyser.

Sure, there were loads of mistakes - some of them tied to the limits of the role of unions in contemporary capitalism, some tied to personal failings, some to misreadings of the situation and intentions of major players, some stemming from changing global conditions - but all taking place within the defining context of the attack on them (which, no one as far as i can see has simplified down to simply saying 'thatcher' - rather she represented an attempted shift in how capital operates and a dismantling of a whole system, a new relation/compromise between the state and capital and using her as shorthand for all these complex developments). They weren't the determining element, they were almost incidental.

 

[kyser_soze]

I agree with a, but with regards to b I would say that while the size of the apparent middle-class might have expanded, what has really happened is the proletarianisation of a lot of previously middle-class jobs. The real middle-class - the opinion-formers, people with financial and job security who are by nature of their skills or cultural capital indespensible intermediaries between capitalists and the working class, are a rather small group now. I don't think that the full social implications of this have really hit home yet, but with the economic crisis it's likely that they will pretty soon.

I don't disagree with the basic point you're making here, but can you expand on what kinds of roles have become proletarianised, and provide some evidence for the relative size of the 'real' middle class.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This one always goes well

Genuinely interested – I was only a kid at the time, but I remember Thatch repeatedly challenging the NUM to hold a ballot. If they were confident they could win a ballot, why did they not do it?