Where are the allies now?
Peter Paterson
Last year, amidst the banging of drums and the tinkling of cymbals, it was an- nounced that the most fearsome weapon ever devised in the history of British labour relations was being revived. The Triple Alliance — synonymous with Black Fridays, General Strikes and the onward march of the workers towards Utopia — was re-formed, ensuring that an injury to the railwaymen, the miners or the steelworkers was an injury to all. This week, it is looking like a triple tragedy, with multiple injuries all round.
To start with the weakest link in this great triumvirate, the steelworkers are in full retreat. Taking advantage of the incle- ment weather, their bosses announced that unprecedented losses had been incurred because of the snow, and that thousands more redundancies would have to be declared. Mr William Sirs, leader of the big- gest, though constantly shrinking, union in the industry, the Iron & Steel Trades Con- federation, expressed his incredulity. He was told that it was not just the weather, but the dog-in-the-manger attitude of the Americans towards the dumping of Euro- pean steel which was the problem.
Everyone got together to receive the, reassuring news that the Scunthorpe steel works was not, after all, to be closed. Mr Sirs, while refusing to call off an overtone ban fixed for next month, nevertheless fad" ed to call on his rail and coal partners to help him out. One down and two to go- Over at Euston Road, where the National Union of Mineworkers has its head- quarters, there is the problem of a retiring president with a few months to kill and a duly elected successor, who don't seem to get along too well. If some latterday Lord Radcliffe wanted to do some research into constitutions, and where they go wrong, he could do worse than devote a doctrinal thesis to the way British trade unions OF' duct their affairs. For Joe Gormley, within two months of retirement, continues to ex- ercise his power and influence in a waY which would provoke a revolution in any Third World country.
Scorning the highly expensive CO'l" munications machinery which sociologists have devised for the NUM, Mr Gormley decided to deliver an eve-of-poll message to his members through the unlikely medium of a full-page article in the Daily Express. The miners heavily rejected the recommen- dation of their national executive that they should vote against the National Coal Board's offer of a 9.5 per cent increase (bet- ter than that for older workers) and, in- stead, authorise the union to negotiate fur- ther and to call a strike `if necessary'. It was the 'if necessary' which betrayed the weakness of the Left in the mysterious case of the botched ballot. It showed a lack of confidence, an ambivalence, which undermined the rhetoric of Gormley's rePlacement the ultra-militant Arthur Scargill. Who ever marched their troops into battle under the slogan, 'We must die for our country — if necessary'? It might be said that greater love hath no union leader than this: that he lays down his reputation for his successor. For Joe 'irrnley, the most cunning, the most am- biguous and far and away the most suc- cessful union leader in Britain since Ernest !evil.", has managed to deliver, simul- taneously, two important lessons to the man who will now occupy his post. Arthur Scargill may rend his garments and accuse 'Je Gormley of a 'shameful and unparallel- ed betrayal' of the union, but the fact is that Gormley has handed him an alibi for what would otherwise have been a much more humiliating reverse at the very start °f his presidency. The idea of a miners' strike over an offer which not only kept them at the top of the wages league but was also way ahead of nearly every other large settlement in the current wage round, was never really on. The Left, buoyed by the euphoria of acargill's overwhelming electoral victory !.or the vi presidency of the miners, tried to link thevictory of a militant individual with support for militant policies. It's an old trap. Any union member wants the most astute negotiator to go into bat for him, but he doesn't necessarily want to spend all his time fielding at silly mid-on. And the rule requiring a 55 per cent majority for strike action is a formidable hurdle, particularly when it's invoked just after Christmas, when the prospect of weeks without wages naturally has little appeal.
, So, if he has ears to listen, Arthur Scargill should now know the importance of timing, and be aware that leadership of a trade union is not like being handed the com- mand of a squadron of dragoons in the Cri- mean War. Unless Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire wish to impress their new leader with their devotion by calling unofficial strikes, we are past the danger of another national mining stoppage, and can thankfully note the interesting fact that it is now eight years since the last one. That leaves the railwaymen — or, to be accurate, the tiny but operationally essen- tial rump known as the Associated Society , Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. There aren't any firemen left these days, of _e°,.nrse, but quite a lot of second drivers who accompany their mates unnecessarily 011 — to judge from the figures of daily !lineage for BR drivers which have been issued — their minuscule daily journeys. It
cannot have helped ASLEF's case that the second driver in the Croydon crash the other day was, fortunately, at home in bed when the crash occurred, although he had apparently signed on for duty.
The dilemma facing the agreeable Mr Ray Buckton of ASLEF is an unenviable one. He seems to be paid to receive the hate letters with which people bombard him as a release from their frustrations as com- muters, while his virtually anonymous ex- ecutive council makes all the decisions. But what must really hurt is the realisation that once this union opens the door to serious productivity improvements — whether by eliminating spare drivers or flexible roster- ing — it signs its own death warrant.
The fact is that with far fewer than 30,000 members — a total which is fast dwindling — it is difficult to sustain a trade union financially, without such an enor- mous increase in contributions that the members would rush to join the rival National Union of Railwaymen. This is Ray Buckton's last stand. It's magnificent, but it has little to do with the Triple Alliance, which is supposed to be about power plays, not the survival of uneconomic tiddlers. Even so, with their backs to the wall, the train drivers can inflict a great deal of damage and misery: BR chairman Sir Peter Parker must be terrified that the whole issue of pay and productivity might end up with the Railway Staffs National Tribunal for a final, binding decision. Especially as it was Lord McCarthy, the Oxford industrial relations guru who heads the tribunal, who started the whole thing off in the first place, when he adjudged BR's pay offer of 8 per cent to be inadequate, and added, without strings, a further 3 per cent to the increase. Who needs, one is tempted to ask, a Triple Alliance when there are generous benefac- tors like Lord McCarthy around?
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