 Okay comrades, I'm sure Jim you'll give me a shout if you can't hear yeah. Yep. Nice. All right Well comrades we know already don't we that there is a real upswing in the class struggle in Britain at the moment It's unprecedented what we're seeing today really for the last 40 years or so. I Won't list everything that is taking place in Britain right now. You can find that out for yourselves But obviously what is What what is happening is that certain comparisons are being drawn between the situation that we're facing today and the situation as it was in Britain in the 1970s and There are some common features with what was happening in the 1970s and therefore there are some lessons that we can learn From what took place at that time and therefore what we can expect What we can predict in terms of perspectives and also our tasks as Marxists with what we're facing today So similar today actually similar to today the 1970s was really a rebirth of the class struggle in Britain After a period of relative calm ever since the end of the Second World War There were strikes in Britain in the 1960s But they were pretty low level for the most part quite small quite short and in most cases unofficial throughout most of the 60s right up until from 1960 to about 1968 90% of all the strike action that took place was unofficial strike action Because the unions at that time in the 60s the trade unions in Britain were very much under the control under the domination of the right wing in the labour movement The union leaders were overwhelmingly on the right The TUC which for the international comrades in the room the TUC is the umbrella organisation That coordinates all the trade unions in the country The TUC was backing it was in favour of wage restraint policies holding wages back holding wages down the trade union leaders Were in favour of that through the 60s There were a couple of exceptions 1966 the Siemens strike see seafarers seafaring worker strike They struck against poor wages and conditions And that was that is significant. Okay, it was 66 It was at a time when there wasn't a lot going on on the industrial front But it was the first indication that something was beginning to brew because that the NUS the National Union of Siemens It had they hadn't gone on strike in 1926 in Britain Which was when the general strike took place 1926 their last strike action was 1911 The fact they were taking strike action in 1966 over wages and conditions Was a significant fact and it was the harbinger of things to come an indication that things were starting to shift In 1967 there was more evidence of this shift beginning to take place in the trade union movement In the engineering union there was a dramatic change in the leadership of that union It had previously been its leader its general secretary had previously been a right winger a lord I think well, I can't remember his surname And uh, and he was in the in the election for the general secretary of the engineering union in 1967 The right wing was beaten and a man called Hugh Scanlon became the general secretary of the engineers union He was quite close to the communist party. He was not a member of the communist party He was close to it. He described himself as a marxist. He was very clearly on the left It was quite a dramatic change inside that union and that was followed shortly afterwards By the election in the transport and general workers union of a left-wing leader there as well a man called jack jones who had already been elected to the the NEC of the labor party And then was elected the general secretary of this transport and general workers union He was a bit of a shower and graham type figure and actually sure enough the transport and general workers union is now Unite so it's one one part of of what unite the union is now So he was quite a radical figure these these figures, uh, who got elected into the general secretary's positions They were quite radically on the left and these changes The the the n us strike the changes in the leadership of these unions They reflected a process that had been building up for some time Because the working class was in quite a strong position at the end of the 1960s Throughout the 50s and the 60s. They'd been full employment more or less The scars of the past period from the working class point of view had been healed. There'd been economic growth And the proletariat was also industrially very strong minors Steelworkers shipbuilders. There was a strong industrial working class Not burdened down by defeats which which had sort of drifted from the memory And uh, and they were in a position they were already and willing to fight basically they're in a they're feeling their strength You also had at that time in britain a relatively strong communist party We have international comrades in the room the communist party in britain never really it has never reached the the Size and influence of communist parties on the european continent But at that time in the in the late 60s the communist party was relatively strong They had about 30 000 members on paper And they had a quite strong base In the industrial working class, especially among shop stewards Which is that the the layer of trade union officials closest to ordinary workers Uh more on the shop stewards and the communist party later because that becomes quite significant But the result of this process then the result of the 50s and the 60s was this situation that you began to see developing in the late 60s Now at this time it was there was a labor government in power and they published In the late 60s a white paper which is uh a proposal for a law basically it's the first draft of a new law And this was called in place of strife This was the name of the white paper in place of strife in in place of trade union conflict in place of of class struggle basically they wanted something different And and basically what this was was a massive attack on trade union rights That's what uh the labor government was putting forward and this as you can imagine caused up for all He was a labor government that was attacking the working class attacking in particular trade union rights Among other things what this what this proposed law introduced was what was known as a cooling off period Which means Workers vote for strike action But then this law proposed to give the government the power to say all right you can have your strike action In 30 days or in 60 days time But you're going to take a bit of time to cool off Calm down from all your as if they've just gotten all worked up and decided in the spur of the moment Oh, we should take some strike action, but give them a month and they'll decide actually we don't want to take strike That's that but that's the idea it was an attack on on Uh on the trade unions and also it would have brought in the ability of the government to find trade unions as well It would have removed a certain amount of immunity Which the trade unions had up until that point from uh legal action As I say it provoked fury in the trade union movement scanlon And jones these trade union leaders they demanded that the tuc Reconvene immediately to discuss exactly what they were going to do about all of this The thrust in this movement against in place of strife was really coming from below It was in answer to this that the communist party which as I said had this relatively strong base Among industrial workers Formed something called the liaison committee for the defense of trade unions And this liaison committee was a kind of unofficial Organization network of shop stewards of those trade union officials closest to the working class And through that organization In late 1969 a political strike was called against this unofficial strike But nevertheless a political strike against the these proposed attacks on the trade unions It was a day of action. That's what they called it a day of action. I think it was in november 1969 this was the first political strike in britain since 1926 And that really late night that political strike late 1969 that set the stage for the 1970s and a turbulence that was to come Now I spoke to rob uh this morning when he gave me a heart attack by saying that he couldn't do the lead off and um and he was we were chatting a bit about the 1970s And he said that he remembers 1970 if he was here you've got to imagine me with a welsh accent and 30 years older and And he would he would be telling you that he remembers 1970 and he remembers the mood and above all he remembers the change in the mood that took place You could really feel it coming off the back of this growing this struggle the 1966 strike the changes in the union leaders The political strike at the end of 69 1970 dawns and you can feel the changed mood in society It was a real turning point that year. Maybe not immediately obvious, but it became obvious quite quickly that 1970 was a real turning point A Tory government was elected in the summer the heath government And it was elected into this situation from the ruling classes point of view at that time in 1970 British capitalism was in a terrible state It was incredible. It was it was incredibly weak compared to how it had been several decades before It had this long period of relative decline in the po ever since the end of the second world war Living standards in britain throughout that period since 1945 had Not kept pace in terms of the increase in living standards They had not kept pace with the increase in living standards that was taking place across europe Industrial production in britain was growing each year by one and a half percent But in the united states in germany it was growing in that same period by three percent So britain's industrial production was half in terms of growth half what it was of its competitors of its rivals between 1945 and What are you talking about 1970 Manufacturing exports in britain had fallen like in terms of the total manufacturing exports in the world in 1945 britain had 25 percent of those and by 1970 it had 10 percent The rate of profit that the capitalist class in britain was Extracting that the amount of profit was extra the rate of profit in britain was falling dramatically throughout this period as well All of this problem is this long-term decline of british capitalism It's a long protracted period of decline Was a product of the shortsightedness of the british capitalist class They'd become an incredibly parasitic layer all capitalists are parasitic to a certain extent But the british capitalists were really degenerating fast. They were not above all reinvesting their profits They were not reinvesting the money into more efficient businesses raising productivity developing technology They were just creaming the top profits off the top and keeping them which Makes for short term high profits But in the long term that means that your industries are going to be outstripped by your competitors And therefore over the long run your profits are going to decline Well, this was all really becoming quite clear to the british capitalist class or at least some of them in 1970 And heath and the tories elected in 1970 wanted to sort all this out They want to solve this problem take all this on And to do so they wanted to attack workers drive down their wages and conditions to try to restore this falling rate of profit They wanted also to close businesses. They said there are a lot of businesses that are inefficient Unproductive unprofitable uncompetitive. We've got to end subsidies to those businesses the tories were saying This was the and obviously that would have led to massive unemployment the sacking of all these workers and so on This was the the program. This was the policy of the heath government elected in 1970 and they were very gung-ho about it They were really up for the fight. They were ready to go Within one month they ran into difficulties straight away They actually had to introduce a state of emergency in britain within a month of getting elected in 1970 because You had the first official dock strike Since 1926 take place at this time So this was the continuation Of of what i've been building up in the late 60s then hit this heath government straight away With such severity that they had to implement a state of emergency the month after that You had local authority workers going on strike another massive strike which rocked this government The following year 1971 you had a massive movement a massive dispute involving The upper Clyde side shipbuilders And they were trying they were they were on strike. They're having a movement to save their jobs Because the upper Clyde the shipbuilders were basically deemed as this unproductive Uncompetitive industry and the government's plan was basically to shut it down and throw all these people out of work And they said we're not having it and what they organized actually was a working They they occupied the workplaces and and carried on their work They didn't go on strike didn't refuse to work. They said look we can work. We are capable of working. We are capable of producing And that was a real inspiration. It it caught the imagination all over the country There were solidarity demonstrations everywhere. There were other there were the solidarity occupations also and and It actually forced a u-turn Such was the militancy of that strike the fact that it caught the imagination all over the country It forced the government to u-turn on this policy of not giving subsidies to businesses To to keep them open and so on Now obviously all of this rattled this this Tory government quite a lot And so to deal with it the centerpiece of their strategy For restoring Britain the power of British capitalism crushing the working class pushing down their wages and conditions or the centerpiece was something Excuse me called the industrial relations bill Which was the bill is what it is before it becomes a law, of course Now this put forward policies such as outlawing the closed shop Outlawing the idea that all workers in a particular Company had to be part of a union. They wanted to get rid of that and allow non-unionized workers into workplaces They wanted every trade union to register formally with the government Balloting was to become formal and Convoluted balloting before strike action was to become compulsory this cooling off period also was introduced Or proposed to be introduced and they wanted to remove another layer of immunity remove immunity for sympathy strikes That was quite a common phenomenon You have a section of workers going on strike and you have another section of workers who say well Yeah, their struggle is our struggle and we are also going to go on strike and sympathy with that The government proposed to make that illegal basically or effective They said they will remove immunity from trade unions being sued for carrying out sympathy strikes So it was a massive attack obviously on the trade unions taken all together. This was an enormous attack What it was effectively proposing was huge state regulation of trade unions Now scanlon and jones obviously these left-wing trade union leaders were against it And began to kick up a big fuss But again above all the campaign came from below There was a massive response in the trade union movement against this proposed industrial relations bill Demonstrations or strikes Actions of half a million were taking place around the country again. Rob remembers this period I'm sure there are comrades in the room who remember this period He said it's a side he was it when he was younger rob was in france for for may 1968 aside from that The demonstrations that took place against the industrial relations bill They were the first demonstrations that rob really remembers. He says 300 000 marched in london Under the banner interestingly enough of kill the bill which came up again Not that long ago in relation to a different bill That the government has been trying to pass All of this was really given this push forward by this liaison committee this unofficial semi-official Shop stewards network basically that existed at the time So this movement from below really caught hold and what you really see then is that whip of counter revolution The torii saying we're going to curtail trade union rights and in response There was a massive movement of the working class to answer it So you see that process that we often discussed a whip of counter revolution driving the revolutionary movement forward or the workers movement forward in march 1971 There was an unofficial strike But two million nationally two million workers went on strike And an unofficial capacity was pushed by that liaison committee for the defense of the trade unions This massive campaign brought enormous pressure on the leaders of the tuc And they came out with a policy of no registration trade unions should not register With the government according to the rules of this industrial relations act So again, you see the power of the pressure of the movement on the on the trade union leaders and what can be achieved with that And when we come to 1972 You have another excellent example of the power of the mass movement and the pressure that that can put on the leaders of the trade unions The national union of mine workers It was dominated by the right wing in 1972 But at that time and this is also a comparison with today inflation was starting to take off in britain at that time And obviously that was putting enormous pressure on wages as we understand inflation goes up Everything becomes more expensive and workers need to get pay increases if they are to cover their costs And and so although the right wing of the the nu m the national union of mine workers Was in control at the very top of the union There was this growing layer of radicalized activists At the area level of the nu m and you had this enormous pressure then of the objective situation of the inflation Which was causing workers to become more militant and to demand that the action be taken to keep their wages up with inflation So early 1972 You see the first official strike action by the miners since 1926 And what they were demanding was a 47 percent pay increase. They were not pulling their punches They obviously were shooting very aiming very high and the t u c Under pressure from the situation from the movement from the rank and file The t u c backed it not fully in the sense They didn't call all the other unions out, but they they said look the the the strike needs to be respected And that means coal should not be moved around the country And the t u c was encouraging that basically to support the strike So and the movement of coal around the country was successfully halted in almost every case And solidarity action began to spread Workers in other industries and all over the country began to come out in solidarity with the miners Obviously to try and tackle this the government did have certain places where they had stockpiled coal to try and uh In anticipation of any kind of crisis including an industrial crisis including a strike And they were trying to use these stockpiles to break the strike. Don't worry. We don't need the miners because we've got these stockpiles of coal And attention fell on a place Called the else called saltly gas works in saltly Which is just is quite near Birmingham and it's where there was a large stockpile of coal And it was one of the few places that still remained open at the time for the moving of coal So in nearby Birmingham 40 000 engineering workers voted to go on strike And 10 000 of them after that vote 10 000 engineering workers from Birmingham marched on the saltly gas works On arriving there they joined 2000 miners who were already picketing the gas works had already gone there to try and close it off And to try and stop the coal being moved. There were a thousand police there who were completely overwhelmed I've got uh, I've got a quote. It was at this time basically also the Arthur Scargill later the leader of the Miner strike in the 80s. This was when he was first becoming An organizer in the area and he describes the scene at the saltly gas works So there were 2000 miners there. There's a thousand police there. He says some of the lads were a bit dispirited But then over the hill came a banner And I've never seen in my life as many people following a banner As far as the eye could see it was just a mass of people marching towards saltly Our lads were jumping in the air with emotion a fantastic situation I started to chant close the gates close the gates and it was taken up just like a football crowd And they did close the gates and it was a victory For the miners the government in this situation panicked Called an inquiry the inquiry recommended a 20 wage increase for the miners a massive victory They could have got more to be honest But nevertheless a massive victory and a complete humiliation exposing the weakness of the Tory government Things were then to get worse for this for the Tory government the summer of 1972 you had a big battle on the docks Two haulage firms Shipping firms They went to court to try and stop people picketing Their workplaces the union was organizing pickets and they they took them to court to try and stop them picketing and also to find the union They said this is in breach of the industrial relations act that had been passed And and one of these haulage firms succeeded at court They got their injunction and on the on the evidence of a private detectives. They arrested five Five trade unionists five picketers And these five picketers the shop stewards were sent to pentonville prison Now these people became known as the pentonville five because what happened as soon as the injunction was granted and it was Found out that these people had been arrested 44 000 dockers immediately walked out and 130 000 other workers in other industries also all walked out The movement spread like wildfire and the pressure on the leaders the trade unions was immediate and the tuc Convened a meeting and decided at that meeting they should call a one day general strike at the end of july That would have been the first general strike in britain since 1926 and the big risk for the ruling class for the government Is that it wouldn't have remained just a 24-hour strike obviously they would have lost control of the situation completely So the government once again panicked And called in someone called the official solicitor who has never been heard of before or since But an official solicitor was called Who reinterpreted the law and said oh, no, actually the law doesn't mean that these people should have been arrested And therefore they should be freed immediately and they were freed immediately From prison. It was a complete nonsense. It tells us a lot about the nature of law under under capitalist society Uh, but it was a massive victory again for um The the working class for the labour movement There's a big lesson in there for today as well How quickly did that spiral out of control some some nothing some two-bit haulage firm some two like some nothing Shipping company goes to court to get an injunction and arrest five people And then all of a sudden there's about to be a general strike It happened so quickly Of seeming something seemingly very small and the government almost completely did lose control of the situation There's a lesson in that for us today The mood at this time was really high among the working class as you can imagine For the first time again since 1926 there was an official building workers strike You had what was known as flying pickets That's by the way also what saltly was right It was workers going on strut and going from picket line to picket line making sure they were all solid And and adding a bit of support here where there wasn't enough and just making sure everyone was These were known as flying pickets and they were used in this building strike in 1972 as well And the government really hated these flying pickets because they were a very effective weapon Of the labour movement of the trade unions. They needed to contain it And so they decided to make an example of some of these flying pickets to make an example of these picketers And they decided to they did that in north wales. They arrested. They framed them They arrested them and framed them on charges of intimidation violence Conspiracy and they took them to court. They arrested 24 of them the shrewsbury 24 as they're known all the shrewsbury pickets And took them to court. It was a political trial And six of them were found guilty and received up to three years in prison And their sentences by the way They were forced to finish those sentences even under a labour government that got elected in 1974 and to this day Some of them. I'm pretty sure I still trying to clear their names The point is 1972 I've I've dwelt on it for a while It was it is not too much to describe it as a year of industrial insurrection in britain Now obviously after such a period of of tumult of of convulsions 1973 was a bit of a lull in the situation Not much for us to go into on that but at the end of 1973 A new minus strike started to develop because of course inflation had continued They won a big wage increase In 1972 but as we were approaching 1974 inflation has continued and wages had fallen behind again The tories again, this is still the heath government that we're talking about the tories They had the strategy of trying to isolate the minors. They declared a three-day week They had blackouts of televisions and street lights They said look, this is what the trade unions are doing They're causing us to to have to conserve energy so that you can only have a three-day week and you can't watch television and so on Never they try to intimidate the minors basically nevertheless the minors were not intimidated They got a vote in favor of strike strike action even bigger than anything they'd got ever before And uh, and so Heath and the tories went for the ultimate gamble and called a general election Under the title under the slogan who runs the country? Is it us or is it the unions? Who do you want running the country and the answer was not you because the tories lost that election? In february 1974 that was the first time That industrial action brought down a government, which is what happened at that at that time now 1974 As you all know, there was a massive world slump It was the end of the post-war period from an economic point of view. Well, yeah, it was it was the end of that post-war boom Unemployment in the aftermath of that slump in britain went to over one million Which was a real cycle of that figure one million people unemployed that a real big psychological impact obviously as much as anything else The international context we can't go into now. Obviously. There was a lot going on internationally revolution in portugal um, the the the collapse of the junta in greece for example, they're Pretty much the end of the franco regime and the mass strikes and demonstrations that were taking place in spain at that time and so on And in the context of all of this as well, there were a bit all this industrial struggle had been taking place This these convulsions internationally the collapse economically. There are all sorts of conspiracies by the ruling class um, the gladio conspiracy and things like this A high ranking military officer in britain start. He wrote a book called low intensity operations In which he said the main threat for the british army Is internal. It's not external. It's it's it's the working class basically in britain is the trade unions There were maneuvers military maneuvers at heathrow airport The army decided to basically stage a takeover of heathrow, which they said was a training exercise But they hadn't informed the government that they were doing this It was a threat to the government at the time. There was coup plotting for example And uh, even in britain and strike breaking organizations were formed Paramilitary organizations were even being talked about this is all going on in britain at that time This was the context in which obviously all this turbulence all this class struggle provoked all of this kind of Firmant among the ruling class is plotting this conspiring among The ruling class something else we should bear in mind of course for today But this is the context in which the labor government comes to power And starts doing the ruling class's work for it almost immediately Especially on the point of wage restraint this labor government immediately introduced a policy of wage restraint And this was in the face of massive inflation inflation reached 26 i think in 1975 Huge inflation at that time was it higher than that even? Um, so massive inflation at that time and the labor the labor government's policy was to hold down wages 1974 to 1977 was the fastest the greatest fall in real wages In any comparative period prior to that maybe not since prior to that in in british history That was presided over by a labor government Because of the crisis that was being faced at the time Now those labor leaders were trusted the working class wanted them to succeed. They wanted to give them time to do their work Jones and scanlon these these left-wing trade union leaders. They supported that wage restraint policy They couldn't they they didn't they didn't like it, but they supported it They convinced the workers to follow their lead. They held back the working class They held the line basically even as the working class was coming under this kind of pressure 1976 there was a sterling crisis and the imf had to step in to bail out, uh, britain As we all know when the imf comes in to bail out a country They they demand conditions and the conditions were three billion pounds worth of cuts to public services And they pushed britain extremely hard because they did not trust the labor government with its links to the organized working class And it's strong left wing and so on You can see who really runs the country here just like we've seen the imf intervening with lis trust recently Uh, they they intervened in the same way and you can see who really runs the country under a bourgeois democracy But nevertheless this labor government implemented those things accepted those conditions imposed by the imf Harold wilson who was the prime minister the leader of the labor party at this time He resigned a man called callahan took over jim callahan And he said when he took over he said the party's over We're now going to have balanced budgets. It was austerity talk It was the policies of the ruling class And they and this labor government this callahan government began to implement serious harsh austerity on the workers And that of course pushed the unions into action You had at this time a a grunwick a striking grunwick The fire brigades union also went on for the first time ever in british history the fire brigades union took strike action This was also in Even against their own the leadership of the fire brigades the executive of the fire brigades union was on the right But such was the anger with the government and the policies being pursued by this labor government among the ranks of that union that That they they they voted in favor of strike action You had uh ford's dispute. You had a lot of disputes basically beginning to open up against this callahan government All of these were on the question of wages More mostly on the question of wages which needed to be kept up with inflation The workers were constantly trying just to keep their heads above water to get wage increases to keep up with inflation Eventually the pressure was so great that the t u c itself which up until this point Obviously when wilson was in power with the wilson government someone from 74 the t u c had been in favor It held the line. It'd been in favor of wage restraint policies They'd backed that labor government basically But as this pressure was building up the strike action was taking place the ferment was bubbling The t u c eventually had to come out against the labor government against the callahan government It said we do not support your wage restraint policies anymore This is what gave rise to the winter of discontent as it is known mass a huge wave of industrial action over the winter of of 1978 into 79 Between october 1978 and march 1979 10 million working days were lost to industrial action Lorry drivers were on strike Local authority workers were on strike health workers were on strike It affected every part of society basically And it led in the end to the fall of the labor government in 1979 They called an election and they lost callahan lost this election to thatcher 1979 is when thatcher came to power with this strategy that had been worked out Well, the tories have been in opposition for attacking and crushing the unions. She was in a weak position at first Um, obviously that that began to change the it opens the chapter on a new Where opens a new chapter the election of thatcher which happened in 79 so it's a bit beyond the remit the scope of this particular discussion today But that in a nutshell was the was and there's a lot more that could be said about the 1970s This was the the the history of the 1970s the the industrial and political history in britain What lessons can we learn from this for today? Well, first of all, we can say that clearly there are phases to the class struggle It's not a one continuous march upwards with one day to the next people becoming a little bit more radicalized And then a bit more radicalized a small strike becomes a slightly bigger strike becomes a slightly bigger strike No, there's ebb and flow to it There's there's a year of insurrection reaction 1972 followed by a year in 1973 of relatively little on the industrial front Only to come back again on a higher level in 1974 You see defeats and you see victories Throughout this period and you understand that any defeat in a period of a general ascendancy of the class struggle is only a partial defeat It's not a complete defeat And and things like the shrewsbury pickets for example that was a defeat that was a political trial And these people were were victimized and still to this day have not managed to clear their names And yet the class struggle continued didn't it even beyond that that wasn't the end So to get depressed to get down and demoralized about this or that thing We can get angry about it for sure But obviously it doesn't it doesn't change our general perspective does it of the of the class struggle Sometimes the government will win and sometimes the workers will win But you can get these very sudden changes Like the like the pentonville five for example that that that threat of a general strike that seemed to come out of nowhere These sudden changes that can Grip the situation that that can take place can all be very unexpected Above all this kind of stuff happens in a situation where everything is being churned up when when the economy is in Crisis for example when the government is in crisis the government tries to strike a blow it passes the industrial relations act Then there's a massive response Everything is being churned up It swings one way then the next and you get these sudden changes This is this is how we this is why we have the perspectives that we do for britain and other countries We can see that it's happened before yes in a slightly different situation But this is the kind of period that we are entering into you also see from all this You cannot turn that class struggle on and off like a tap It proceeds according to yeah the the events that take place objectively its own internal dynamic And logic depends who the trade union leaders are the kind of struggles that are going on in the trade unions And it and their own history and individual development and then the impact of objective events on the working class And are they ready and willing and able to struggle at a particular at a given moment What you can see is that the pressure of Workers on their leaders the pressure of the working class on its leadership Can have a huge impact as well in individual unions and then obviously at the level of the tuc itself as well and the whole movement Because these these leaders take take jones and scandalf for example And these these left leaders who when wilson was elected 1974 They backed the wage wage restraint policies didn't they they supported those things Yeah, but under callahan they that position was no longer tenable They were pushed by the impact of the crisis on the rank and file on the working class They could no longer that was not a tenable position anymore And they had to come out against callahan the impact the pressure of the working class on its leaders The fire brigade's union forced to go on strike Even though their executive didn't want to the to the national union mine workers forced to go on strike Even though their executive was run by the right wing. Yeah, the pressure of the workers on their leaders This is a crucial lesson that comes out of of this period as well But you can also and and Part of that also is this lesson of the the role of the lefts In the trade unions who did under that labor government under that wilson government These people have been leading the struggle against the Tories who brought down that heath government in 1974 They then held the workers back under the labor government. They played a bad role in that situation And that includes as well the communist party who as we know throughout all of their history Have this have this approach of not wanting to offend the the left reformist leaders too much basically And so they also participate in the holding back of this of this struggle You can also see big differences between the 70s and today The number of trade unions was much higher in the 1970s There are many a lot of the unions that I've mentioned And a lot of the unions that were involved in those struggles have been amalgamated since then into these massive monolithic or not monolithic but massive unions unite and unison have incorporated loads of these smaller unions over the years And some of those unions some of the ones that make up unite for example now Unite which of course is and has been for a while a very left-wing union in this country It is incorporated It's electricians. Isn't it frank chapel Um, they've incorporated that now that was an incredibly right-wing union But that has been incorporated over the years as part of like they were real strike breakers The leaders of that union were on the buses with the scabs going driving through the picket lines and stuff Real right-wing Union leaders. Yeah, but that's been incorporated now into unite into this left-wing union The power the the position of those smaller right-wing unions has been broken on that basis What you have what you have today is these these massive unions Not all that obviously there are some small unions, but take unite take unison massive unions commanding millions of workers They have put very very powerful Orgas potentially a really powerful lever For the working class if they want to coordinate industrial action not even actually just on the industrial front, but obviously And although the link has been weakened a lot and so nevertheless the unions They can play an important part in the labor party as well These one union with millions of members actually has a lot more Say then in in the labor party than in the past That's why of course today the ruling class the right-wing is fighting like hell to keep control of unions like unison Where there has been this big struggle this big battle between right and left in that union They will not give that up without a fight because they recognize that a union of that size the biggest union in the country With workers in all these different sectors if that is if control of that is taken by the left and kept by the left That is a massive threat to the stability to the position of the capitalist class And so they've they've they've pulled all the dirtiest tricks in the book They've thrown everything at it to try and maintain control in unison shifts to the left in the unions today Can have a huge impact can have a massive impact and they can They can be the harbinger of Much bigger struggle like the 60s like the late 60s You saw these shifts in the leadership of the unions reflection of a process that had come before And that meant that you had in position these people who are willing to lead the workers in struggle Come the set come the turbulent time of the 70s or the shifts in the leadership of the unions today This is a big threat. These are warning signs. This is the warning lights blinking for the ruling class That that there are big struggles to come and that's of course why we Participate in those struggle inside unions as well Why we back the left against the right because we understand the history from the 70s and other times Everything is being everything in 70s was being churned up. Everything today is being churned up It produces a change also in political consciousness among the working class It's that it's what allen talked about on friday night that molecular process of revolution When when action like this starts to happen when when events like this happen and workers enter into struggle Where people can start to learn a lot consciousness can begin to change and develop a lot people can start to draw Very radical conclusions We often say don't we that people learn more in a week of strike action than they do of 10 days of Of just going to work as normal Because questions start to be asked in such a situation. Who really runs this workplace Why am I paid so little given that I am one of the ones who actually runs this place? Why does the boss have such big profits and I have such low wages What side is the government and the state and the police? What side are they really on as they hear trying to break our strikes and escort the scabs across the picket lines and so on What if we do win? What if this strike is successful? How do we maintain what we've won? If inflation is going up, we're going to pay increase this year, but if inflation continues Then what we're going to do next year and the year after and why is inflation going up in the first place? And how can we start that happening? What if we do bring down the government like in 1974 what if our industrial struggle brings down the government? What do we replace it with the harold wilson government which which enforced wage restraint or also These are political questions that are shared that are brought up in this kind of period of of industrial action of strikes of working class struggle And political consciousness can develop in the working class on that basis And of course in response to that the ruling class will respond as well these conspiracies these This plotting that can take place that can grip the ruling class this this sense of panic and are lashing out that you will get as a result of this There is of course when it comes to the ruling class a very big difference between the 1970s in Britain and Britain today Which is and Rob mentioned this yesterday, which is that today? The ruling class doesn't have anyone it can rely on to To act in its interest or it has far fewer people It's representatives at every level in every part of society are completely unreliable in a way that they have never been at any point in British history The crisis is deeper today economically speaking than it than it was in the 70s and yet the bourgeois economists Understand nothing of what is going on and they have no idea of how to get The ruling class out of it The political leaders of the ruling class are completely out of their control people like Boris Johnson or Liz trust the fact that Boris Johnson could make a return to British politics The fact that donald trump could make a return in the us is an indication of how far Control has slipped out the hands of the the ruling class on the on the political front But it's not just the political parties the entire regime in britain is discredited The police are hated and the police in turn hate the government The media is largely discredited after people could see for example with jeremy corbin the role of the media in that and they're disgusted by it And uh, and the monarchy Is discredited it's now lost its key figurehead The the whole regime the whole establishment in britain has never been weaker than it is Today they have far fewer tools to be able to real dilemma for them to be able to fight the working class with this kind of setup In such a situation as this this churning up this pressure on the working class on the one side this panic this chaos This this lack of clear thinking on the side of the ruling class You could stumble into a general strike in such a situation or certainly very militant massive strike action in the situation I don't I don't think clearly the the ruling class doesn't want that I don't think most of the trade union leaders want to actually want a general strike either Uh, because obviously it poses the question of power and it puts that question very firmly on their In their laps and they don't really have a the no trade union leader today I would say has a real clear understanding of a clear desire to actually fundamentally change society to actually bring about a socialist revolution in britain Nevertheless such a situation could arise the general strike in 1926 in britain was stumbled into neither side particularly wanted it But it just sort of it happened because of the the the logic of the events themselves Look at the legislation that Liz trust and her government is trying to implement Which which out of them is is saying that they're going to implement a minimum service. For example, take the trains Say, all right. Yeah. Yeah, you can go on strike But you at least have to run a minimum level of service at least these things which is to be determined by the employer So it's basically completely redundant. What is the point of the strike if you can't actually shut down the the thing that you're working? It's a complete undermining a complete attack on on the trade union movement. It undermines their reason for existence That would be an existential threat to the to the trade unions Do you think they're not going to respond to that? Of course, they're going to respond to that the leader of the RMT the other day Mick Lynch was calling for an uprising He said he said about the TUC said either you can back this uprising. He's not clear about what uprising means He doesn't know he hasn't explained Nevertheless, it's the language that he's using that's important He calls for an uprising he says to the TUC you either back this or you get out the way Just don't get in our way while we have our uprising and so on we say yeah We want an uprising as well, of course, but we give it a certain content the The pressure is mounting and things can very easily spiral out of control just like The pentonville 5 we have this very explosive period ahead but finally this final lesson from the 70s and And obviously a lesson for us today Is that no matter how much ferment there is? If you don't have a revolutionary perspective if you don't have leaders with a revolutionary perspective Then you can't unite those struggles all these struggles that are going to take place all that political consciousness all that Questing that's going to be developed. You can't give that a clear conscious expression You can't unite all those struggles together and use them to strike at the foundations of the of the problem to strike at the capitalist system itself And the movement will slip through our fingers Because otherwise as we've seen time and time again what what the ruling class gives with one hand Under the pressure of the movement they will take with another They won in 1972 But then they implemented wage restraint after that So they gave a concession in 1972 but then implemented wage restraint and wouldn't allow the wages to keep up with inflation You can elect left leaders in a trade union You can even elect a left labor government or well, you can even elect a labor government But within the confines of capitalism What good does that do they're bound by you elect a labor government and there's a massive world christ of capitalism That labor government is going to implement austerity with it as long as it doesn't have a perspective of breaking with capitalism without that Without a revolutionary perspective a revolutionary plan To break with capitalism you will never be able to solve the fundamental problems That give rise to this class struggle this ferment in the first place Today there is a total vacuum on the left in britain There is no the communist party has played a limit, you know had its limitations But it played a certain role in the 1970s the communist party exists But it does not have that kind of base that it had at that time It doesn't have 30 000 members It certainly doesn't have an industrial base in the way that it did It doesn't have the authority that it did at that time either There is a complete vacuum on the left in the labor movement at the moment So the main lesson from the 1970s is about our task What is the task of the marxists in this situation? We are not big enough to fill that vacuum that exists But we can make a start and we are making a start We have to have that perspective of filling that vacuum as this Movement develops as these processes take hold and this ferment develops We need to build above all We need to grow the forces of marxism educate ourselves about what to expect What we need to do in that situation And on that basis we can take the lessons from the 1970s We can take that struggle all the sacrifices all the heroic efforts of the working class at that time And in our lifetimes in our struggle We can take it to a higher level and actually overthrow the system that gave rise to those struggles in the 70s And that giving rise to our struggles today that is the overthrow of the capitalist system Thank you