Surprise the Tories? We Surprised Ourselves

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We hear of the strike 'hardening". What's your comment on that after three weeks?

That's definitely right. You could even say that morale's increasing the longer the strike goes on. We won't go back till we get our just reward-which is at the going rate of inflation, 17-18%. ' Last year we accepted 8%, which is what you might call ultra-moderate, so obviously we're still 8% or so down on last year.

Do you feel that the solidity and solidarity that the strike has shown so far has surprised the Tory government?

Definitely, They thought they were going to pick off a weak, right wing union-we've always been very tolerant and moderate as a union.

But things have changed now. Enough is enough.

I think a lot of us might have been less than convinced, less than committed when the strike started. But, as I say, all that's changed now.

Feeling for the strike's gained impetus every day. Surprise the government? Man, we've surprised ourselves.

One of you referred just now to BSC policy for Wales as the rape of the fair country all over again. But this isn't really a ‚national issue, is it?

Of course not. We're internationalists. The Trade Union movement has to be. And you can see that from the tremendous support for the strike from the other European steelworkers.

They're going to stop all handling of steel for British ports in solidarity with our case. After all, they've been having the same problems over therelook at the massive closures in the North of France, and the long steel strike in Germany.

They're going to put a ring of steel around the whole country. And once we get the private sector steel firms out on strike on Sunday, there won't be steel moving anywhere. Obviously the problem's particularly acute in South Wales though, with the loss of 50,000 jobs being threatened. What's your reaction to the government's chances of providing alternative employment?

Derisory. Nicholas Edwards (Secretary of State for Wales) is going around making speeches about alternative industries.

Let's look at what they are. As you say, the jobs of 50,000 Welsh workers are at risk.

Now listen to this. He's opening a Marshmallow factory in Merthyr that will employ 22 women. Then there's a mothball factory in Cymmer and a gobstopper factory in Glyncorrwg that will employ 178 between them. Marshmallows, mothballs and gobstoppers: it sounds like a bad joke.

But I do know one thing, and I think that all the boys here know it now: if we let BSC and the government put these steel closures into practice, South Wales will be an industrial wasteland.

There'll be nothing here either for this generation or the next one.

What are the chances General Strike?

It's on the cards, no doubt about it. The trade union movement has taken enough a Iready with he policies of this g overnDuncan Bush the picket line Port Talbot on interview here.

Thatcher ment. The trouble is, we've got people like Len Murray in charge of things, he doesn't want to rock the boat.

There's been some controversy about the picketing of places like Metal Box at Neath, private sector firms, where the local strike committees have ignored the instructions of the national union leadership not to picket. Could you comment?

It's dead simple: we've got to hit these capitalists in the private sector. You get firms like Metal Box funding the Tory The strike can't be effective under these circumstances: the private sector is squealing about the picketing, but the point is that the ISTC men there ought to be out with us. The leadership is holding that back at the moment.

What do you see as BSC's longterm policy?

These closures in Wales and other places represent the first step in a move to hive off and denationalise the most profitable parts of the steel industry in this country-tinplate and galvanising, for example.

This is the aim of the BSC board of directors backed by Thatcher and Joseph: once they've denationalised these, then they're up for grabs, of course-for private profit.

How then do you view the government's "refusal to intervene"?

That's nonsense, since they're responsible for events in puppet.

He's moving his mouth, but the words come from the I'll tell you one thing: this is the most reactionary, rightwing Tory government we've ever had -including the 20s.

The last few Labour governments we've had weren't good, socialist governmentS. But they'd never let all this happen. January 24th. We print the Joseph But is another Labour government, like the ones we've had, the only alternative?

Well, the worst Labour government's got to be better than the Tory party in power. But the last two Labour governments-the Wilson and Callaghan governments-didn't do much for socialism.

I've always been on the lett, but I've moved to a more radical position these days--and this is in part a reflection of Labour policy over the last 10 years or SO. (One of the other strikers interjects:) Apparently two million trade unionists voted for Thatcher. That means there must be two million men and women who are feeling very ashamed of themselves by nowI know that because we've never met one who'll admit it yet. (Laughter). 1AAA Murray Do you feel, then, that the trade union movement as a whole has learnt something in opposition to this Tory government?

We've learnt a lot. It you look at the situation now: we've got the NUB, the ISTC, the TGWU, the various craft unions, all together in struggle, all working together on the strike committees.

We've got the 100% support of the miners and the railwaymen's unions for the Day. of Action the TUC's called for Monday 28 January.

That'll be a demonstration of solidarity, but if things go on the way they are we've got a General Strike scheduled for 10 March.

We're learning fast, we're acting in concert, and it augurs well for the future.

The people of IrelandNorth and South-continue to pay a heavy price for continued British imperialist domination.

Not only do they suffer the outrages and repression of British military rule and the police-state measures against anti-imperialist forces, but they also suffer the worst economic effects of the capitalist slump now tightening its grip on the windpipe of the British Two surveys last week underlined this problem. The one-drawn up by management consultants Cooper and Lybrand-forecast that unemployment in the six counties would climb to a staggering 17% -nearly three times the current average in Britain.

And another showed that nearly 700 out of 1,000 households surveyed in Belfast were

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the first place--that's obvious to everyone & Villiers is only their

spoke to a steel striker on at the Abbey works, BSC,

burde of Britis rule