For nearly a year 650 engineering workers at the Laurence Scott factory in Manchester fought for their right to work in a trail-blazing struggle that still inspires militants throughout British industry. Pete Clifford, Phil Penning and Patrick Sikorski tell the story and draw some conclusions.
'We want to be Manchester workers not Doncaster Rovers', said the placards that went up outside the Laurence Scott factory on 24 April 1981. The 650 engineers there, faced with the prospect of their factory being closed on 10 July had said 'no' to their new owner Arthur Snipe of the Doncaster-based Mining Supplies. Ten months later it took a 500-strong army of police, spearheaded by the Tactical Aid Group (the Greater Manchester SPG) to finally smash up what had been one of the most bitter and hard fought trade union struggles in recent years.
After the strike was finally broken, the Daily Mirror described Snipe as 'Britain's toughest boss'. But the real reasons for the defeat were succinctly put by Denis Barry, the works convenor and strike committee chairperson: 'We were defeated by the national union leadership and the police, not by Snipe.' With great determination the strikers defied the decision of the AUEW engineering union leadership to withdraw official backing from the strike in July 1981. In the heat of the struggle they combined the best traditions of rank and file solidarity with new ways of political campaigning in the industrial unions.
Only by breaking this new ground — highlighted most dramatically by appearing with Benn on his deputy leadership election platforms in front of meetings of thousands — were the Scott's workers able to fight on after July. With all illusions in the full time leadership gone and their eyes firmly on the rank and file as the only guaranteed source of solidarity, the Scott's workers campaigned up and down the land. But they never made the mistake of attempting to bypass the official structures. As a result many labour movement figures were forced to support resolutions, give donations and sign statements, however reluctantly.
A Laker-style boss
Arthur Snipe is the type of get-rich-quick 'Freddie Laker' style boss that Thatcherism has promoted. His own company Mining Supplies took over the Scott [illegible] for £5.8m [illegible] 'dawn raid' when it was valued at £18.7m. Like Mining Supplies, Scott's mainly produced machinery for the Coal Board. Snipe's aim was to grab the group, rationalise and remove a competitor and boost his own profits. For his plan to succeed the strong union organisation at the profitable Manchester factory had to go. Snipe claimed there was nothing unusual in closing the factory. 'Factories are closing every day', he declared. With unemployment at 3 million Snipe had a point. Employers like Snipe have managed to get away with this due to [illegible] could yield results. But from the time of the IMF intervention and Labour's Social Contract a certain reluctance to confront the Tories has arisen in the absence of fighting national policies and leadership. In September 1980 engineers' leader Terry Duffy told his members in a special pamphlet on unemployment to rely on his good relations with the Tories. In a 21 point programme his advice to engineers was first of all: 'Do nothing which would further reduce your companies' competitiveness'. As a result during Duffy's term of office the industry as a whole had lost 600,000 jobs in the two years up to 1981.
Snipe was taking on a factory with a tradition of strong rank and file leadership. First to occupy in the engineers' sit-ins which swept the Manchester area in 1972, the stewards had forced the pace in the area on wages and conditions. When faced with closure the workforce took their union's policy of opposing closures at face value. Local union officials, including John Tocher, AUEW divisional organiser, had backed the sit-in, giving the workers confidence that the union would stick by them.
But Snipe wasted no time. He moved onto the attack hoping to turn the minority opposed to the strike into a majority. First he said he wouldn't pay their redundancy money. Then he sent threatening letters to each worker's home, and finally he paid the redundancy money with an announcement of the immediate closure of the factory. All these manoeuvres simply hardened the resolve of the workforce who were soon unanimous in backing the strike. The stewards organised all the workers on a rota basis to ensure their involvement in the sit-in and from this solid base were able to build unity against Snipe's scare tactics. They knew that with £244m worth of motors in the factory they had some strength. Activists were sent out across the country to gather support and the AUEW's National Committee was lobbied. National backing for a factory dispute was won in record time. The strikers began to meet stewards from local factories who had been involved in fighting redundancies, especially those from Gardner's who had recently won a seven week long fight against management's attempts to sack several hundred workers. They had also made an important breakthrough by winning a worksharing agreement to avoid further sacking attempts. But there were big differences between Gardner's and Scott's. Hawker Siddley, the owners of Gardner's, wanted a slimmed-down workforce, not a complete closure. With a bulging export-led order book they did not want a long dispute. But Snipe was prepared to sit it out. The strikers knew they would be in a stronger position if they could affect Snipe's whole operations. The stewards formed an Action Committee headed by Denis Barry to plan the extension of the fight to the Doncaster factory of Mining Supplies.
John Tocher had arranged a meeting between the then convenor Bob Penchion and Yorkshire miners' leader Arthur Scargill. Scargill side-stepped. He agreed to black but only if the Mining Supplies group as a whole was shut down by the AUEW. As the other plants were in Blantyre and Norwich this presented a severe geographical problem, on top of which the union organisation at these two plants was very weak.
Climbing the bureaucratic ladder
Discussions between the engineering and miners' union leaders climbed the bureaucratic ladder until eventually the miners' president Joe Gormley met Confederation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Unions (CSEU) General Secretary Alex Ferry. The result was hardly earthshattering — a phone call of protest from Gormley to Coal Board Chairman Derek Ezra about using firms run by people like Snipe! Snipe realised that the officials were not prepared to rock the boat. To extend the battle would involve them in a wholesale confrontation not only with engineering employers but also with the NCB, as blacking of essential machinery would lead to miners being laid off.
Back to Roberts Arundel?
The strikers were getting more and more frustrated, so the action committee planned a two week campaign to launch a flying picket on the Mining Supplies parent factory in Doncaster to cut off essential supplies and close the plant. Union officials panicked. Picketing meant confronting not only Snipe, but also the Tories' Employment Act which had been in force for over a year. It had hardly been used against the unions. But leaders like Boyd and Duffy had used the threat of the Act to discipline their own ranks. They first advised, then pleaded with and then threatened the strikers not to picket Doncaster. The officials claimed that they had persuaded Snipe to talk, but only on condition there was no picketing. But the strikers knew the stakes for Snipe were high and went ahead. Within days, the 200 strikers mobilised in the 24 hour picketing operation sixty miles from Manchester had brought Snipe to the negotiating table. Boyd and Duffy, anxious to end the strike, concluded a national agreement on 10 July in just six hours of talks which guaranteed virtually nothing. The factory was to be kept open on a 2 day week for three months and then the position would be reviewed. This was actually worse than the position before the dispute started when they had at least been promised a 5 day week for three months.
Boyd and Duffy, armed with this agreement, moved to break the strike. Boyd wrote to Tocher instructing that a mass meeting be convened to 'terminate' the strike. Timed to coincide with a court hearing brought by Snipe to evict the strikers from the factory, the meeting was to be held 5 miles from the factory itself. The workforce was in no mood to accept this. Out of the flying picket a stronger stewards committee had been elected with Denis Barry as the new convenor. The stewards responded to the bureaucratic back door dealing with a fine display of democracy. As though inspired by Poland's Solidarnosc, mass meetings were held daily and the stewards' committee was opened to all those with proposals on how to fight. The workforce voted with only 16 against to endorse the stewards' rejection of the agreement. To protect their future and their union organisation they wanted nothing less than a guarantee of no enforced redundancies. The strikers returned to the factory after lobbying the court hearing and agreed to ignore the court order for their eviction and to fight on.
Despite a letter from Tocher stressing the strikers' solidarity and urging them to reconsider, Boyd and Duffy were determined to ride roughshod over the dispute. They ensured that the AUEW Executive Committee endorsed their termination of the dispute, in flagrant contravention of the union's rule book which only gives this right to the members in dispute and their district committee. The Scott's workers turned to their Engineering Union District Committee — Manchester North — for defence against Boyd and Duffy. A strong lobby of strikers ensured that a resolution of support was passed. But the Broad Left-dominated district leadership claimed that apart from local support and protest resolutions they were powerless in the face of Boyd and Duffy. The District Committee maintained its support for Scott's until the end. But at no time did it mobilise the kind of backing needed to ensure the sort of victory needed by Scott's and every engineering worker. The same is true of the Manchester No 29 District Confederation of Engineering Unions.
Back in 1968 some thousands of Manchester engineers had mobilised in support of the Roberts Arundel picket line. Then the shop stewards, in a situation of [illegible] employment, could mobilise the rank and file on single factory issues simply by having a militant shop organisation. Today the stewards can still mobilise a minority, but to mobilise the majority round an issue like Scott's [illegible] the context of building a [illegible] of direct industrial action for measures to solve unemployment, like the 35 hour week, and to defeat Tebbit's Bill. Outside of this it is understandable that with 4 million unemployed, workers won't risk the sack for a few mornings' picketing.
This big change has not come about because the stewards have ceased to organise in the factories. The class as a whole is undefeated and basic factory organisation remains intact. Where there have been some of the biggest setbacks, as in British Leyland, there has also been a layer of new young stewards coming forward to lead campaigns, such as that against the recent 4 per cent wage offer and then the four week 'tea break' strike over conditions. The problems at Scott's resulted rather from national political developments as the bosses successfully fought back against stewards' power in the mid-seventies.
In 1976 the hero of the Manchester stewards, Hugh Scanlon, together with Jack Jones, became the McNee and Anderton of Labour's Social Contract. Even two years into the Labour government's term of office the Manchester stewards had again mobilised thousands to another picket — this time at Automat's. Every factory in the Confed had a set day on which to mobilise. Scott's stewards decided to mobilise every day. But as Wilson, Callaghan, Scanlon and Jones preached the gospel of the 'national interest and tightening our belts' the hesitation and doubts crept in as unemployment slowly began to mount, speed-ups arrived and voluntary redundancies were called for. Then in 1977 Scanlon turned on the Heathrow engineers and the BL toolmakers.
The Broad Left leadership which had put Scanlon into power had no intention of rocking the boat under a Labour government by breaking with Scanlon and the Social Contract. The Communist Party was always the driving force behind the Broad Lefts. Their strategy of alliances with left bureaucrats like Scanlon left them helpless when the same people turned round and attacked the membership. Once the full timers get into power they will consistently pull up the ladder behind them unless they are constantly accountable to the membership and to fighting policies.
But the Scott's workers shrugged off these handicaps. The strikers obtained a statement of support from local MP Charles Morris. Using this and the resolution from the Manchester North District they turned outwards to break their isolation. All 2,600 branches of the AUEW were mailed and Labour MPs of all shades confronted over their attitude to this fight for the right to work. Support flooded in and 114 Labour MPs were signed up to back the struggle. Both Benn and Silkin, candidates in the Labour deputy leadership battle, were persuaded to visit the factory and identify with the fight. Using this and a rising number of AUEW branches backing the struggle they produced 15,000 copies of a strike bulletin which was distributed through a series of nationwide tours, including special delegations to the TUC and Labour Party conferences. Linking themselves up with Benn, who acted as a focus for those who wanted to fight back they spoke from his platforms to strengthen their own fight. At several massive meetings, on the same platform as Benn, Denis Barry pointed the finger at the problem for the Scott's struggle, and for the lefts in the Labour Party — the trade union bureaucracy. Even Broad Left leaders such as Ron Halverson (National Chairperson of the Communist Party) and Derek Robinson had to speak on the Scott's platform.
The AUEW was divided down the middle with nearly half the union's 2,600 branches sending in protest resolutions to their executive. It became a big issue in other unions not directly connected with the dispute. At the Post Office engineer's special conference delegates backed a resolution on Scott's against the advice of their leadership. This national campaign of solidarity enormously strengthened the strikers' confidence and conviction not to buckle under the pressure from Boyd and Duffy. Not even letters from Labour's Chief Whip to MPs or the withdrawal of backing by 'left' union leaders such as Ken Gill, General Secretary of AUEW/TASS and Communist Party member, had any effect on the strikers.
Snipe sees his chance
Snipe was finding it very hard. In August the eviction by bailiffs had simply mobilised more support, then an attack by Tactical Aid Group police on the picket line to escort in management scabs failed, and offers from Snipe of 150 jobs back were firmly rejected. But with co-operation from the police and the silent support of Duffy and Boyd, Snipe began to up the stakes. On 4 November the picket line was broken by an SAS style helicopter raid with enormous police protection. Snipe's flying scabs enraged the labour movement. After a strong lobby Manchester North District Secretary Doug Daniels sent out a letter calling for blacking action in support of the strikers.
Sensing an opportunity to extend the fight, the strikers with help from unemployed trade unionists and the Right to Work Campaign relaunched the Doncaster flying picket. In the first two weeks it met with more success than was expected; rank and file miners' leaders across Yorkshire and Derbyshire pledged their support. By the end of the first fortnight 35 pits had agreed to black anything removed through the picket line. Once again Snipe's empire was shaking. But Arthur Scargill maintained his earlier position that the whole group had to be stopped before he would call for official blacking. Scargill was running for the leadership of the NUM and did not want a bust up with engineering union leaders. Meanwhile CSEU national officials were conducting a smear campaign against Scott's aimed at influencing miners' leader Gormley, who was very willing to instruct miners not to black. Transport union drivers were also instructed to cross the picket line. Once again union leaders feared that one successful struggle for jobs won through 'secondary' picketing could lead to a whole rash of 'copy-cat' struggles.
With no lead in the NUM and the decision of the right wing-dominated National Committee of the AUEW to endorse the position of the Executive, the blacking began to collapse and with it the impact of the picket. Snipe used the Employment Act to force the strike leaders off the picket line in the knowledge that they were no longer in a position of strength. The Doncaster picket was withdrawn. Knowing the picket at Manchester was still a weapon on their side the strikers opted to hit back directly at Boyd and Duffy. Nothing could be done in the union about the dispute itself after the National Committee decision short of leading a fight for removal of the right wing leadership. The strike committee chose this option and called under the union's Rule 14 for a ballot to remove the leadership — ten per cent of the branches were needed to back this. But Boyd wrote to Manchester North District Secretary Doug Daniels forbidding him from any further involvement with the strikers.
Snipe had a chance to make a new attack. But he had to move before the Rule 14 campaign got going. With the backing of a massive police operation costing an estimated £250,000, 500 police attacked the picket line on 16 February.
Appeals to local convenors for defence of the picket line failed to mobilise any more than a handful of militants from the local factories. Even if the Broad Left-dominated factory leaderships had wanted to pull their members out, the setbacks of the last few years for their strategy of waiting to get the right leadership for the union would have made it very difficult for them to pull it off. These defeats have built a real base in the unions for the right wing ideas championed by Boyd and Duffy. Many former militant stewards have dropped out or inevitably become more conservative.
Laurence Scott like the other nationally known struggles at Gardner's and Lee Jeans clearly took place well outside the framework of protest that all sections of the bureaucracy, supported by the Communist Party, decided was appropriate under the Tories. Led by militants in the factories these struggles broke sharply with the line of 'persuading Thatcher to change course'. The very meaning of their fight was: 'Enough is enough. We're going to force Thatcher and her bosses to change course, otherwise we lose our very livelihoods.'
As with other struggles such as Royal Pride and Schreibers in Manchester and Staffa in East London, the leaderships were outside the traditional Communist Party-led Broad Left tradition. That the struggle was eventually broken is a reflection not so much of any weaknesses on the part of the Scott's workers as [illegible] suggests, but rather of the weakness in leadership of the labour movement. A growing polarisation by workers against the employers is pushing forward new leaders out of these sharp clashes. The old Broad Left is not structuring this. Rather the kind of approach that the Scott's stewards provided points the way — building a leadership which rejects the framework of compromise with the employers, which is consistently anti-bureaucratic and thoroughly democratic.
A fight by 650 engineers has shown just what is possible and has inspired rank and file workers across the land. That struggle for a new leadership is in the hands of a small minority at this stage but one that can increasingly pose a challenge to the employers. Building that new leadership will involve a struggle alongside Benn and the existing national focus of the left in the engineering union, the Broad Left, against the right wing — but a struggle based on action rather than the Broad Left's policies of subordinating struggle to bureaucratic changes.