1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:01,440 My name is Bob Myers. 2 00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:04,480 I was born in London in 1949. 3 00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:09,800 When I left school, I worked first. 4 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:14,400 I trained first as a cook, and then I became a sheet metal worker. 5 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:18,800 And I worked in car factories, aircraft factories, 6 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:22,320 artificial limb factories, things like this. 7 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:24,480 Now I'm a pensioner. 8 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:28,280 I spend a lot of time looking after my grandchildren, 9 00:00:28,360 --> 00:00:31,480 but also I'm still politically active. 10 00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:35,640 I take part in Palestine demonstrations. 11 00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:40,520 I live in Manchester, in England, and I've been working very closely 12 00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:42,320 with the Iranian refugees there. 13 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:47,440 We organized demonstrations around "women, life, freedom", things like this. 14 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,960 And I've been working with various co-operative movements 15 00:00:51,040 --> 00:00:52,707 in Manchester. 16 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:04,840 In the 1970s in the UK, 17 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:09,520 this was a period of huge social eruptions, 18 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:14,840 on every front, intellectual, artistic, but particularly in the trade unions. 19 00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:17,840 There was 20 00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:22,240 a huge wave of strikes, of occupations. 21 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:26,680 And in particular, 22 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:33,080 I will give you a couple of examples, from the big picture, 23 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:36,560 and then maybe a couple of little incidents from my own life, 24 00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:39,640 which could maybe illustrate the same point. 25 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:44,360 Throughout the 60s, the working class was pushing up 26 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:47,880 its living Standards, annually increasing wages. 27 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:52,520 Many, many industries were totally unionized. 28 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:53,840 There was the closed shop. 29 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:56,440 You couldn't work in a place unless you were in a union. 30 00:01:56,480 --> 00:02:00,960 But then in the late 60s and early 70s, 31 00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:04,200 the ruling class began to try to confront 32 00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:07,360 this strength of the working class. 33 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:13,200 And in resisting these attacks, you can maybe see the kind of power 34 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:17,280 that the working class had to some extent, achieved. 35 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:19,200 So I give you the example. 36 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:23,640 In 1970, a conservative government was elected. 37 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:26,960 The previous labor government had tried to curtail 38 00:02:27,040 --> 00:02:30,480 the power of the unions and failed because of huge protests. 39 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:34,560 Now the Tory government, conservative government came in 40 00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:38,120 and passed a law prohibiting secondary picketing. 41 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:42,240 In other words, you could, if you were on strike, you could only create pickets 42 00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:47,120 outside the place where you worked and on your own industrial issues. 43 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:52,680 So this outlawed picketing other places and sympathy strikes, etc.. 44 00:02:53,320 --> 00:02:55,680 Now, at this time, 45 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:58,720 the dockers were facing the loss of jobs 46 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:01,800 through the introduction of containerization. 47 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:07,440 So instead of cargo being unloaded in the docks by the Dockers, containers 48 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:13,080 were coming in and being driven straight off to warehouses away from the docks. 49 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:17,720 And the dockers knew this really meant the end of their jobs. 50 00:03:17,920 --> 00:03:22,160 And they began to take industrial action. 51 00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:26,280 And some of the dockers went to picket warehouses, 52 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:27,760 which was not their place of work. 53 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:29,480 And they were breaking the law. 54 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,800 And five of the five leading London dockers 55 00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:35,880 were put in prison. 56 00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:39,040 In my factory, I worked in an aircraft factory 57 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:39,760 at that time, 58 00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:42,760 we immediately called a meeting of the shop stewards, 59 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:47,120 and we made the unanimous vote to call a mass meeting 60 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:50,440 as a workforce of about 7000 workers. 61 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,600 We call a mass meeting and recommend all out strike 62 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,640 until the doctors are released. 63 00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:02,400 In the event we didn't have time to call this mass meeting because 64 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:06,240 similar meetings, similar events were taking place all across the country. 65 00:04:06,320 --> 00:04:10,280 And during the course of that morning, the government decided it had to back down 66 00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:13,000 and release these dockers from prison, 67 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:15,960 even though clearly they had been breaking the law. 68 00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:19,160 So the government's law was in tatters. 69 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:25,160 This is one example, another example also about secondary picketing. 70 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:31,440 A couple of years later, the coal miners went on an overtime ban, 71 00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:33,720 and by this overtime ban, 72 00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:37,680 they hoped to force the government to give them a wage increase. 73 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:40,800 But one of the problems for them, the government had built up 74 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:45,160 a huge stockpile of coal at a place called Saltley Depot 75 00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:49,520 near Birmingham, and this had huge reserves of coal. 76 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:52,920 700 lorries a day of coal were coming out of here 77 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:56,480 going to the power stations, and it was estimated 78 00:04:56,560 --> 00:04:59,800 they had stocks there that could last for nine months. 79 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:04,040 So clearly the miners wanted to stop this coal coming out of this depot. 80 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:08,840 They began to picket it, but the police were pushing the pickets aside. 81 00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:13,600 Some miners were arrested. 82 00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:16,880 Other miners came from other parts of the country to join them. 83 00:05:17,520 --> 00:05:20,240 But still the police were forcing 84 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:24,160 these lorries through and then the car workers. 85 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:27,680 This was this depot was near the major car factories. 86 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:31,080 Then all the car workers began to come and join the pickets. 87 00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:36,240 And on one morning there was now 10,000 pickets, all of them breaking the law. 88 00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:39,440 And at this point the police ordered the depot 89 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:44,360 to close its gates, and that was: the miners won. 90 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:48,520 And again, these laws were completely ignored 91 00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:53,160 by the working class and the government had to back down. 92 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:58,920 So I'll give you a little private examples. 93 00:05:59,640 --> 00:06:02,360 Because of my union activity, 94 00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:06,040 I got sacked and blacklisted from an aircraft factory. 95 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:09,960 I couldn't get a job, but my union, 96 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:14,360 which was the Sheet metal Workers union, had a list of blacklisted members. 97 00:06:14,440 --> 00:06:19,600 And there the union was so strong at the Rolls-Royce car factory 98 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:24,920 that the management there could only employ people sent by the union. 99 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:28,960 So every time there was a vacancy at Rolls-Royce, whoever was 100 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:33,200 top of the list on the union list went and just automatically got the job. 101 00:06:33,280 --> 00:06:37,240 And after a couple of months, I got a job at Rolls-Royce, 102 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:41,200 and on the first morning I was working there, 103 00:06:41,280 --> 00:06:44,600 I was waiting for somebody to tell me where to go, what to do, 104 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:48,320 and the shop steward for the factory came in and said to me. 105 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:49,840 Are you new? And I said, yes. 106 00:06:49,840 --> 00:06:51,400 He said, well, get your coat on. 107 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:53,080 We're all going home for the day. 108 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:55,800 And I said, fine by me, why are we going home? 109 00:06:55,800 --> 00:07:00,480 He said, we had a meeting booked to meet management at 8:00 this morning. 110 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,120 They hadn't shown up by 8:02. 111 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:05,880 We're not going to be treated with such rudeness. So we're going to go. 112 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:07,560 We're going to strike for the day. 113 00:07:07,640 --> 00:07:10,520 So these, you know, it gives you a feel 114 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:15,120 for the kind of, you know, power that the unions had at that time. 115 00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:24,480 When I 116 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:28,800 was working at the aircraft factory, I was a senior shop steward there. 117 00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:31,840 That means the full time paid by the management full time. 118 00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:34,880 And we had a wage claim in which 119 00:07:34,960 --> 00:07:38,280 the management refused to concede. 120 00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:41,280 We had a meeting of the senior shop stewards. 121 00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:45,800 We recommended that we call a mass meeting and go on indefinite strike. 122 00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:49,480 At the mass meeting, the workers were hesitant 123 00:07:49,480 --> 00:07:52,760 and rejected the call for strike, and instead told the senior stewards 124 00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:55,840 to go back and negotiate more with the management. 125 00:07:56,640 --> 00:07:59,720 We went back to the management, they refused to budge 126 00:07:59,920 --> 00:08:02,840 and this time we went back to the mass meeting 127 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:07,680 without any recommendation, simply a report that we had no improved offer. 128 00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:12,800 And now this is very interesting because what happens next, 129 00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:16,920 I think, is a good example of the inventiveness, 130 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,760 the creativeness of the rank and file of the working class 131 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:26,600 at this time of great militancy, because at the mass meeting, one 132 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:31,280 man from the shop floor put up his hand and said, I propose we occupy the factory. 133 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:35,800 The other senior stewards who clearly don't want 134 00:08:35,880 --> 00:08:39,240 this to happen are trying to look for some other resolution. 135 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:40,000 And I'm saying 136 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,240 you've got to take the resolution, 137 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:46,640 They were forced to put this resolution to the vote and it was carried. 138 00:08:47,280 --> 00:08:51,200 And what happened next was, was very, very, 139 00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:56,320 I think illuminating because clearly many people in that factory 140 00:08:56,400 --> 00:09:00,000 not only had been talking about this idea of occupying the factory, 141 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:02,920 but they'd thought through what they were going to do. 142 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:06,080 And this factory was not only a large yellow, 143 00:09:06,320 --> 00:09:09,120 not only a large aircraft production factory, 144 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,440 it also contained the head offices of the British aircraft industry. 145 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:17,720 About 4000 managers and staff worked there 146 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:22,080 who weren't affected by our wage claim, and many of the workers decided 147 00:09:22,160 --> 00:09:26,480 that it was obviously the best tactic was to shut down these offices, 148 00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:30,000 and so they immediately stormed these offices. 149 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:34,440 The management had got wind of what was going to happen, and they had hired, 150 00:09:34,560 --> 00:09:39,360 I think, about 30, 40 security men with Alsatian dogs to guard the entrances. 151 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:43,840 But the workers found a way in via a lift of the basement, made their way up, 152 00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:48,320 forced all the doors open and workers poured in and went from office to office, 153 00:09:48,400 --> 00:09:50,200 you know, shutting down the offices. 154 00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:53,280 And and it was I enjoyed, we were there 155 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:55,080 when we finally reached the top floor. 156 00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:58,880 And through the managing director and his secretary out of their office, 157 00:09:58,960 --> 00:10:03,160 and, you know, we completed the takeover and shut down the entire, 158 00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:05,920 you know, headquarters of the aircraft industry. 159 00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:08,320 This occupation went on, 160 00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:13,360 and till management went back down and I can't remember 161 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:17,080 the exact details, but conceded our wage claim 162 00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:20,160 almost in full. 163 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:33,200 This militancy of the working class 164 00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:39,040 was obviously met with a response by capital, by the politicians 165 00:10:39,120 --> 00:10:44,360 and the first attempts, political attempts to weaken 166 00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:48,480 the trade union movement were taken by the labor government in 1969. 167 00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:52,640 They tried to bring in laws to weaken the powers of trade unions, 168 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:54,640 but they were stopped by mass 169 00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:58,600 demonstrations and the labor government couldn't get this through. 170 00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:03,560 But shortly after this, a conservative government was elected and as I said 171 00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:08,720 previously, they brought in the laws to buying secondary picketing, 172 00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:13,080 but this to a large extent backfired on them. 173 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:17,920 And it led up to an all out war 174 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:21,200 between the government and the trade unions, which ended 175 00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:25,200 with the conservative government calling an election 176 00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:29,040 on the question of who rules the country, the government or the miners. 177 00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:31,960 And they lost this election. 178 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:36,680 But this then led to a change of leadership within the Conservative Party 179 00:11:36,760 --> 00:11:40,760 and a little known woman at the time, Margaret Thatcher, got elected 180 00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:42,760 as leader of the Conservative Party. 181 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:48,200 She was in opposition for four years, but then in 1979 became prime Minister, 182 00:11:48,760 --> 00:11:53,640 and she had won this battle to become leader of the Conservative Party 183 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:58,520 on the basis that the previous conservative government 184 00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:01,960 should not have called an election in their fight against the miners. 185 00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:05,080 They should have been prepared to fight that battle to the end. 186 00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:08,240 And that was her whole, 187 00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:11,800 driving strategy. 188 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:15,840 And she did this in several ways. 189 00:12:16,280 --> 00:12:19,240 First of all, new changes to the laws 190 00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:23,880 she had seen that this attempt to criminalize picketing, etc. 191 00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:27,160 didn't work. So she went in a different way. 192 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:30,000 She went for the union bureaucracy. 193 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:33,800 She passed a law that said if any union member broke a law, 194 00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:37,480 then it would be the union's funds which would be taken away. 195 00:12:37,560 --> 00:12:40,640 And they now have the power to seize the entire funds 196 00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:45,760 of any trade union for any action by any member who broke a law. 197 00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:50,320 And, of course, the union bureaucracy was now petrified because they depended 198 00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:54,640 upon this money for their, you know, their cars, their houses, 199 00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:58,880 their general living standard, which was far above the average worker. 200 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:03,640 And so this rapidly whipped the union bureaucracy into line. 201 00:13:03,720 --> 00:13:08,080 And, you know, in a sense, they now had to become the policemen 202 00:13:08,280 --> 00:13:09,520 on behalf of the government. 203 00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:13,600 They had to prevent their members from taking any illegal activity. 204 00:13:14,280 --> 00:13:16,920 This was one, one change. 205 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,760 The second change was that she made big changes to the police force. 206 00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:25,080 They began a very intensified program 207 00:13:25,160 --> 00:13:29,440 to prepare, to deal with rioting and to deal with the picketing. 208 00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:32,760 And they transformed 209 00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:35,880 the police force really to do battle with the working class. 210 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:39,800 Whereas previously they had been unable to deal with these mass pickets. 211 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:43,080 So this was 212 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:45,720 there were many other 213 00:13:45,720 --> 00:13:49,200 little legal changes, but this was the main strategy. 214 00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:55,160 But the but what was going on simultaneously was that the postwar boom, 215 00:13:55,240 --> 00:14:00,200 all of this previous militancy, had taken place in a time of full employment, 216 00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:03,640 not simply full employment, actually a shortage of labor. 217 00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:08,760 And this, of course, was an enormous weapon in the hand of the working class. 218 00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:13,920 But the postwar boom came to an end, and it came sided very much with this period. 219 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:19,080 And you now began to have unemployment rising, inflation rising, 220 00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:23,280 and this, this beginning of unemployment 221 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:26,480 really changed everything. 222 00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:29,440 This previous militant battle had taken place 223 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:32,400 on the basis that capital was desperate for labor. 224 00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:35,640 Now, increasingly, factories were closing down. 225 00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:37,320 All across Britain. 226 00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:40,400 You had this what was called at the time, asset stripping. 227 00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:43,520 Factories were bought up by people 228 00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:46,560 because they worked out that the value of the land, 229 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:50,360 the value of the machinery secretary, the value of the name of the brand 230 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:53,880 was worth more than, than there was being made from production. 231 00:14:53,960 --> 00:14:59,080 And so factories were being bought up, shut down, workers thrown on the dole. 232 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:03,440 Within a short space of time, we had 3 million workers on the dole. 233 00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:08,840 And this shift in the dynamics 234 00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,880 was very visible in 19, I think it was 1976 235 00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:18,040 when a very small little factory in London, a factory where mainly 236 00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:22,600 immigrant women workers processed films from people's cameras. 237 00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:27,280 They tried to form a union, and for two years they were on strike outside. 238 00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:30,800 But every day for two years, the police escorted scabs in. 239 00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:35,800 And despite the fact that there were mass pickets that the workers from all over 240 00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:38,880 came to speak, it's these women 241 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:41,920 were unable to unionize their factory. 242 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:45,960 And so you now had a situation where the entire labor movement 243 00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:50,600 was unable to get a tiny little factory to recognize a union. 244 00:15:50,680 --> 00:15:56,200 And this was the beginnings of a real change in the balance of power. 245 00:15:57,240 --> 00:15:58,560 Employers began 246 00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:02,240 to band together to effectively 247 00:16:02,320 --> 00:16:06,920 create their own strike funds to support employers who faced strikes. 248 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:10,280 And so the whole tone changed. 249 00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:14,080 And of course, this led up to 250 00:16:14,160 --> 00:16:18,320 where Thatcher had always planned it to end up the battle with the miners. 251 00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:20,720 And she'd prepared effectively. 252 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:23,920 She'd spent 13 years preparing for this battle, 253 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:28,680 and in 1984, this strike 254 00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:32,120 with the miners began when she closed most of the coal mines down. 255 00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:34,600 And I think most people know this story. 256 00:16:34,600 --> 00:16:36,840 The miners were out on strike for a year 257 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:40,960 and failed completely to win their demands. 258 00:16:41,040 --> 00:16:45,680 And not long after that, Rupert Murdoch, the print baron, 259 00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:49,440 did the same thing to the print workers unions, set up a factory 260 00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:52,000 without the print workers involved. 261 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:55,640 And this was really the end of that whole era. 262 00:16:57,206 --> 00:16:58,614 The other thing, 263 00:16:58,847 --> 00:17:03,200 of course, which made a huge impact, we went from a period of full employment, 264 00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:06,640 which we'd had throughout the 60s and early 70s. 265 00:17:06,760 --> 00:17:10,600 We went into an economic crisis, and we began 266 00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:14,720 to have huge numbers of factory shuts downs. 267 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:17,680 And within two years of Thatcher becoming prime minister, 268 00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:22,160 we had 3 million unemployed and very high inflation rates. 269 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:27,040 And it was this employment which really, almost more than anything, 270 00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:30,120 destroyed this ability of the workers 271 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,200 to put the bosses on the spot. 272 00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:42,880 This this period of great militancy. 273 00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:48,080 I think it confused a lot of US militants. 274 00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:52,480 We mistook it for a great radicalization 275 00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:54,760 of the working class, which in some ways it was. 276 00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:56,720 But in some ways it wasn't. 277 00:17:56,800 --> 00:17:59,800 This was really simply a 278 00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:03,720 working class demanding a better bargain. 279 00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:06,200 It was always about a bargain. 280 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:10,280 And of course, as long as the bosses were on the run, you could get a good bargain. 281 00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:13,680 But once the circumstances changed and the bosses 282 00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:16,760 felt able to turn around and say, we're not dealing, 283 00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:22,600 then this whole outlook of the trade union to do a deal fell apart. 284 00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:25,080 You can only do a deal with somebody willing to do a deal. 285 00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:28,160 And when the when the boss turns around and sees no deal or the government 286 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:33,320 turns around and says no deal, you have no nothing left to do. 287 00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:37,360 And so this militancy 288 00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:41,120 very rapidly turned into acquiescence. 289 00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:45,320 Another, another limitation of it was, 290 00:18:46,840 --> 00:18:49,680 I think it was 291 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:54,640 this British exceptionalism or English exceptionalism, which is, 292 00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:57,800 if you like, in England, is this legacy of empire 293 00:18:57,880 --> 00:19:01,720 tied up with racism and all kinds of other things. 294 00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:05,640 And we had it was very isolated. 295 00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:08,800 These struggles had no international perspective. 296 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:13,080 And so when we had the beginnings of what we later realized 297 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:16,680 was globalization, there was no conception 298 00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:19,760 of making contacts internationally. 299 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:21,760 I worked in a factory. 300 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:24,880 The factory shut down, all production was transferred to the Philippines, 301 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:28,960 but nobody had any suggestion to make contacts with the Philippines. 302 00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:31,800 We just stood outside an entry factory for 26 weeks. 303 00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:46,960 Did people taking part in this very big, 304 00:19:47,360 --> 00:19:52,360 you know, nearly 20 year long period of militancy, have an idea 305 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:56,560 that they were fighting for a different society in general? No. 306 00:19:57,200 --> 00:19:58,320 At the fringes, yes. 307 00:19:58,320 --> 00:20:01,320 Many workers joined left wing parties. 308 00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:03,960 Many young people join revolutionary parties. 309 00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:08,280 There was certainly the middle class were filled with talk of revolution. 310 00:20:08,360 --> 00:20:11,360 But the working classes as a whole? No. 311 00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:13,840 The postwar period 312 00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:18,760 had seen the introduction of the welfare state, and most workers 313 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:22,560 conception was simply, if you like to cling on 314 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:27,080 to this period of the welfare state, they wanted to stay where they were. 315 00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:30,520 They had had their living standards gently increasing. 316 00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:32,920 They had all the benefits of welfare ism. 317 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:38,480 And it was only the struggles were only about trying to keep that cling onto that. 318 00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:43,600 I don't think there was any widespread thought about a different society. 319 00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:49,160 No, there were exceptions, you know, on the fringes, at the militant fringes. 320 00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:52,320 Yes. Many workers did join socialist 321 00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:56,280 organizations and did have discussions there. 322 00:20:56,360 --> 00:21:00,720 For example, there was set up something called the Institute for Workers Control, 323 00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:03,760 which attracted in the early days, 324 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:09,120 lots of shop stewards who did discuss, you know, different forms of production. 325 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:14,920 There was a famous the Lucas Aerospace plan 326 00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:19,160 when an aerospace factory was threatened with closure, the workers drew up a plan 327 00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,640 to put this factory over to a different kind of production. 328 00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:24,320 But that was within capitalism. 329 00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:28,080 They were simply saying to capital, look, we could be exploited a different way. 330 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:32,160 There was a big occupation in Scotland of a caterpillar factory, 331 00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:34,480 where they make the huge diggers and things. 332 00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:40,440 And again, there was a lot of talk about workers control, but it was, it was 333 00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:44,600 that was really froth on the surface, really. 334 00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:49,600 The struggles were about trying to keep the situation that workers had had 335 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:53,120 when they had this kind of strength and which was now going 336 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:56,480 there was it never really went beyond that. 337 00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:08,080 What is stupid. 338 00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:12,800 I mean, I've worked in I worked on a supersonic aircraft, 339 00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:17,400 military aircraft, missiles, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. 340 00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:21,480 None of those are of any use to society as a whole. 341 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:24,640 So that could have been entirely done away with. 342 00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:31,000 But I think I think there's another thing which is maybe harder to talk about, 343 00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:36,400 but I think we'll have to be talked about, and that is our consumption of shit. 344 00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:42,680 Our homes are full of rubbish, you know, we've become people stripped 345 00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:49,000 of our humanity who find satisfaction purely in buying stuff we don't need. 346 00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:53,280 And I think at certain point in the development of human society, 347 00:22:53,360 --> 00:22:57,680 human beings will find a better outlet for their activities 348 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:01,040 than constantly shopping for things that are that are needed. 349 00:23:01,120 --> 00:23:05,880 I mean, my granddaughter's room is full of I don't know, how many thousand plastic 350 00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,880 toys does a child need 10,000 plastic toys? 351 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:10,000 I don't think so. 352 00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:20,280 As I said at the time, 353 00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:25,920 we weren't really thinking about alternative production, 354 00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:29,680 but I do think that 355 00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:32,640 everybody working in factories, etc. 356 00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:34,080 would always say the same Thing: 357 00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,440 We could run this factory ten times better. 358 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:38,240 And that's probably true. 359 00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,720 And in any factory you have all of these people 360 00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,400 whose only job really is to police the workers, 361 00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:50,000 the foreman, the supervisors, the quality control and all of these, 362 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:53,240 all of these people are there simply because, 363 00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:54,640 the reality is the working class 364 00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:59,200 is alienated from what they're doing and given any chance, don't do anything. 365 00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,800 You know, then at a very, 366 00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:07,720 at a wider level, we have 367 00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:12,760 things being produced and shipped around the world today 368 00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:16,480 only for one reason that, taking advantage of cheap labor 369 00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:20,040 as opposed to more expensive labor in another place, you know, 370 00:24:20,120 --> 00:24:24,240 so huge irrationality of movement of goods and of everything 371 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:27,680 only for this one reason to take advantage of cheap labor. 372 00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:32,160 But I'm sure, you know, in the future people will find many ways 373 00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:36,640 to completely rationalize and make reasonable production. 374 00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:53,400 Let's talk about just the immediate period in front of us. 375 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,760 Not necessarily a revolutionary situation, but but one which I think, 376 00:24:59,360 --> 00:25:00,800 given history 377 00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,760 will probably get even worse, which is the question of racism. 378 00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:08,640 And if you like all the divisions which exist within the working class, 379 00:25:09,120 --> 00:25:13,120 but particularly in England with its imperial history, 380 00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,360 all this shit of racism now 381 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:22,720 once again begins to come to the surface in the form of opposition to refugees. 382 00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:25,880 Asylum seekers. 383 00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,360 And I think this is going to be a big factor. 384 00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:32,520 What I'm not sure is 385 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,600 how this trick will work. 386 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:40,360 We have, you know, in our big cities, we have such a multi-ethnic society now. 387 00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,640 We have young generations who have grown up completely 388 00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,080 in a multi-ethnic society. 389 00:25:48,360 --> 00:25:49,360 Maybe parts of 390 00:25:49,360 --> 00:25:53,400 England will be gripped by this kind of frenzy of racism. 391 00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,560 I'm not sure if it's going to work in the big cities, but it's certainly a danger. 392 00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:01,840 But in general, yes, all the divisions which exist in the working class, 393 00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:08,000 you know, both internally and globally, you know, how can we conceive of any kind 394 00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:12,960 of transformation of human society on a national basis anymore, you know? 395 00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:16,760 And yet, within the working class, 396 00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,280 say, even in England, there are multiple divisions, let alone 397 00:26:20,360 --> 00:26:25,280 divisions between an international working class 398 00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:33,450 I'm not sure. 399 00:26:33,518 --> 00:26:36,518 I'm not sure other than 400 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:40,600 to have the hope that particularly new generations 401 00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:44,560 of younger people growing up, growing up with very different attitudes 402 00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:47,640 about the role of women, the role of young people, 403 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,840 the role of immigrant communities will 404 00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,840 play a major part in overcoming this. 405 00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:59,240 I think from the point of view of militants, 406 00:26:59,920 --> 00:27:02,920 I think in a sense also 407 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:07,040 to stop paying maybe lip service to many of these questions. 408 00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:12,080 We still have, meetings supposedly against patriarchy 409 00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,080 led by men 410 00:27:15,120 --> 00:27:18,040 who effectively don't let women speak. 411 00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,760 I would like to see movements, political movements, working 412 00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:26,800 class movements who absolutely deliberately, 413 00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,560 you know, put women, young people, 414 00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,400 minorities, etc., etc. 415 00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,440 at the front of every situation. 416 00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,520 But at the moment, that's still not happening. 417 00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,600 I was very pleased to see in all the 418 00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,240 the big Palestine demonstrations we had in Manchester, 419 00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:51,440 there was for once not so many old White men hogging the microphone. 420 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,520 We had a lot of young Palestinian women 421 00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,600 reading poetry, giving amazing speeches. 422 00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,760 So maybe there's a change coming. 423 00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:11,920 I'm kind of reluctant to 424 00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:16,000 give a Formula because I think that you can spend 425 00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,760 a long time dreaming up a perfect Formula for democracy, 426 00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,080 only to find it yet again turns into the opposite. 427 00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,560 I, I kind of have 428 00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,960 the confidence that a workers' movement that begins 429 00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:34,440 to take events into its own hands, which it's going to have to 430 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:38,520 if we are going to see any change, will find the ways. 431 00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:42,480 I mean, I take inspiration from the Paris Commune, 432 00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,640 where people suddenly, out of nowhere 433 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,760 created a completely new form of government. 434 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,000 And, I think, anyway, 435 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,280 that forms of organization 436 00:28:55,360 --> 00:29:00,320 and how democracy is a very circumstance dependent. 437 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:04,360 And so it's going to, you know, it's going to be evolving situations. 438 00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:06,720 And you can't have a formula for this. 439 00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:08,720 It's got to be all the time. 440 00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:10,720 What actually allows 441 00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,120 the real strength of the working class, 442 00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:18,120 which is its own self-organization, what allows that to develop. 443 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,760 And it's more about having I think that, you know, 444 00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,520 if you like, the essence of what you want to achieve in the forefront of your mind 445 00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:28,600 and allow that to at each point say, 446 00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,400 how do we how do we now, at this moment? 447 00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,920 How do we actually, you know, draw up the rules 448 00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:35,640 for how we behave at this moment? 449 00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:37,480 But I think the rules will change, 450 00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:41,520 you know, from period to period, from circumstance to circumstance. 451 00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:46,040 But it's about it's about that allowing the voice 452 00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:52,200 of the mass movement to be heard, in whatever way it can. 453 00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,280 A difficult question. 454 00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:07,680 I'm from that Generation maybe going now, but I'm not quite sure 455 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,280 I'm from that generation that grew up 456 00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,400 dominated by the memory of the Russian Revolution. 457 00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,920 And I think this actually still hangs over a lot of people. 458 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,120 And we have this image of the storming of the Winter Palace and, you know, 459 00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:23,600 the seizure of power. 460 00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:25,880 I don't think it can ever happen like that again. 461 00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,720 Now, I think the modern Military is not like this. 462 00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:36,400 And I think that this idea 463 00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:41,360 of some kind of direct confrontation is you're going to lose that battle. 464 00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:45,880 I, you know, I don't have a vision, but I can only conceive that 465 00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:50,360 this incredible power of the military that the present state has 466 00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:55,120 can only be weakened by, if you like, the most 467 00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,400 multifaceted outbreak of uprising. 468 00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,520 You know, I don't know how else to put it. 469 00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:06,680 The more the more society in turmoil, the more it is 470 00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:08,600 hard to identify the target. 471 00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:10,080 That's one aspect of it. 472 00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:13,680 The other aspect of, of course, is that they do have an Achilles heel, 473 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,160 which is that the more they become dependent on technology, 474 00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:22,520 the more they also actually dependent upon all kinds of people 475 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:27,960 who in times of turmoil, might not be siding with the military, you know, 476 00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:33,200 a whole kind of system of technicians, etc., keeps the military going. 477 00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:38,000 And these might not always be as reliable as they might be at the moment, you know. 478 00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:39,160 But, you know. 479 00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:46,560 What should we do now? 480 00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,560 I don't know, I don't even know what the we is. 481 00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,920 What is the we we are we talking about militants? 482 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,360 Are we talking about anti-capitalist? 483 00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:56,920 Are we talking about the working class? 484 00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,600 I don't know, 485 00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,160 I suppose I can answer, 486 00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,840 I from my experience I would like to give more what we don't do. 487 00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,040 Right. 488 00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:13,320 I spent my life in political organizations 489 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,400 which thought it knew the answers 490 00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:21,320 and called upon the working class to join it and follow it. 491 00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,600 I think this is a disaster. 492 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:30,560 So my only thing would be to anybody, 493 00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,640 whether it's in the trade union movement, political anti-capitalist movement, 494 00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:39,600 to think about this past 495 00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,680 and to 496 00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:44,920 not spend 497 00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,520 all the years that I did in a revolutionary cult, 498 00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:50,548 which is what it was, 499 00:32:50,626 --> 00:32:53,407 thinking that somehow we knew the answers to everything 500 00:32:53,485 --> 00:32:56,938 and that all that was required was the working class to follow us. 501 00:32:57,079 --> 00:32:58,440 That's, it's not going to happen. 502 00:32:58,440 --> 00:32:59,680 It doesn't happen. 503 00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:03,240 And if you like, yes, I would say to take 504 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,320 seriously this little statement of Marx that 505 00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,640 the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself. 506 00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:14,760 I think at the moment, too many political activists, 507 00:33:16,191 --> 00:33:17,720 in one way or another 508 00:33:17,764 --> 00:33:21,124 want the working class to join their project. 509 00:33:22,175 --> 00:33:23,581 I understand this. 510 00:33:23,644 --> 00:33:27,600 I don't tell anybody that they should or shouldn't do anything. 511 00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:32,240 But I think we have to understand that the road to revolt 512 00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:34,416 doesn't go down the road you choose. 513 00:33:34,525 --> 00:33:36,800 It goes down its own road. 514 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,400 You know, the working class will find its own route of revolt. 515 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:45,640 And as militants, if our knowledge and our experience is to be of any use, 516 00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,040 we have to find a way to play a part in that revolt, 517 00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:50,935 not in our revolt. 518 00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,400 So going back to the 70s. 519 00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,320 We had multiple 520 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,320 revolutionary groups, revolutionary parties 521 00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:14,840 and yes, I think most of the militant workers 522 00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:18,880 joined one or other of these, one of these movements. 523 00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,480 But I think that 524 00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,560 most of these organizations had turned 525 00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,560 Marxism into a religion. 526 00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:32,760 And by that, I mean, I think that they thought all they had to do 527 00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:37,560 was read Marx and and from this they kind of knew the future. 528 00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,280 And most of them were so busy 529 00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:44,880 expecting that this militancy of the working class 530 00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:49,320 was going to lead to a revolutionary confrontation with the ruling class, 531 00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:53,280 and that their preparation for this was by building their party, 532 00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,960 which they saw as that's what they saw as preparation for all of these groups. 533 00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,600 The best preparation for revolution was to build their party. 534 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,440 And none of them, none of them. 535 00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,600 They would all make endless analyzes of the economic situation. 536 00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:13,120 But looking back, I think none of them really saw 537 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,800 the beginnings of globalization. 538 00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:17,640 And it was globalization, 539 00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:20,920 coupled with unemployment, which completely took away 540 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,280 the power of the working class, you know, with without a shot being fired. 541 00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:30,600 And I suppose, could things have been done differently? 542 00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,520 Yes. I think if you'd had a militant movement 543 00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,640 which was less concerned with its project 544 00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:42,120 and more concerned with how to strengthen the working class, 545 00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,400 then they would have maybe seen this beginnings 546 00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:49,680 of globalization, tried to develop internationalism. 547 00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:54,400 I'm not saying this would have worked, but it might have left a different legacy 548 00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:59,040 as it was all of this radicalism left really, 549 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,320 you know, not very much for today's workers to build on. 550 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,440 You almost now got to start again from scratch.