Even today's inadequate pay agreement had to be won in a fierce battle against a Labour government - and defended (as in this protest) against the Tories Karen O Toole
New Labour leaders today invoke the spectre of the 1970s winter of discontent, blaming militant trade unionism for Thatcher's election in 1979. But the unions did not bring about the defeat of the Labour government: Labour in government defeated itself by attacking the working class through its imposition of a wage-cutting incomes policy".
When the Fire Brigades Union held its first ever national all-out strike 25 years ago, 1: they were fighting a Labour government intent not on 'taxing the rich until the pips squeaked', but on pioneering neoliberal and anti-union policies, which were later to become law under Thatcher.
The firefighters' strike, which continued solid for 9 weeks, proved to be the first major challenge to the government's incomes policy.
The firefighters didn't succeed in breaking the pay code, but they did get a pay formula linking them to the top quartile of industrial workers - a formula that has lost its value in recent years as industrial wages have slipped down the pay league.
The economic landscape that Labour inherited from the Tories in 1974 was radically different from the post-war boom of the / 950s huge recessor, rising unemployment and inflation. The purpose of the 1974-79 Labour government was to revivify British industry and arrest its long decine." This meant making British industry more competitive than the rest of Europe.
Having British capitalism became the main priority. Chancellor Denis Healey planned massive wage cuts and a halt in public service spending in line with diktats from the IME. Partnership between the bosses' organisation, the CBI, and the TUC attempted to impose wage restraint on workers, whilst the rich continued to indulge themselves.
The years preceding the Labour government had seen strikes on a scale not seen for generations in Britain. There were two nacional miners' strikes, the second leading to the defeat of the Tory government. The same period saw the first national teachers' strike, the first national health workers' strike and a national strike by engineers. Over 200 factories faced with closure were occupied.
During the Tory years, Labour set up a Liaison Committee with the trade unions to ensure that when they came back to office they could avoid the divisions between party and unions that had opened up in the sixties.
Consequently, the TUC and the key Jones, TGWU, and Hugh Scanlon AUEW, were committed to close cooperation with the Labour government. When economic conditions changed and the name of the game became incomes policy, the union leaders gave their full support -without which the policy could not have been introduced. As a result, the first stages of incomes policy held more or less in tact.
The firefighters' challenge was to Stage Three of the policy, which imposed a limit of 10% on wages. The firefighters launched an all-out strike. It became a set-piece battle, with the credibility of the government at •stake.
The miners' union leaders, who had a pay claim of their own, fought shy of taking action at the same time as the firefighters, leaving them isolated. But worse, the FBU national leadership were themselves opposed to the strike, a fact that Home SMASH THE PAY LIMIT OFF services Secretary Merlyn Rees used to weaken them.
As one firefighter put it at the time: 'It's hard to see which way [FBU General Secretary Terry] Parry and the FBU leadership will move to head off the strike. Right now EC members are visiting picket lines trying to find a pull-back in support. But there's still no chink in the membership."
The membership could see the dangers all too clearly: the firefighters were being isolated by the trade union leadership in order to protect Labour in office. The only solution would have been for other workers with similar pay claims to act together, but the FBU leadership refused to call on other unions to take solidarity action.
The TUC supported legislation designed to prevent workers fighting shoulder to shoulder, and by doing so boistered up a weakened Labour government, which could only hold on to power by a pact with the Liberals.
When the firefighters called a demonstration and asked for TUC's excuse was that 'it is very unusual for the general council to give backing to a demonstration.
Attempts were made at shop floor level to extend the firefighters' strike through simultaneous action. Many workers gave money and supported the firefighters on the picket line, but no simultaneous action came, and in the end they were left to fight alone.
At the beginning of December, the TUC called on the firefighters to return to work. Denis Healey immediately launched a series of talks with the CBl for long-term pay controls. The Financial Times reported that CB leaders left the talks 'encouraged by the fact that Mr Healey has started to move down the same road' as adopted at the CBI conference.
The TUC's decision to stab the firefighters in the back was justified by TUC general secretary, Len Murray: We cannot envisage action that could be taken which would deflect the government' - an earlier echo of the argument Blair carries today when he says he will not tolerate a return to 1970sstyle trade unionism.
Loyalty to Labour was the defining issue for the trade union leaders. This was not the case for most of the rank-and-file, who became increasingthat Blair has a party in which the unions are not a problem any longer.' Denis Healey, February 2000 ly disenchanted with the official line.
In fact, workers had not been afraid to confront a Labour government in the |960s when Harold Wilson's incomes policy had been defeated by strikes. The same was to happen with Callaghan's 5% policy in the Winter of Discontent of 1978, when the trade union leaders could no longer hold the line for Labour.
Today's firefighters' strike takes place under a very different political background.
In place of the explicit pay policy which tried to enforce a 10% ceiling in 1977, Blair's government claims not to have a specific policy - but is prompt to step in and argue that any public sector deal above 4% would wreck the economy. The TUC, which set out openly to isolate the FBU in 1977-78 and refused even to call a demonstration in their support, has already called what is likely to be a huge national demonstration in support of the firefighters on December 7 - and urged all unions and members of the public to attend.
Also unlike the 1970s a generalised political 'anticapitalist' movement is cross-fertilising with workers' militancy. The European Social Forum was backed by the Fire Brigades Union, as well as many other unions, and British workers are beginning to take inspiration from the mass strikes in Europe
There are also the beginnings of a linking up of struggles across different sections of the working class, with the establishment of the public sector alliances
In addition, the link between Labour and the unions is being challenged by workers. More firefighters now believe that the FBU should break the link with Labour. This poses the question of a political alternative to New Labour in which the Socialist Alliance can prove decisive.
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