{"id":340,"date":"2012-07-22T15:13:39","date_gmt":"2012-07-22T15:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2012\/07\/22\/a-red-dawn-over-durham-steve-early-2012\/"},"modified":"2012-07-22T15:13:39","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T15:13:39","slug":"a-red-dawn-over-durham-steve-early-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2012\/07\/22\/a-red-dawn-over-durham-steve-early-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"A Red Dawn Over Durham? – Steve Early (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nMiliband At the MIners’ Gala<\/em>:
\nA Red Dawn Over Durham?<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Steve Early<\/strong>
\nDurham, England–Although their histories are quite different, the British Labour Party and our U.S. Democrats have one thing in common: both like to avoid too much public cuddling with workers\u2014particularly, any sector of the organized working class whose militant struggles with management might force them to reveal which side they\u2019re really on.
\nIn America, the Democratic Party\u2019s longstanding treatment of labor as just another \u201cspecial interest\u201d has set the stage for endless political disappointment. In the U.K., distancing yourself from the traditional culture of unionism is harder, but not impossible for a center-left politician to do, as former Prime Minister Tony Blair demonstrated when he campaigned successfully as the leader of \u201cNew Labour\u201d in the mid-1990s (and then proceeded to tarnish that brand as well).
\nThree million workers remain formally affiliated with Blair\u2019s Party, via TUC unions, and the word \u201clabour\u201d has not yet been dropped from its name. So here, trade unionists still expect some loyalty from the party that has traditionally spoken for them\u2014whether in government or in opposition when parliament is controlled by the Tories (who rule today in shaky coalition with the Liberal-Democrats).
\nFor much of the 20th century, party leaders paid dutiful homage to Labour\u2019s working class roots by joining the annual pilgrimage to the Durham Miners\u2019 Gala. Also known as \u201cThe Big Meeting,\u201d the Gala has been held for the last 128 years on a grassy racecourse in this beautiful cathedral town on the banks of the wandering River Wear. The event remains the largest single union-sponsored gathering of working class voters in the U.K. and a very moving celebration of coal mining history, art, culture, and music.
\nIn Durham, the last deep mine closed 19 years ago. So here and elsewhere, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), like the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), is a sad shadow of its former organizational self. Only a few thousand underground miners remain in a handful of surviving pits. But, on July 14th, thousands of NUM retirees and their families, affiliated with the union\u2019s still-functioning lodges, paraded behind their eighty elaborately illustrated banners, through the narrow streets of Durham. As always, marching tunes were provided by community-based brass bands, fifty of which participated in this year\u2019s procession.
\nThe power of their music was well captured in the 1996 film, Brassed Off, starring Pete Postlethwaite and Ewan McGregor. It deals with the struggle to keep colliery musicians together, after a mine closing in the depressed, black lung-ridden community of \u201cGrimley,\u201d a thinly disguised version of the real-life village of Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire. At the Gala, visiting coalfield bands even play in the city\u2019s magnificent cathedral at a memorial service for the many men killed or injured, since underground mining began. During this unusual, mid-afternoon ceremony, one can listen to the mournful strains of \u201cGresford,\u201d the miners\u2019 hymn, while the Bishop of Durham blesses any NUM banners brought, for the first time, to The Big Meeting. (This year\u2019s newly consecrated crop included a just-completed panorama by artist Andrew Turner, honoring the work of \u201cWomen Against Pit Closures,\u201d the organization of miner\u2019s wives, girlfriends, and daughters founded by Anne Scargill, Betty Cook, and other coalfield feminists.)
\nAvoiding Photo-Ops With Arthur<\/strong>
\nThree decades ago\u2014before the coal industry downsizing depicted in Brassed Off\u2013the UK employed 170,000 miners in more than 180 collieries. Its solidaristic communities were soon convulsed by the epic strike battle between Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the National Union of Mineworkers (NMU), headed by Arthur Scargill, then husband of Anne. The Iron Lady was bent on taming the NMU and phasing out most domestic coal production if that\u2019s what it took to curb the power of Britain\u2019s most radical union, long allied with Labour.
\nAs Guardian columnist Seumas Milne recounts in The Enemy Within, his definitive study of NUM-busting by the Tories, then-Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock\u2014a putative foe of Thatcherism\u2014was also discomfited by the blue-collar militancy of the miners. According to Milne, Kinnock \u201cfelt impotent and humiliated during the 1984-85 strike.\u201d He viewed Scargill \u201cas a deeply unwelcome presence in the new-model Labour Party he was trying to create\u201d more than a decade before Blair had better luck with the same modernizing project.
\nThe faint-hearted Kinnock made his last appearance at the Miners Gala in 1989\u2014when a crowd of 50,000 jammed the Old Racecourse. (Some estimates put this year\u2019s total turn-out at twice that number.) After that, he and his successors\u2014John Smith, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown\u2013all avoided Durham like the plague, so they wouldn\u2019t be trapped on the balcony of the County Hotel, reviewing the troops with left-wing union generals like Scargill. Such carefully calculated snubs were, in Milne\u2019s view, designed \u201cto bury the spectre of class politics and trade union militancy which haunted Labour\u2019s effort to construct a post-social democratic electoral machine.\u201d
\nA Miliband Not Be Confused With Ralph<\/strong>
\nIn 2010, the Party picked Oxford-educated Ed Miliband, a former TV journalist and Labour Party researcher, to replace Gordon Brown as its new leader. But Gala-wise, there was no change of heart last year. Miliband skipped \u201cThe Big Meeting\u201d because Bob Crow, of the Rail, Maritime, and Transport workers, was also scheduled to attend. Such close proximity to the colorful and controversial Crow, who proudly proclaims the RMT to be a \u201csocialist union,\u201d was apparently more than Miliband could bear, public relations-wise, so early in his leadership career.
\nWhere Ed grew up, there was less wariness about working class heroes. His father, Ralph, was a Belgian-born Marxist academic and internationally known figure in the British New Left, who is now buried in Highgate Cemetary not far from Marx himself. Miliband\u2019s mother, Marion Kozak, campaigned for human rights and nuclear disarmament. Drawing further attention to this distinguished family tree, Ed become party leader two years ago by defeating his equally ambitious older brother David, a fellow member of Parliament. (To get a feel, on our side of the Atlantic, for this particular family fissure, imagine the similarly related governors of Texas and Florida squaring off against each other in the 2000 Republican primaries.)
\nMiliband pere\u2019s best known book, Parliamentary Socialism, was a sharp critique of Labour policy and practice, circa 1961. A few years later, the author let his own membership lapse and described PM Harold Wilson\u2019s backing of the Vietnam War as the \u201cmost shameful chapter\u201d in Party history. Writing in The Independent, journalist Andy McSmith has noted, accurately, that the elder Miliband\u2019s public life had a \u201cnobility and drama\u201d often missing from the \u201csteady, pragmatic political careers\u201d of his two sons.
\nWhy The Coast Was Clear This Year<\/strong>
\nAlthough organizers of the Durham Miners Gala clearly like Bob Crow, they must have been relieved when their RMT comrade decided to stay home this year and sent rank-and-file members, RMT banners, and an exhibition tent instead. This cleared the way for Miliband to be the featured speaker last Saturday afternoon, although the RMT did adorn its booth at the Gala with a huge picture of Scargill, along with a thought-provoking quote from the syndicalist firebrand. His words reminded everyone nearby that \u201cwhat we need is not marches, demonstrations, rallies\u2026what we need is DIRECT ACTION!\u201d
\nIn the run-up to the Gala, local miners association official Dave Hopper expressed retroactive relief that Blair, unlike Miliband, had never darkened Durham\u2019s door during the Party leadership\u2019s long boycott of the event. \u201cBlair spent his time starting wars and wrecking the health service, \u201c Hopper told the Durham Times earlier this month. \u201cHe would have besmirched the platform.\u201d
\nHopper praised the current leader\u2019s display of \u201ccourage\u201d in coming and promised, as chair of the event, to insure a polite reception. \u201cYou can\u2019t stop people who don\u2019t want to listen,\u201d the retired miner noted. \u201cBut let\u2019s hear what he has to say.\u201d Hopper predicted that most Gala attendees would be \u201cquite pleased\u201d to have Miliband since \u201cthe County Council has been Labour controlled for 93 years, all borough councils have vast Labour majorities, and every constituency regularly elects Labour MPs.\u201d Even in two neighboring counties, \u201cthe Tories and the liberals were obliterated,\u201d Hopper boasted. \u201cThey represent the interests of big business and capitalism and we want no truck with them!\u201d
\nA \u201cFriend\u201d Among Comrades<\/strong>
\nIn The Guardian, Lady Warsi, a baroness born in Pakistan and the Tories’ national party co-chair, seemed equally enthused about Miliband\u2019s July 14 travel plans. Calling him \u201cRed Ed,\u201d she hailed the end of \u201c23 years of silence from the Labour leadership at the Gala,\u201d and predicted that his appearance there would \u201cdrive the Labour Party away from the centre ground of British politics\u201d (where it\u2019s not clear she resides either). She accused Miliband of \u201ccozy[ing] up to his militant, left-wing union paymasters.\u201d
\nSeated among the speakers\u2019 at the Gala last Saturday, Miliband was definitely rubbing elbows with top officials of the General, Municipal, and Boilermakers\u2019, the Public and Commercial Services union, and the shrunken NMU, not to mention two Spanish miners who came directly from highway blockades in Asturias and left with 10,000 English pounds to support their pit closure resistance.
\nNeatly attired in a red tie and dark suit, the slim, dark featured 42-year old Labour leader looked every bit like an up-and-coming young London banker or accountant, who had strayed, by accident, onto a country fairgrounds filled with tens of thousands of white working class north easterners. Few of the latter were dressed like anyone on the platform, with the exception of the T-shirt wearing Spaniards and 87-year old Tony Benn, the now retired tribune of Labour\u2019s parliamentary left, who kept his rambling wear on, instead of displaying his Sunday best.
\nOn the perimeter of the Old Racecourse, many Gala-goers were enjoying themselves on the ferris wheel and Helter-Skelter ride, at the Fun House and Crazy Circus, and inside an attraction called \u201cJungle Madness.\u201d But thousands also stood stock still, in front of the speaker\u2019s platform, listening to two-hours worth of verbal barrages against the \u201cCon-Dems\u201d in Westminster. At one point, Dave Hopper, who was chairing the event, seemed to take notice of the different sartorial tastes of those on platform as opposed to the thousands of Labour loyalists standing patiently before them on the grass. \u201cWe\u2019re getting surrounded by lawyers and barristers up here, \u201che joked.
\nRestoring The Right To Strike?<\/strong>
\nFortunately, one member of the bar, who spoke before Miliband, did what no union official on the platform dared: he directly challenged the new Party leader to strengthen national labor law when and if Labour defeats the Tories. Longtime NUM solicitor John Hendy, QC, displayed a sharp wit, in his open-air tutorial on the current state of collective bargaining in Britain. First he turned to Miliband and cheekily told him to get his pencil out so he could \u201ctake a note\u201d on what was being said. Then he informed the appreciative crowd: \u201cI want to talk about trade union rights, and I will be short because we don\u2019t have any.\u201d
\nThe tall, white-haired Hendy quickly chronicled the disastrous decline in collective bargaining coverage, from 80 percent of the workforce in 1979 to 30 percent today. He blamed not just Thatcher, but Blair for \u201cBritish laws on trade unions that are now the most restrictive in the western world.\u201d He effectively linked declining union density to the UK\u2019s increase in poverty, income inequality, and various social ills. He pointed out that workers\u2019 rights \u201care human rights guaranteed in international treaties, and binding on this country.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat we need,\u201d Hendy concluded, \u201care trade union rights, like the right to strike, the power to take industrial action.\u201d And then, turning to Miliband again, he said: \u201cEd, you now have a respectable, unimpeachable, legal argument for reinstating these rights.\u201d
\nNew Battle of Britain?<\/strong>
\nMiliband\u2019s own Obama-esque oration was a mere 11-minutes long. His prepared text contained no mention of collective bargaining and he never deviated from it, in response to Hendy. His carefully scripted cadences elicited only a few scattered catcalls from within the vast crowd, which he addressed as \u201cfriends,\u201d not “comrades,” the old school salutation favored by other speakers. As Miliband summed up Labour\u2019s destiny last Saturday, it is \u201cto rebuild our country\u2026on the values of the people of Britain: responsibility, community, fairness, equality, and justice. That\u2019s our mission, that\u2019s our task, that\u2019s the battle we can win together.\u201d
\nHis (only slightly less vague) agenda for \u201cday one\u201d of a future Miliband government included breaking up the banks and\/or taxing bankers\u2019 bonuses, ending \u201cenergy rip-offs,\u201d and curbing the power of press moguls like Rupert Murdoch. To whet the appetite of those present, he invoked the memory of past Labour PM\u2019s like Atlee and Wilson (wisely leaving Blair off his list).
\nAs local party officials and visiting union dignitaries filed off the stage, an impressive throng of spectators surrounded Miliband, shaking his hand, patting him on the back, and thrusting program books his way to be autographed. While “Red Ed” made his way slowly to the Labour tent, I shook hands with Tony Benn instead. The aging lion of the British left had just spent his 51st \u201cBig Meeting\u201d hunched over in a folding chair near the edge of the platform, smoking his pipe, and seemingly lost in thought. A former cabinet member and MP for five decades, Benn was introduced to the crowd only in passing. As he walked away unsteadily afterwards, aided by a young assistant, a few other longtime fans greeted him reverently.
\nAs Solicitor Hendy departed the stage, I asked him what Miliband\u2019s non-response portended for labor law reform in the U.K. \u201cHis pencil must have been blunt,\u201d he said with a smile, adding that \u201cwe\u2019re still working on it and we\u2019ll get there in the end.\u201d At a post-Gala screening of a documentary called \u201cWill and Testament,\u201d which chronicles Benn\u2019s career, the old socialist was similarly upbeat, but more protective of the new boy who had failed to pick up the gauntlet thrown his way.
\nIn a Q&A session after the film, I queried Benn about Miliband\u2019s performance. He agreed that \u201cthe rights of trade unionists need to be restored\u201d and that Hendy\u2019s points were \u201cpowerfully made.\u201d But, in his view, Miliband had shown adequate union sympathy at the Gala. According to Benn, if the Party leader addresses workers rights in the future, he will \u201cbe taking on some formidable opponents and he knows it.\u201d
\nBut overcoming such foes won\u2019t be possible without mobilizing Labour\u2019s traditional base, plus many new recruits to the party. If Miliband isn\u2019t even willing to pander, Obama-style, to a pro-union crowd\u2014by applauding collective bargaining\u2013he\u2019s certainly not going to defend the practice before a national audience or make strengthening unions a post-election priority. And the result of that political positioning will be exactly what workers have gotten, in the U.S., from their own \u201cfriend of labor,\u201d since he entered the White House four years ago.
\nSteve Early is a US labour journalist, lawyer, and organizer who has been active in unions since 1972. In the mid-1970s, he worked for the United Mine Workers of America and travelled widely in the U.S. coalfields He is the author, most recently, of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, from Haymarket Books<\/a>, which chronicles the failure of labor law reform under President Obama. He can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com<\/em>)
\nThis article was first published in Counterpunch<\/a> (July 18, 2012)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}