The Politics of South Bank

The South Bank lock-out was in many respects a touchstone of the attitude of socialists to the class struggle. Events in the year since the South Bank dispute have shown the correctness of the stand taken by miltants there, and have confirmed the analysis made by the Marxists who supported them.

In September last year Sir Robert McAlpine and Sons decided to 'rephase' the entire civil engineering contract on the Shell Petroleum site at the South Bank, Waterloo. This set off an explosion which blew sky-high all the shibboleths about the harmony of management and labour, the capacity of the union officials to fight the employers' attacks, the impartiality of the police, and the militancy of the Communist Party.

Within two days of the announcement that the job was being 'rephased', 1250 men, including the whole of the shop stewards' committee, were sacked. Work on the giant steel and concrete skyscraper, claimed to be the highest in Europe, came to a stop on September 27, 1958. The shut-down came as a climax to a series of disputes. In February 1958, the men struck over the firm's refusal to negotiate with an elected site committee over welfare and conditions. A second dispute,[^1] which lasted six weeks, was for the reinstatement of Hugh Cassidy, Federation steward at the time of the 'rephasing'. Following a fatal accident to Michael Quigly, a foreman steel erector, which was the third death on the site in three months, a third strike took place for an independent safety officer. The consistent refusal of the stewards' committee to accept victimizations, inadequate welfare and dangerous conditions was a constant threat to profits.

'Rephasing' was simply a new term for an old practice. McAlpines were intent on smashing site organization, so as to free profit-making from the interference of a well-organized stewards' committee. The comment of the Financial Times on the 'rephasing' was that McAlpines planned to start work again with a slightly altered labour force 'from which the worst militants have been weeded out.'[^2]

The shop stewards and the men were presented with a simple choice: either meekly to accept the sackings and permit McAlpines to destroy site organization—or to fight back by declaring the job 'black' until all available labour was reinstated. Their decision was quick and to the point. In an interview with The Newsletter the day after the sackings were announced, Hugh Cassidy said: 'McAlpines think this is a golden opportunity to weed out trade unionists on the job. The lads know McAlpines are acting viciously. They know the true situation and they are prepared to fight.'[^3]

For the scaffolders their chief steward, Mick Maguire, said: 'Our scaffolders took a decision on Friday evening to stay outside the gate as a body until such time as our jobs are given back to us'.[^4]

South Bank Special

The men's decision to fight set before every trade unionist and socialist the question: what practical assistance could they give to enable these workers to defeat McAlpines? First to reply was The Newsletter, which called on all trade unionists to 'rally to the support of the Shell Mex men.' Calling on the Transport and General Workers' Union to act in defence of its members, The Newsletter wrote: 'The Transport and General Workers' Union has the power to smash McAlpine tomorrow. TGWU men supply McAlpines' Dorchester Hotel with meat and vegetables. TGWU men carry Shell Mex petrol. If this great power is used and extended to McAlpines' other sites, a complete and speedy victory can be won by the men on the South Bank.'[^5]

The Editorial Board of The Newsletter approached the stewards' committee offering them the use of half the paper to put their case in their own way. This offer was accepted, and a broadsheet, The South Bank Special, in newspaper format, appeared the following weekend containing articles by the stewards in which they presented their case and appealed for support. On Sunday, October 5, the stewards' committee was holding a meeting to which all trade unionists were invited. The South Bank Special[^6] advertised this meeting. In union branches, on building jobs, in the docks, at factories and on the street corners both in London and the main provincial centres, sacked workers, building trade militants and groups of Newsletter supporters sold the Special. The fight and the message of the South Bank workers was taken to as wide an audience as possible. On the front page of the Special, Jim Rand, a Liverpool building trade worker, wrote: 'Merseyside building militants met last Sunday to set up a solidarity committee to support the locked-out McAlpine men.' Announcing the solidarity committee's next meeting Rand added: 'There we can arrange to get financial support and if necessary arrange mass meetings for the McAlpine men to address.'[^7]

The stage was being set for a determined fight. Leaflets and propaganda had gone out to other sites explaining the men's case and what it would mean for the trade union movement if McAlpine succeeded in his drive against the stewards' committee. Solidarity and support was being built up among the rank and file. The convening of the October 5 meeting ensured that the dispute would not remain isolated but that this important issue would become the property of the organized movement. The men's response had been excellent. The stewards had met the challenge. The Marxists around The Newsletter had reacted as people who took seriously what they wrote and talked about, and had unhesitatingly placed their resources at the disposal of a section of the working class engaged in struggle.

If McAlpines had encountered a resistance from the workers they certainly did not meet one from the trade union officials. On October 2 the Civil Engineering Construction Conciliation Board, a body consisting of employers and union officials, issued a statement on the dispute. This stated that the executives of the unions 'have never recognized the dispute that has taken place' and concluded by saying: 'There is therefore no official obstacle to orderly recruitment for the job in accordance with the normal custom in the industry.' Frank Cousins, general secretary of the TGWU, curtly told his members to return to work. The Financial Times was able to report that at a site meeting addressed by union officials on September 26 'all but one took a moderate line.'[^8]

Despite the acceptance of the sackings by their officials, the men at a mass meeting at the Holborn Hall carried a resolution supporting the decision of the works committee in 'blacking' the site until all available labour, including the stewards, was reinstated. Besides the South Bank workers, building trade militants were also present from other London jobs, and the Liverpool solidarity committee sent a representative. An appeal was made by the platform for help on the picket line—McAlpines had announced their intention of reopening the job on Wednesday, October 8—and the meeting endorsed the appeal.

A Human Barrier

Maguire summed up the feelings of the meeting when he said: 'The rank and file have made the dispute official even if the union leaders have not.'

That rank and file moved into action on October 8, shattering the prophecy of the Financial Times that although militant elements were not expected to accept the resumption without loud protests 'it is felt that they represent too small a minority to create a major obstacle to work today'.[^9] By 7.30 a.m. pickets were gathering outside the gates. From the Abbey Wood site, where there was a four-hour token stoppage, 120 fraternal pickets manned the line. Workers were there from Belvedere Power Station, W. G French's (Daily Mirror site), Harry Neil's at Stevenage, Beckton Gas Works, as well as from other jobs and union branches all over the London area. By 7.50 a.m. a solid numan barrier ringed the site. Banners and posters were everywhere. It was a tremendous demonstration of working-class solidarity that shook the employers and the Press. Only a handful of scabs were able to crawl through the lines. A chastened Financial Times wrote: 'The planned resumption of work on the South Bank site of the new Shell headquarters building was seriously

impeded yesterday by determined picketing.'[^10] The Daily Telegraph gloomily conceded: 'Only a small proportion of the expected recruits went through the picket lines.'[^11]

Again the next day the pickets were out in force. More jobs and more branches reported at South Bank for duty on the picket line. The Daily Telegraph's industrial correspondent admitted that mass picketing had 'resulted in fewer men going in to work than yesterday.'[^12] The Manchester Guardian wrote: 'Sir Robert McAlpine and Sons are rapidly losing ground.'[^13]

Still no help came from the union officials. Only the Constructional Engineering Union had officially declared the job 'black'. The Electrical Trades' Union agreed that their members should not cross the picket line, but themselves took no official action—though each night the floodlights on the site were lit up, having been switched on by non-union labour.

The Police Take the Offensive

On the Friday the employers and their government hit back. Each day the number of police on duty had been growing in size. On Friday morning the roads along the site swarmed with foot and mounted police. Under the archway of Waterloo Bridge lines of mounted police waited to swoop on the pickets. Black Marias arrived constantly with reinforcements. As the pickets tried to remonstrate with scabs the police moved in. A picket was hurled into a waiting police van with blood streaming down his face where police had hit him. Workers were kicked and punched. Horses were driven on to the pavements, scattering the pickets. Bob Rankin, a steel erector from Lysaght's at Dagenham, reported how he saw 'two coppers holding one man whilst another copper hit him.'[^14]

By dinner-time ten pickets had been arrested. McAlpines' officials had begun to hope again. An odd trickle of new scabs had gone on the job and the police were looking smug and complacent. But the men were not defeated. Just after 1.30 p.m., 350 new pickets arrived at the job. As soon as the workers at Belvedere Power Station had heard of the arrests they had downed tools and rallied to the aid of the South Bank men. Their presence had a dramatic effect. The morale of the other pickets rose. The arrogance of the police was suddenly deflated. Faced with greater numbers, and with the anger and militancy of aroused workers, many of the police were heard to volunteer the information that 'we are only doing our job' or 'we don't like it any more than you do, lads.'

Still more police arrived next day. Three more arrests were made. But the number of scabs remained small. No work was being done on the site. Although the men had been subjected to police violence, although the government had demonstrated its determination to serve the employers, the official Labour movement could only demonstrate its impotence by maintaining a cowardly silence over what was taking place.

Not one union executive council protested. In their centrally-heated offices, trade union officials busied themselves with their routine and consoled themselves with the dream that 'this business could not happen in an official strike.' Less than twelve months later, however, in the official print dispute, workers at Long Acre and Maidstone learned very quickly about police neutrality—that in fact the police manhandle and arrest pickets, 'official' and 'unofficial', with complete impartiality.

Not a solitary Labour MP visited South Bank or raised a protest in the House of Commons about the behaviour of the police. Tribune maintained an aloof if not very dignified silence. The Daily Worker, true enough, protested against the action of the police but neglected to explain how the South Bank incidents squared with the Communist Party's programme of the 'peaceful transition to Socialism.'

Co-operating with The Newsletter, the stewards' committee produced another South Bank Special on Saturday, October 18. An article by Mick Maguire explained that the action of the police was 'very much in order. The police exist to defend the private property of the McAlpines, which implies increasing profits at the expense of the working class.' He added: The great advantage of the McAlpine battle is that it clears away all the cobwebs of "class peace" preached so long by the pale pink trade union leaders.'[^15] The Special contained an appeal for funds and for more support on the picket line, and a request for meetings to be organized on jobs at which representatives of the strikers could speak. Again a drive was made by the strikers, other militants and supporters of The Newsletter, to take the paper and its message to as many workers as possible.

Role of the Union Leaders

As the struggle raged more fiercely, as the rank and file fought back more stubbornly and as victory came within sight, all the more actively did the trade union officials range themselves on the side of the employers. George Lowthian, general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers, issued a statement saying 'the position as far as this union is concerned, is that there is no dispute and the job is open to members of this union to apply for employment.'[^16] This came as a particular blow to the strikers, as on October 11 the London divisional council of the AUBTW had 'blacked' the site and demanded all available labour be re-employed. A similar resolution had been carried by the south-east London district committee of the union. McAlpines had reprinted the statement of the Civil Engineering Construction Conciliation Board which declared the job to be open for recruitment, and pasted this up on the walls all around the site. Appended to the statement was the signature of the Board's chairman, H. E. Matthews, an official of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers.

On October 22 there was a special meeting of the AUBTW. Calling for 'the utmost loyalty' from members in resisting the unofficial action at Shell Mex, the executive expressed its determination 'to take disciplinary action with those members who have and are taking part in unofficial strikes.' The Times acclaimed this, warning that 'order' in industry could

be achieved only when both employers and unions stood firm. 'In this case they have done so and before long work will no doubt return to normal'.[^17] The AUBTW executive lost no time in moving against its members at South Bank. In less than a week it laid charges against twenty-six of its members. On October 29 it suspended from office seven members of its south-east London district committee; the Daily Herald reported: 'The unpaid committee men who do union work in their spare time broke rules by backing the unofficial strike on the Shell building site in London'.[^18]

Next, Brian Behan, a leading figure in the dispute and a member of The Newsletter's Editorial Board, was expelled from the AUBTW, and soon the same decision was carried against Mick Maguire, Dennis Nolan and Patrick Power. A number of members were suspended. The executive council at the same time took the unprecedented step of proscribing the National Industrial Rank-and-file Conference called by The Newsletter at the Holborn Hall for November 16.

The employers and their Press were deeply grateful for the help the union leaders gave them in their job of strike-breaking. As the officials delivered one blow after another at the men, as scabs were given open encouragement by these so-called leaders, McAlpines slowly began to build up the labour force. On October 16 the Daily Telegraph was able to write: 'Happily, on the South Bank the firmness of the leaders is having its effect.' An official of McAlpines told The Times: 'Statements by trade union leaders have been most helpful.'[^19] In a radio interview, Mr Robert Kean, director of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors was asked if the attitude of the union officials had 'been extremely co-operative from your [the employers'] point of view?' Mr Kean replied: 'Oh I think I would more than agree with that.'[^20]

The Communist Party and the Strikers

The treachery of the union leaders was not the only force that the strikers had to contend with at South Bank. From the outset the strike placed the Communist Party in a difficult position. The Daily Worker correctly condemned the sackings in its issue of September 26, but failed conspicuously to warn the men of the role the union leaders could be expected to play. On September 27 it carried a report of a site meeting addressed by union officials. Again no criticism was made of what even the Financial Times had described as the moderate line of the union officials. The day before the job was due to re-open, the Worker carried a report by Alan Brown which said: 'There is considerable anger among the men that so far union representatives had sided with McAlpine in his closing of the site.'[^21] At this stage it was absolutely clear that the officials were doing everything in their power to break the strike; yet apart from this straight reporting of the men's opinions no criticism was being made of the officials by the Daily Worker.

On October 11 an article appeared under the heading 'Crack in the Bosses' Wall'. Referring to the fact that the CEU members had been told not to cross the picket-line it went on to say: 'Electricians have agreed that they will not touch the site until there is a return on trade union terms. These moves are welcomed by the men, who are demanding that the machinery in all other unions involved should be working equally as quickly.' Actually the ETU, which is controlled by the Communist Party, never did 'black' the South Bank site, either at executive council or even area committee level. Hiding behind the fact that no electrician had been refused employment, the ETU officials always insisted that the union was not in dispute with McAlpine and that therefore the decision rested with the other unions.

On October 15, Jack Pascoe, a member of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers and also of the Communist Party's executive committee, wrote a feature article in the Daily Worker giving support to the strike. Pascoe wrote: 'They [the men] welcome the attitude of the CEU and ETU that no member of their union will cross the picket-line, they expect at least the same attitude from the TGWU, the ASW and the AUBTW and for the unions to move rapidly towards a united front at McAlpines.'

Pascoe wound up his article by calling for the greatest 'moral, financial and physical backing behind the South Bank workers.'

This was the first time the Daily Worker had dealt with the sackings in an article by a prominent C.P. member in the building trade. In provincial centres the article came as something of a shock to Communist Party members. In Liverpool, although the solidarity committee had grown in numbers and representation from jobs, it had been virtually boycotted by the Communist Party. Assertions that the strike was 'sectarian', 'anti-trade-union', 'dominated by Trotskyists', and 'irresponsible', were being peddled freely around the sites by well-known Communist Party members in that area. Speakers from South Bank who toured the Midlands came back with reports that, at a number of factories where the Stalinists controlled the shop stewards' committees, their requests for meetings to be held where they could address the factory workers in order to make financial appeals were met with evasions or in some cases open hostility.

Pascoe's call was not taken up by the ETU or by his co-member of the Communist Party executive Frank Haxell, general secretary of the ETU. On October 17, unopposed by their officials, the site electricians returned to work. After discussions between themselves and the stewards' committee they agreed that if all the shop stewards previously employed on the site were still refused employment by Monday October 20, all ETU labour would again be withdrawn from the site. A telegram from the strike committee calling on the ETU executive council to withdraw all ETU labour from all McAlpines' sites as the job was being run by 'black juice' was ignored by the union's leaders.

On Sunday October 19 the strikers staged a march and rally from Waterloo to Hyde Park. It was an impressive demonstration, with workers from jobs and branches all over London represented. Liverpool sent a coach-load of miners, engineers, dockers and delegates from the local Trades and Labour Council. Workers were also present from Coventry. Communist Party

members however were noticeably absent from the out-of-town delegations. The equivocations and double-dealing of their leaders had ensured that the Communist Party had not brought into action any of its own members or supporters in the provinces.

On October 21 the Daily Worker reported: 'Shell site electricians walk out'. Their ultimatum had not been met. On October 22 it said: 'Steel men stay solid.' On October 23, without one word of comment or condemnation, it reported: 'The CEU yesterday advised its members at the South Bank McAlpine site to resume work immediately.' A union official justified this by saying 'the members could see that the site was building up its strength and that other trade unionists of the same grade were doing their work'.[^22] On October 23 when the AUBTW executive warned their so-called dissidents, the Daily Worker headed its report 'Troublemakers Warned.'

When the executive council of the AUBTW took action against the south-east London district committee, the Daily Worker headed its report: 'Union men suspended—builders' EC acts'.[^23] The president of the AUBTW, Harry Weaver, was quoted as saying that the executive council were most reluctant but had no alternative, since 'the present case was such a challenge to the authority of the union.'[^24] Adding its little bit of spice to the stew the Worker remarked: 'Even if moves are afoot in some circles to weaken the position of the unions, they [the members] believe expulsions are not the way to strengthen union membership.'[^25] Without comment the Worker gave a report that the site electricians were also returning to work following the withdrawal of the ban by the CEU.[^26] Behan's expulsion was relegated to three paragraphs on the back page.[^27] Again there was no comment, nor was there an appeal for a protest movement in the branches against the expulsion. 'Summoned by Union'[^28] was how the Worker described the suspension of the chairman and secretary of the AUBTW's south-east London district committee. Again there was no comment.

On November 6, J. R. Campbell, then the paper's editor, attempted to befog the issue by alleging: 'There is a strange united front between the officials of the AUBTW' and 'the organ of the Trotskyist circus'[^29] by which he meant The Newsletter. Campbell's aim was to discredit Behan and the leadership of the strike and thereby undermine support for it. This choice sophism of Campbell's was based on criticisms that The Newsletter had made of the Communist Party and the fact that the Building Worker, official organ of the AUBTW, had also attacked the Communist Party. Campbell failed to explain how Behan, expelled by the leaders of the AUBTW, could at the same time have a united front with people who have just led a witch-hunt against him. It would have been more pertinent if Campbell had explained how his fellow party member Joe Rootes, before becoming London divisional organizer of the AUBTW, had voted on the union's London divisional council to end support of the South Bank strike and accept McAlpine's terms.

Campbell's spleen against The Newsletter; Rootes's vote against the men; the poker-faced reporting of the capitulation of the CEU and ETU; the presentation of the AUBTW disciplinary actions in such a way as to imply that after all there was some justification for them, were all the logical outcome of the politics and strategy of the Communist Party.

The strategy of the Stalinists is directed towards forcing or persuading the government into a summit conference so as to enable the Soviet bureaucracy to conclude a deal with British Imperialism. The consequences of such a political line for the Communist Party's trade union work are drastic. Above all else it becomes necessary to win friends and influence people in the leadership of the unions in support of 'friendship with the Soviet Union', 'summit conferences' and whatever other policies are in the interest of the Russian leaders at a given time. When, as was in the case of Shell Mex, a conflict of interests arises between workers and trade union bureaucrats, the Communist Party is always put in the position of having to play down the necessary criticisms of the trade union leaders. This inevitably prevents it from preparing and arming workers to meet the betrayals and sell-outs.

Stalinist Betrayals

Like all reformist theories, the theory of 'peaceful coexistence' between the Soviet Union and world imperialism flows from a complete lack of confidence in the ability of the working class to fight and defeat capitalism. The industrial policy of the Communist Party therefore becomes one of seeking to gain positions inside the trade union machine, not one of mobilizing the rank and file against the employers and their appendage in the Labour movement—the trade union bureaucracy. This imposes on the Communist Party a policy of seeking alliances with the Right-wing union leaders and leads them into concluding a series of unprincipled electoral pacts with the Right-wing inside the trade unions. The vote of Rootes against the strike is invariably justified by Stalinists on the grounds that it was necessary for him to vote that way in order to preserve his position in the AUBTW. The same reasons are given to explain why Claude Berridge, the Communist Party member on the executive council of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, performed the role of errand boy for the Right wing when in February 1959 at Universal Patterns, Crawley, and in March 1959 at Fords, Dagenham, he instructed reluctant strikers to terminate their dispute. On September 2, 1959 the strike of the Mini-motor workers at the Morris motor factory in Birmingham was brought to an end. The Daily Mail had asked in an article on the previous day, "who is going to curb these tyrants of the shop floor?'[^30] Next day came the answer: the Daily Mail reported that the strike was settled by a 'three-man peace team of veteran shop stewards—who were headed by Communist Dick Etheridge'.[^31] Etheridge told the strikers 'to go back to work at once'. All attempts by Right-wing union officials to force a return to work had failed but Etheridge, by utilizing his

reputation as a 'Left', was able to assist the union leaders to break a strike. The best commentary on Etheridge's intervention was provided by the Daily Worker, which two days later reported to its readers that: 'Shop stewards told the men who returned to work that the management had failed to honour an undertaking to discuss their claim for 6d. an hour increase.'[^32] The Stalinist policies at South Bank were not simply mistakes or errors confined to the Shell Mex strike alone but were the harbingers of a whole series of industrial betrayals all committed in the name of building 'unity'.

The Strike Ends

By mid-November, it was obvious that McAlpines had been able to get enough labour on the job. The stewards had been stabbed in the back by a combination of employers, union officials and Stalinists, and they had been denied assistance from the Labour politicians ranging from the Right-wing to the so-called 'Left'. The odds had proved too great to secure their reinstatement. A decision was taken to end the picketing. The committee decided to continue the fight inside the unions. Although that fight has been carried on all through 1959, there still exists at South Bank today a black list which bars not only the former stewards but also other workers with records of consistent trade union activity.

The end of the mass picket marked the opening of the season for the smart alecs and political wise men. These individuals had been absent from the picket lines, although in coffee bars at safe distances from Waterloo they had displayed moderate enthusiasm when victory seemed possible. Having done nothing themselves to help the South Bank men to win, they began to seek scapegoats for the set-back suffered by the strikers.

Their most frequent accusation was that the men failed to utilize the official machinery and by their actions provoked the officials. This is completely disproved by facts. The men always campaigned inside their respective unions for support. In the South Bank Special and in their leaflets they urged trade unionists to move resolutions in their branches demanding that the strike be made official. The building trades group of the TGWU demanded the reinstatement of the men. The steel benders and fixers' branches in London all officially declared the site 'black'. Nevertheless the TGWU refused to move. Scabs were permitted by TGWU officials to work on the site while holding union membership cards, alongside non-union labour. A sustained campaign was run by the strikers throughout the branches of the AUBTW. This resulted in decisions of support from the London divisional council and the south-east London district committee. Representatives from the committee toured innumerable ASW and ETU branches obtaining support for their fight and invariably convincing the branches to demand official recognition of the strike by the union's executive councils.

The Liverpool solidarity committee, a particular target for criticism, not only ensured that Merseyside jobs and branches were canvassed for support and money, but lobbied the Merseyside National Federation of Building Trade Operatives, which then officially went on record in support of the men.

Still the union leaders did not act. Presumably the men should then have called off the fight for their jobs? No one would have been provoked, and McAlpines could have carried out the sackings with the maximum of harmony and the minimum of friction.

Marxist Leadership and the Strike

The active support given to the South Bank struggle by The Newsletter is another bogy raised by the side-line critics.[^33] They ignore—or never understood—the fact that for Marxists the task is not simply to write commentaries on, and make abstract analyses of the class struggle, but to actively engage in it. Only by actively intervening in the fight between worker and employer is it possible for revolutionaries to help workers to grasp the relationship between the everyday economic struggles and the fight for working-class power. It is not only the workers who gain when Marxists take part in their struggles. The Marxists' own experience and understanding can develop in no other way.

The Marxist movement fights consistently to win the leadership of the working class. It is serious about the class struggle and about the need to prepare the working class for power. It aims to construct the real alternative leadership to Right-wing reformism and Stalinism.

It was Mr Kean in his radio interview who paid unwitting tribute to the part played by the Marxists at South Bank. When asked whether the dispute was a new experience for the industry, he replied: 'Yes, I quite agree, it's been rather unusual in its intensity, in its duration, and I think especially in the high degree of organization associated with it'

When pressed by his interviewer to say who he thought were the organizers, he said: 'Well, honour where honour is due, it was organized by somebody. The pickets were far more numerous than usual, our information is that many of them had never worked on the job at all, they were supported by a paraphernalia of propaganda, such as loudspeakers, publications of papers and journals. All I can say is, Mr Shanks, that it was certainly not organized by the established trade unions.'

Union Leaders Chose Defeat

The interviewer was not satisfied. 'Yes, but then you still haven't answered my question as to who you think in fact was organizing it,' he said. 'Who brought up those pickets, who produced those papers? Somebody must have done.'

'Some of the national newspapers have attributed this organization to a group of people who I think have been termed "Trotsky-ites" '[^34] answered Kean.

The recognition given to The Newsletter by this employer's representative and the statement of the strikers' representative Hugh Cassidy when he spoke at the National Industrial Rank-and-File Conference[^35] both show that not only did the Marxists offer a programme and policy at South Bank but were also able to make a practical and telling intervention.

Shell Mex was more than an isolated building strike. It showed that in a period when the employers are more and more going on to the offensive, strikes need the support and backing of other sections of workers if they are to succeed. Such support will only be forthcoming if there is in existence a strong rank-and-file movement. McAlpine could have been defeated, if only work had been stopped on his other sites. But the union leaders had no intention of fighting McAlpines at South Bank, let alone extending it to their other sites. Extension of the dispute could only have taken place through a strong rank-and-file movement. In the recent print strike, as in the strike against the sacking of Ken Knight, works convener at Handley Page, and in the fight against sackings at Universal Patterns, Crawley, this lesson was brought to the fore again. In each of these disputes the issue was starkly presented—either extend it or go down to defeat—in every case the official leaders calmly and constitutionally chose defeat. Now the miners are threatened with the closure of between 205 and 240 pits in the next five years. Already their leaders have capitulated without firing a single shot. The choice confronting the miners is that which also faced the men at South Bank; either go along with the union leaders and accept the sackings, or build a rank-and-file movement to fight back. Of course rank-and-file movements are no panacea or 'cure-all' for the problems of the working class. They do however offer a type of organization to the working class which permits them to break through the restrictive and stifling sectional barriers imposed upon them by the trade union bureaucracy. Pit closures, sackings in engineering or in the building trade, are not the particular problems of those industries alone. They arise out of the needs of the employing class to cheapen their production costs and to discipline their labour force. To fight successfully against mass sackings, rank-and-file movements must draw on the support of workers in other industries. They must also develop a political strategy which can unite the entire working class in a struggle to remove the Tory government in order to replace it with one pledged to socialist policies.

South Bank was the warning signal that the employers and their government meant business and would unhesitatingly use their control of the state machine to crush strikes by police action and law courts. The attitude of the court towards the arrested South Bank pickets complemented the job the police had performed for McAlpine on the picket line.

One member of the AUBTW who appeared at Tower Bridge court on October 27 was reminded by Mr Maddocks, the presiding magistrate, that his union 'did not approve of this business.'[^36]

Mr D. W. Williams asked one of the charged men 'if the strike had anything to do with him.'[^37] This worker, who worked on another site, had gone to South Bank in response to the appeal of the stewards' committee.

When Brian Behan was sentenced to six week's imprisonment on November 27 the magistrate told him: 'I am satisfied you were there for the purpose of making trouble.'[^38]

McAlpine's lawyer was present throughout Behan's trial and quite openly gave advice to the prosecuting counsel. When Behan drew attention to this and made a protest the magistrate simply ignored him.

Timid leaders, restricted by their opinion that policemen are custodians of a justice that operates with equal fairness to boss and worker alike, are totally unfitted to organize any strike. The meek acceptance by the print unions' leaders of the arbitrary police action against their picketing members illustrated the cowardice of the officials in face of the state machine. A quick and rapid extension of the print strike to H.M. Stationery Office—a measure once threatened by the unions—would have been the answer to government interference on the picket lines. Leaders like Briginshaw, general secretary of NATSOPA, did not reply to police action by bringing their members out from the government departments; instead he made a slanderous attack on the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter.[^39] Briginshaw probably considered this more safe and respectable than fighting against the police. Like the union leaders at South Bank he provided more aid to the employers than he did to his own members.

The strike at South Bank revealed in a thousand and one ways the tremendous fighting capacity of the working class. It showed how workers, providing they have a correct programme and the necessary organization, can rise to their feet and hit back at the employer. The apparently monolithic and unbreakable strength of the trade union bureaucracy was revealed to have very shaky foundations indeed. South Bank showed that once workers move into action, determined to fight the employers, they can and will sweep into the historical rubbish bin this parasitism which has temporarily fastened itself on to the trade union movement.

Finally, South Bank dramatically brought home the urgent need to construct here in Britain a Marxist leadership that can provide a policy and programme based on the interests of the working class.

Many workers learned these lessons at South Bank, ensuring that in future struggles the employers will be confronted with a better prepared and even more combative working class.

Appendix

A reprint from the mimeographed record of a B.B.C. Home Service Broadcast.

Transcribed from a Telediphone Recording

EXTRACT FROM "AT HOME AND ABROAD"

28th October, 1958

ANNOUNCER: Work on a large new office building by Waterloo Bridge, on the South Bank of the Thames, has been held up for many weeks by an unofficial strike. On Sunday, a conference of shop stewards from all parts of the country declared its support for the strikers. And now the Amalgamated Union of Building Workers has taken steps to discipline some of the strike leaders. Robert Kean, Director of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, is interviewed by Michael Shanks, Industrial Editor of the Financial Times.

SHANKS: Mr Kean, this is a new experience for your industry, isn't it? I mean you don't normally have a great deal of industrial trouble?

KEAN: Yes, I quite agree, it's been unusual in its intensity, in its duration and I think especially in the high degree of organisation that's been associated with it.

SHANKS: Well now, what is there about the Shell site, where this trouble has occured, that is so peculiar? Why should there be this trouble there?

KEAN: Well, this job is the beginnings of the erection of the highest skyscraper building in Europe. It's situated in the centre of London and therefore it's ideally suited to anyone who wishes to make it a centre of publicity.

SHANKS: Yes, well that's all very well, but after all, McAlpines have dismissed twelve hundred and fifty workers after a whole series of troubles, now why have they done this?

KEAN: Well, they have not done this as a deliberate act of policy, but rather as a consequence of a series of events that have been going on since the job started. There have been a large number of unofficial strikes over a period of almost a year; the sequence of operations—the technical operations on the job have been interrupted and the situation had been brought about that there were men on the site—considerable numbers of men—standing about doing nothing. And therefore, as a practical proposition, McAlpines had no alternative but to stop the job, with a view to re-phasing it and starting up again.

SHANKS: Yes—

KEAN: I would like to add too, that the conciliation board of the industry—both sides of it—both employers and Trade Unions, said at the time that McAlpines were fully justified in what they did.

SHANKS: Yes, but you see, it's often said, isn't it, that there are no bad workers, only bad employers. But you don't think that McAlpines were to blame at all for all this trouble?

KEAN: Well, I know that's been said, I think it's been said by the people who want that to be believed. But all I can say about that is that if in fact the workers on the site felt that they had grievances, well, the proper course would be to submit these grievances to the joint machinery of the conciliation board and have them dealt with there. The fact that this procedure was consistently ignored, that demands were made and were not met, labour withdrawn, seems to imply quite clearly that the grievances were not open to proper examination.

SHANKS: Well, you've implied, Mr. Kean, that some people—you haven't said who—have been using this dispute at the Shell site for purposes of publicity. Now could you be a bit more precise?

KEAN: Well, I have said Mr. Shanks, I think, I don't know what I've implied, but I've said that there was a very high degree of organisation associated with this particular strike. It's been extremely well organised.

SHANKS: Well, who are the organisers?

KEAN: Well, honour where honour's due, it was organised by somebody and it was organised very efficiently by somebody. The pickets were far more numerous than usual, our information is that many of them had never worked on the job at all, they had been drawn from other parts of the country. They were supported by a paraphernalia of propaganda, such as loudspeakers, publication of papers and journals. All I can say is, Mr. Shanks, that it was certainly not organised by the established Trade Unions.

SHANKS: Yes, but then you still haven't answered my question as to who you think in fact was organising it. Who brought up these pickets, who produced these papers? Somebody must have done.

KEAN: I agree somebody must have done, that is a very interesting question and some of the national newspapers have been asking that question; and some of them have been attempting to answer it. Some of the national newspapers have attributed this organisation to a group of people who I think have been termed "Trotsky-ites" and they have said that these people are people who came out of the Communist Party some time ago and have formed this group for their own particular purposes. If the newspapers are to be believed, that seems to be the situation.

SHANKS: So you, broadly speaking, accept this theory that the people behind the trouble at the Shell site are this group of ex-Communists who left the Party, I believe mainly at the time of Hungary, and who are now—can be loosely described as "Trotsky-ites" and who are out to cause trouble in industry. You accept this do you?

KEAN: That is what I read in the newspapers, yes.

SHANKS: Well then, if this is true, this would seem to be an offence—an attack on the recognised leadership of the Communist Party, as well as an attack on McAlpines? Have you any evidence to support this?

KEAN: That may well be so, and I could imagine that if the facts are as you state, that the Communist Party would not be over-pleased about it, no.

SHANKS: You haven't any evidence that the Communist Party itself is particularly pleased about the Shell dispute?

KEAN: No, no.

SHANKS: Well, I can move on to another point and that's the attitude of the official Union leaderships, which as far as I can see, has been extremely co-operative from your point of view. Would you agree with that?

KEAN: Oh, I think I would do more than agree with that. I think I would say that this in my view has really been much much more an attack on established Trade Unions and the leaders, than it has been on an employer. I view the Shell site as a sort of battleground across which this battle has been waged and I view McAlpines as being the person who's really been victimised.

SHANKS: Yes, but although the Unions are now co-operating with you to a really remarked extent, will this continue? I mean McAlpines presumably when they recruit new labour are going to try to keep out the known trouble-makers, as they see them. Now will the Unions, do you think, agree with this?

KEAN: Well, McAlpines will certainly be bound in building up their labour force, to use their own judgment as to which people they take into their employment and which people they don't. And equally if any man who has worked on that site before, feels aggrieved if he's not taken on again, then that man in our democratic country, with our democratic institutions, has the right to put his case to the Trade Union and it's for the Trade Union to decide then, what they'll do with it. If they feel he has a good case, then no doubt they will bring it before the conciliation board and have it dealt with on its merits.

SHANKS: Yes. So you don't think that McAlpines could have done more to screen known trouble-makers when the job first started?

KEAN: That may be, but it's people like McAlpines and other firms, their concern in life is to build things—

SHANKS: Yes.

KEAN: —and they're not perhaps experts in this field.

SHANKS: Well now, could I ask one short question to finish up with Mr. Kean? There's been this meeting of shop stewards last Sunday; do you think this means more trouble for your industry and if so, how are you going to deal with it?

KEAN: Well, I think the Trade Unions in our industry are very well aware of the situation and I think we on the employers side will leave it to them to handle the situation. And I don't think that it's necessary for us in the employers' side to consider any further action.

SHANKS: I see. Thank you very much, Mr. Kean.

KEAN: You're welcome.

ANNOUNCER: And with that interview, we end tonight's programme. "At Home and Abroad" will be on the air again at nine-fifteen on Friday.

[^1]: On April 10, 1958 L. C. Kemp, building group secretary of the TGWU, circularized all building trade branches and stewards in region No. 1 to the effect that the dispute 'over the victimization of a ticket steward' has now 'received official recognition by the general executive council'. [^2]: Financial Times October 1, 1958. [^3]: The Newsletter, Special South Bank Edition, Volume 2, No. 70, Page 245, September 27, 1958. [^4]: Ibid. [^5]: Ibid. [^6]: South Bank Special, October, 1958. [^7]: Ibid. [^8]: Financial Times, September 27, 1958. [^9]: Financial Times, October 8, 1958. [^10]: Financial Times, October 9, 1958. [^11]: Daily Telegraph, October 9, 1958. [^12]: Ibid, October 10, 1958. [^13]: Manchester Guardian, October 10, 1958. [^14]: South Bank Special, No. 2, October 1958. [^15]: Ibid. [^16]: Financial Times, October 14, 1958. [^17]: The Times, October 25, 1958. [^18]: Daily Herald, October 23, 1958. [^19]: The Times, October 16, 1958. [^20]: Transcript from a Telediphone Recording of B.B.C. programme, 'At Home and Abroad' October 28, 1958. See also Appendix to this article. [^21]: Daily Worker, October 7, 1958. [^22]: Daily Worker, October, 30, 1958. [^23]: Ibid, October 30, 1958. [^24]: Ibid. [^25]: Ibid. [^26]: Ibid. [^27]: Ibid. [^28]: Ibid, November 4, 1958. [^29]: Ibid, November 6, 1958. [^30]: Daily Mail, September 3, 1959. [^31]: Daily Mail, September 4, 1959. [^32]: Daily Worker, September 5, 1959. [^33]: Typical of such criticisms was one that appeared in Socialist Review, Volume 8, No. 21, mid-November 1958 by an author using the pseudonym, Robert Emmett. Emmett wrote: 'In a series of strikes in London we have witnessed this group [The Newsletter] attempt to gatecrash into the strike leadership with a degree of crudity and irresponsibility that is appalling.' [^34]: Transcript from a Telediphone Recording of B.B.C. programme 'At Home and Abroad' October 28, 1958. See also Appendix to this article. [^35]: Cassidy told the Conference 'that the decision to accept the paper's offer of space was taken by the 32 stewards on the site. We stated our case in The Newsletter. I stated my case. On South Bank we got a show of solidarity that had not been seen for 20 years.' [^36]: Daily Telegraph, October 28, 1958. [^37]: Ibid. [^38]: Manchester Guardian, November 8, 1958. [^39]: During the print dispute, Briginshaw, the general secretary of NATSOPA, issued a circular to his members in which he described the Socialist Labour League and its weekly paper The Newsletter as being 'in the pay of the employers'.