Arthur Scargill, the legendary British trade ynion leader, has lead a full and colourful life. He helped bring down Ted Heath, took on Thatcher, and dined with Khrushchev. However he was, and always will be, a fighter for the workers. Now in his seventies, he shows no signs of slowing down and his passion for politics and trade unionism remains undimmed.
Irish roots
Arthur Scargill was born in Worsbrough Dale, Barnsley, Yorkshire, in 1938. Although he is every inch the Yorkshireman in his accent and bearing, he has strong Irish roots, as his name would tell, only for a strange occurrence.
“My people came from Donegal and Antrim and they were McQuillans,” he tells me from the offices of the National Union of Mineworkers offices in Barnsley, during our Thursday afternoon interview. “My name should be McQuillan but because my father was born prematurely, the English authorities refused to recognise his name as my grandparents were not married, so they had to call him Scargill.
“My grandparents did marry and had five other children, all called McQuillan, but one called Scargill. That happened to so many people, but it never stopped me having an emotional connection to Ireland. It took me a long time to know why my father always cheered for Ireland and not England at football, but when I read the history I began to understand.”
Mr Scargill has had a full and colourful life. He went to work in the coal mines at 15 before becoming a member of the Young Communist League from 1955 to 1962 and later the British Labour Party.
He was the Yorkshire president of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1973 to 1981. From 1981 to 2002 he was leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, and is today the union’s honorary president. In 1996 he founded the Socialist Labour Party, which he still leads.
Message to Galway
Mr Scargill will be speaking at a public meeting of the James Connolly Forum upstairs in Monroe’s Tavern, Dominick Street, this evening at 8pm. At the meeting he will discuss the economic downturn, how ordinary people can respond to its pressures, trade unionism, and the idea of class.
“I will be talking about the world crisis and how it has affected Ireland and the United Kingdom,” he says. “I will explain that the crisis is not related to problems specifically within Ireland and the UK but to the system called capitalism.
“I shall explain that the idea being put forward by sociologists and academics that there are working, middle, and upper class and socio-economic groups is nonsense. There are only two classes - one is the working class, that is people who work by hand or by brain, and the ruling class, those who own and control, and are responsible for the economic crisis in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Europe.”
The social-partnership model which existed in Ireland from the late 1980s saw a good relationship develop between governments and trade unions, and this was held up as a model relationship during the Celtic Tiger era.
The collapse of the economy saw that relationship sour instantly as the Cowen/Lenihan Government adopted a ‘hurt the poor, protect the rich’ approach of stinging cuts to services and pay, while at the same time bailing out delinquent bankers and developers with taxpayers money through NAMA.
As trade union criticism of government policy arose and threats of industrial dispute loomed, an artificial division emerged which sought to pit public and private sector workers against each other.
Many feel this is a smokescreen by the Government to effect a ‘divide and rule’ policy, that will transfer blame away from those who brought about the crash (the banks, developers, and governments which encouraged such recklessness ) by re-directing public anger on the one section of society most strongly identified with the unions.
Mr Scargill is a keen observer of developments in Irish politics so it is not surprising he feels trade unionism has never been as relevant as in the current climate.
“Trade unionism is more important than it’s ever been,” he declares. “Trade unions have to understand that they have to fight back against the ruling class imposing on them the burden of the economic downturn. For workers to have to re-balance the banks out of their own money is tantamount to theft. Those who caused the crash should be the ones who pay the balance.
“Trade unions must take action to defend and improve workers’ conditions and jobs. They should be equipped to do this but what has happened is that they have become aligned with employers who appear benevolent, but who are really crooks, prepared to extract the maximum out of workers.
“The unions must demonstrate resistance to closing to factories or cutting jobs. They must stop this cosy relationship with governments as that leads to co-determination which aligns governments and trade unions in some kind of common cause. There never will be common cause between those who want to extract profit and those who work by hand or brain.”
Mr Scargill is best known for his leadership of the British miners during the 1984/1985 strike - one of the key events in British post-war history. During this time the Thatcher government was intent on closing most of the mines, regarding them as unprofitable. Mr Scargill, then president of the NUM, was to the forefront in opposing the Tories’ plans and his leadership commanded wide respect from miners across Britain. However the failure of other unions to join with the miners brought the strike to a bitter end, and resulted in a shattering defeat for mining in Britain.
“It began on November 1 1983 and ended in March 1985 and was the longest strike in UK history,” says Mr Scargill. “Thatcher wanted to destroy the coal mining industry and destroy the National Union of Mineworkers. Other trade unions didn’t come to the assistance of the NUM as they did in 1972 and 1974 when we brought down Ted Heath’s conservative government.”
For Mr Scargill the difference between 1974 and 1984 could not be more important. When unions come out in force they have the power to effect change, when they are divided they suffer crushing defeat.
“I’ve thought a lot about the lessons of the ‘84/‘85 strike and it’s interesting that those who opposed us then, now say we were right,” he says. “We warned that if the miners were defeated other industries and jobs would be at risk. If the electrical and steel workers’ unions had come out in support of us, we would have won. Ironically they now agree that if they had done, their workers’ jobs would be safe. A steelworks in Scotland, employing 34,000 people, was recently closed without a whimper from their trade union and I warned of this back in 2005.”
Despite the gloomy economic situation and his concerns over trade unions’ willingness to fight, Mr Scargill remains optimistic for the future.
“I have always been an optimist,” he says. “It’s one of the reasons I believe there will be a United Ireland and a situation when trade unions will exercise their power in the interests of workers, rather than set up focus groups, and get people out of the crisis of capitalism.”
Meetings with extraordinary people
Throughout his life Mr Scargill has met some extraordinary political figures including Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and Nelson Mandela.
“I meet Khrushchev in the Kremlin in 1957 as part of an International Youth Festival,” Mr Scargill recalls. “A number of us were sent to have lunch with Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin [then Russian prime minister], and Georgy Malenkov [Russian Prime Minister from 1953 to 1955]. It was an interesting experience but the most memorable thing was my being asked to compere a concert in Red Square featuring the Humphrey Littleton Jazz Band and the Hull City Jazz Band!”
Mr Scargill describes Nelson Mandela as a man of “enormous integrity and influence”. “He was a man put into prison and called a terrorist,” he says, “but even his enemies had to accept he was a freedom fighter for the people of South Africa.”
He also found Castro to be a similarly magnetic personality. “I had dinner with him six times,” recalls Mr Scargill. “He has an electric character. I remember being at a speech Castro made that went on for six hours! I’m not name dropping now but I was sitting beside Harry Belafonte and we made a bet to see how long Castro would keep speaking. Needless to say we both got it wrong!”
All are welcome to the meeting and admission is free.
