Management successfully managed to bring the NUR and TSSA on board. While Parker regarded Sid Weighell of the NUR as “a man to do business with”, ASLEF’s Ray Buckton “went with the Militant Tendency, although I still doubt whether he was one of them.”[4] Parker withdrew the last pay offer of three per cent, but this backfired when it provoked the NUR to take action. Of course, Weighell opposed the strike. “I’ve already told them they’re daft”, Weighell told Parker. ASLEF also planned to strike. “What made this time particularly dangerous was that the separate negotiations with ASLEF and NUR were racing parallel and it was absolutely essential they be kept apart: a combined attack by both unions would have been hard, if not impossible, to resist”, stated Parker.[5] But within 48 hours of the NUR strike, Weighell had come to the rescue and managed to get the strike called off, leaving ASLEF isolated.
Management announced that it was imposing flexible rostering by 5 July unless, by 30 June, ASLEF agreed to its introduction. The ASLEF strike began on 4 July. Thatcher was now flushed with the military victory in the South Atlantic. She now talked of the trade unions in the same terms that she spoke of the Argentine army. In a speech at Cheltenham, Thatcher invoked what she called the “Falkland’s spirit”. BR tried everything to break the strike and even announced the closure of the whole network. Eventually, with a back room deal brokered by the TUC the strike buckled after two weeks. “Len (Murray) could get no public thanks for his help, but his intervention, the generosity of his time, was typical of him”, states Parker. “He was one of the industry’s gentlemen.”[6]
“The collapse of the two-week strike by Britain’s train drivers is one of the most significant union defeats of recent times and its repercussions will be felt throughout the Labour movement…” stated Philip Bassett, Labour Correspondent of The Financial Times. “The outcome is a triumph for the hard line approach to industrial relations as patented by Sir Michael Edwards at BL… Again the ending of the strike, and ASLEF’s likely acceptance of flexible rostering, is a success for the government on a spectacular scale. Following the victory over the Falklands, the government was in no mood to compromise.”[7]
The article continued:
The fact that it was the TUC which provided the means for getting the railways back to work may give it kudos among outsiders. To the union rank and file it will be taken as evidence of betrayal.
Indeed it is hard to find any other word to describe this. The leadership had capitulated and, to make matters worse, the “Left” on the General Council was also responsible, as no vote was even taken on the negotiating body when the deal was hatched to accept flexible rostering. The pathetic conduct of the TUC is summed up by the following exchange between the general secretary of the TUC and the Chairman of British rail:“OK, Peter, that’s it then”, said Len Murray to Parker. “Don’t shoot any prisoners.”[8] The defeat served to further undermine the confidence of the workers. If the left-wing ASLEF could not win, what hope was there for the less militant unions?
In the political arena, under the pressure of the capitalist media, a witch-hunt was in full swing inside the Labour Party against supporters of the Militant tendency, resulting in the expulsion of its editorial board from the party. This was the prelude of an attack against the Left generally, and had the full backing of the right-wing trade union leaders. The growing mood of witch hunting and McCarthyism within the Party and the hue and cry in the press affected the “soft Left”, which began to shift rapidly to the right. A number of former “Lefts” were to eventually end up as leading Blairites, such as Mr Paul Boateng, now a minister at the Treasury, and David Blunkett, now Blair’s reactionary Home Secretary.