Comment

Suddenly the workers are heroes ... again!

Reg Lee

It's not often that mainstream media broadcasters celebrate 'militant' and 'rebellious' activities of workers. Normally broadcasters view workers campaigns within their own society with disdain, perceiving workers and unions as forces of disruption. For instance in the UK the coverage of the 1984 miners strike was a point in case with managers of the coal industry treated more sympathetically than union representatives of the National Union of Mineworkers. The British media spent almost its entire output demonising and often lying about the union's leader Arthur Scargill whilst ignoring the fact that Police officers were acting as agent provocateurs on picket lines, dressed as miners and agitating violent tactics to encourage a police response to provide ammunition for the British media to portray the miners as violent thugs. The US media portrayed Scargill as the most dangerous Marxist in Western Europe. I doubt whether Scargill had read Marx; anyway the point of the accusation was to discredit him. Even though the union movement in Britain today is at its weakest in its history doesn't stop the fact that elements of the press will release their full hostility and revulsion at union leaders who may occasionally offer some good old-fashioned resistance to the establishment. For instance the Guardian profile (July 2nd 2004) lead with the following with respect to the current General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), Bob Crow: 'He is loathed by Labour and demonised in the press ... In the rightwing press, he is public enemy number one, a wrecker, a dinosaur, a Fred Kite character, a Marxist militant - the latter a tabloid term of abuse he is delighted to embrace. Two years ago, he was attacked outside his house with an iron bar by two strangers. He blames the assault on the newspapers that persistently demonise him.' More recently the BBC ran a piece titled: ' Bob Crow: workers' friend?' with the following: 'To his many critics, Bob Crow is an unwanted throwback to the worst excesses of 1970s union militancy. A former card-carrying communist who delights in bringing the London Underground to a standstill for the most spurious of reasons.' And then under 'Strange mindset' the BBC continues with respect to the tube strike in 2007: 'The fact that RMT workers walked out in the first place indicates the continuing militancy of the union under Mr Crow's leadership.' This is one small example amongst many others when the union or union leaders are perceived as what Thatcher once described as the 'enemy within'. Of course, Thatcher chose not to use that term of abuse in relation to the Polish Trade Union Solidarność (Solidarity) when they stood opposed to the Polish Communist Party during the 1980s. Solidarność had become heroes and Lech Wełęsa the union's leader wasn't the enemy but rather a friend and a heroic figure. How things can change when they suit a political agenda and Thatcher's adulation of the union heroes of Poland was during the period when she took great pleasure in breaking the National Union of Mineworkers in the UK. Ironic? Well, today union members, this time in South Africa, are once again portrayed as heroes as Dock Workers refuse to unload military weaponry from China destined for Zimbabwe. On BBC News 24 (Friday April 18th 2008) it was reported that the workers were 'defying' the South African government by refusing to collaborate by allowing the weapons to travel onwards: 'South African dockworkers are refusing to unload the Chinese vessel, which arrived off the port (Durban) two days ago' the BBC enthusiastically trumpeted followed with 'the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), said it would be "grossly irresponsible" to allow the cargo through. The union said it was planning to hold protests at Durban harbour'. If only the BBC had been that enthusiastic about the miners strike in the UK in 1984 when the miners also attempted to halt 'cargo' (coal) from travelling the length and breadth of the UK. For their part the South African government had claimed that it wouldn't intervene into the contract agreed between Zimbabwe and China; obviously not, otherwise the docks would have been out of bounds. And so it is that the workers 'standing firm' against the quiet and failed diplomacy of Thabo Mbeki are seen by the BBC and no doubt the political establishment in the UK as heroes in opposition to the Zimbabwean leadership: a case of my enemy's enemy is my friend perhaps?

Links

'The Guardian Profile: Bob Crow'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/jul/02/uk.transport

'Row over Zimbabwe's Arms Shipment'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7354428.stm