As industry slowly changes itself and methods, so the means of struggle against the employers must change. In the old days the workers came and that wds that:
was at a standstill until they producuon came back. But in the new technological age production can often be kept going by handful of managers, many of whom have worked their way up through the industry. In such situations strikes will fail.
The best example of this is the commercial television industry and its strike last summer. The point has been reached in this industry where there can be no argument about the relative tactics of walkout or occupation. Unless the workers are prepared to take over this industry and continue to run it whilst at the same time negotiating with the employers for improvement, their strikes will continue to fail.
Commercial television has high wages, high profits and low job security. It is one of the few industries in Britain where capital investment can be recouped in three years. The union ACTT has 100% shop and includes producers and directors who in an older industry would be called middle management, but who now provide some of the unions most militant members.
Last summer new contracts were awarded in secret session by the Independent Television Authority, in a vulgar scramble which must never be allowed to happen again, to three new companies Yorkshire, London Weekend and Harlech. The old contracts were shuffled around amongst the existing franchise holders. Simultaneously the previous ACTT settlement came up for negotiation and the companies dug their heels in. The new ones lacked cash and the older ones decided on a trial of strength for a variety of reasons. In the autumn of this year all television goes coloured. Apart from the big capital expenditure involved in the changeover, there is also the fact that coloured ITV will be up against not one channel but two. BBC 2 has to take some of its viewers from ITV and advertising revenue will fall The companies final offer was a pay rise no bigger than the Prices and Incomes norm plus the removal of the existing cost of livng clause. The union responded with an attempt at a new kind of hit and run tactic: non-transmission of occasional programmes without warning. This wrecked the programme schedules and lowered advertising revenue. The employers sacked the men, concerned and the union called a general strike, confident that with blank screens and no income the management would be willing to sit down and talk.
But it didn't happen. The companies using taped and filmed material went on operating the machines themselves: maintained the commercials and therefore the revenue, and kept the viewers happy. This was more than just a terrible comment on the content of British Television. It was an action by the employers of enormous significance for the future of working class struggle and tactics.
After three weeks the strike ended. The sacked workers were reinstated and a deal was original.
One obvious tactic for the strikers would have been to close down tne transmiters themselves. But these were in the hands of the Post Office Workers Union who wouldn't cooperate. Of course in a crisis it would be a simple matter for the ITA to operate the transmitters themselves as became clear at Christmas when the Post Office workers threatened to strike As the Dwarf once proclaimed: Don't Demand: Occupy. And that is exactly what ACTT should have done: stood by the telecine and videotape machines, transmitted programmes but not the commercials. The men would have been sacked but they should have stayed in, leaving the employers with the ollowing course of action:
1) They could appeal to the ITA to bloc the transmitters. But as it could hardly be described as a national emergency if the commercials don't appear, it seems an unlikely course.
(2) Call in the police and arrest the occupying workers for trespass. A step not lightly taken as it would mean police violence not outside the factory gates but in the middle of a great deal of delicate and expensive electronic equipment. The conflict in these new industries is that although the machinery can be run, at a pinch, by a few managers, it can also be just as easily wrecked. But even if the police were called in the best action would be to turn live cameras on them producing not only the best show of the year but also revealing testimony on employers' methods.
In any event the situations would be worker controlled for a vital period. The commercials La card exp aming the