Responses to industrial closure

Responses to industrial closure

From a high point in the early seventies resistance to plant closure, especially in the form of the occupation, progressively declined throughout the rest of the decade. This article attempts to explain this trend in terms of changing socio- economic contexts and management strategies.

Introduction HE beginning of the seventies marked the T end of the affluent post-war era, and the

beginning of a recession that is still affecting Britain today. During this decade industrial output fell, unemployment soared, many smaller companies collapsed, while larger ones rationalised their operations. The phenomenon of the factory closure became a common occur- ence. Later in the decade anti-inflation policies pursued by successive governments resulted in cuts in public sector expenditures, leading to redundancies, and hospital and school closures.

In the early seventies, these events were greeted with resistance in the private sector, often in the form of occupations. Such opposition, however, seemed to die down during the latter part of the decade despite the continuance of the economic trends that appar- ently gave rise to it. In the public sector, resistance to cutbacks occurred slightly later, in response, no doubt, to the public expenditure cuts of the mid-seventies. This took the form, in the health sector, of occupations of hospitals that had been scheduled for closure, although, it seems that here also, the impetus for resistance is dying down.

This paper examines the phenomenon of plant closure and documents the patterns of resistance that have occurred. It offers some explanation as to why resistance, particularly

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Cynthia Hardy is Assistant Professor of Policy in the Faculty of Management, McGill University.

the occupation, occurred and then declined. The first section briefly sketches the impact of successive recessions on the British economy during the 1970s, particularly on the industrial sector. The patterns of response to closure and redundancy are then discussed, followed by an examination of some of the factors that help to account for the difference between the early and latter part of the decade. Of particular interest are the role of wider socio-economic factors and managerial strategies and their impact on union power and the legitimacy of closure. The final section considers the implications of this analysis and their relevance to recent confrontations over the issue of closure

The British economy during the 1970s

The relative decline in British economic fortunes has been well documented[ll. The British economy has been characterised by deepening recession and an escalating unemployment rate.

Since 1973 the UK economy has suffered from a worsening of existing trends in trade performance and from a set of depressive impulses which have been felt in all advanced economies . . . The result was that in 1974. after a long period of compara- tively slow growth. the UK economy entered a phase of virtual stagnation and now faces a period of absolute decline[21. This has manifested itself in the lowest

growth rate in the western world between 1973 and 1979. Industrial output fell in 1974 and

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1975, and again in 1980. Unemployment has risen almost continuously throughout the decade, passing the one million mark in 1975, and reaching two million in 1980. In March 1980 it stood at over 10% of the working population, compared with 2% in 1970. The number of unfilled vacancies decreased sub- stantially in 1975 and 1976 and, although there was a slight increase over the following three years, numbers declined again in 1980. High unemployment rates and decreasing numbers of vacancies indicate that jobs were being shed, and this is supported by the redundancy figures: there was a trough around 1973-5, followed by a slight improvement, and another trough towards 1980. Some of these redundancies were inevitably due to the increasing number of bankruptcies; while larger organisations have rationalised operations and reduced manning requirements. The British Steel Corporation (BSC) , for example, shed 130,000 jobs between 1969-78[31, and has closed more than seventeen steel works since 1974[41. British Leyland (BL) shed 12,000 jobs in 1978 alone[5]. An added complication, particularly in the early part of the decade, has been high rates of inflation.

Responses to the recession The recession led inevitably to increasing

numbers of closures in the industrial sector throughout the decade. The response to this, however, has been sharply demarcated. The early part of the decade (1970-5) saw a concerted effort to resist the closures by union and employee groups which used a new form of attack: the factory occupation. This in itself attracted a great deal of attention from the media and academics. From 1975 onwards, however, the use of this weapon seems to have died down, and academic interest is almost non-existent.

The factory occupation - the ‘work-in’ or ‘sit-in’ in which workers take over the closing factory - was a new phenomenon in the 1970s[61. There is no significant historical record of its use as a defence against closure before the 1970s. but between 1970 and 1975 there were 200 factory occupations involving 150.000 workersl71, and it has been suggested that the use of this weapon became more widespread during this period@]. The popularity of the occupation has been attributed to the fact that it is more effective than a strike in the event of a closure, because it prevents the disposal of

assets, thereby putting pressure on the employers[91. A strike on the other hand, has little impact, at least in the event of a firm closing down completely, because the insufficient demand for the product robs the workers of their market power[lOl. Thus:

the workplace occupation became rapidly assim- ilated within British industrial relations. becoming accepted as a means of contesting growing problems facing workers: those of closures, redundancy and unemployment [ 11 1.

The early seventies were also notable for the founding of a number of worker co-operatives: Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) in 1971; Fakenham in 1972; Meriden in 1973; Kirkby in 1972 and 1974; and the Scottish Daily News (SDN) in 1975[121. These worker-led organisations emerged out of occupations as the original owners bowed out, leaving employees, with the help of government aid, to run things for themselves. It was the founding of UCS. after a well-publicised occupation, that initiated the increase in the use of the occupation[l3].

The fact that these new tactics were limited to relatively small numbers of people should not detract from their importance: the support they attracted indicates the existence of attitudes that were opposed to the widespread closure and redundancy that was becoming apparent. The campaign to save UCS, for example, involved 100.000 stopping work, and 50,000 joining a demonstration in Glasgow on 24th June, 1971; on 18th August there were 200,000 strikers and 80.000 marchers[14]. UCS also attracted support from the media, the public, the government, local members of parliament (MPs), other unions and the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

Never before had the TUC committed itself so fully to a fight against one closure. That it gave such support to a Communist-led stewards’ movement made its involvement remarkable1 151. Despite the significance of the occupation in

the fight against closure between 1970 and 1975, its use, more recently, has all but dis- appeared and writers have noted a general lack of resistance against job loss[l6]. Unfor- tunately, there are no figures on the number of occupations since 1975 (this apparent lack of interest is significant in itself), but a cursory glance at the Morning Star indicates a decline in its use. An examination of the paper for the first week of September (an arbitrary choice) between 1970 and 1979 found eight references to UCS in 1971, and two to an occupation in a Plessey factory. In 1972 there were four refer-

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ences to UCS. in 1973 one reference to an occupation of a Seiko factory. There were no mentions of sit-ins in 1974 or 1975. In 1976 there were three references to the Cammel Laird occupation. Since then there has been only one other mention: of the increasing problems facing the Meriden co-operative. These figures are obviously not conclusive but they d o suggest either fewer occupations, or a lessening of public interest in them. This tentative evidence is supported by the fact that only one occupation - at the Meccano factory - appears to have received widespread press coverage between 1976 and 1979.

The frequency with which workers have resorted to sit-ins and work-ins has declined somewhat since the mid-l970s[171.

Nor has there been a continuance of the role of worker co-operatives as symbols in the fight against redundancy. Producer co-operatives continue to be set up1181. but for a variety of reasons and, where they still d o occur in response to closure. they seem to be small localised efforts to save jobs in non-unionised industries[l9]. lacking the momentum of support from the broader labour movement.

There were some attempts to contest closure in the latter part of the seventies. The most notable of these perhaps were the campaigns to prevent the closure of various steelworks by BSC1201. These campaigns were not characterised by occupations or, for the most part, strikes. Instead they relied more heavily on demonstrations. lobbies of parliament, rational arguments. and appeals to the public and the media.

Why is there such a difference between the responses of the early part of the decade and those of the late seventies? The economic conditions still persist and , if anything, have worsened. The following section examines some factors that may help to account for this.

The power to resist In order to understand the decline in resist-

ance to plant closure. we must first understand what enables employees to contest any form of managerial activity. In effect, the fight against closure is bound up with general patterns of militancy and strike activity, which have also declined in recent yearsl211. These patterns. and changes in them, relate to the wider socio- economic environment[221. as well as political and legal systems123 I . These factors impinge on the sources of power that union groups can

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tap in their efforts to challenge managerial decisions. This section examines the two sources of power for employee groups.

The main determinants of union power are of two types: objective and subjective. Of the former, the most significant are the strength or density of organisation: and the strategic importance of the workers covered . . . power also depends on the manner in which workers perceive their situation and interests. and the solidarity and determination with which they pursue their objectives. Workers who perceive no major conflict of interests with their employers are unlikely to organise effectively[241.

Structural sources of power One obvious source of strength for em-

where a significant proportion of the relevant employee group are outside the union and unlikely to follow its policies and instructions. or where there exists an alternative force of non- unionists, the ability to exert effective pressure on the employer is considerably reducedl251.

A well organised workforce is in a position to contest managerial behaviour by threatening or engaging in activities that disrupt production: that is the basis of collective bargaining[26], Unionisation is also an essential element in fighting closure - most forms of resistance to closure such a s sit-ins and work-ins, demonstrations, and strikes, require an organised workforce if they are to be initiated and sustained. Also important is the existence of official support for employees’ and stewards’ actions, and effective liaison between national and local levels.

Support on a wider basis is also likely to pro- vide power - support from other unions, the TUC, from other areas of the labour movement, from the media and the public, can all help to bolster attempts to resist managerial decisions.

Another determinant of power, according to Hyman & Fryer, concerns the strategic position of the workers in question - how easily they are able to disrupt production and exert pressure. Print workers, for example, are in a powerful position due to the perishability of their product - their impact is quickly felt. So, too, are assembly workers in a highly inte- grated system - if they stop work, everything else, which is dependent on them, also stops. In the case of closure strategic leverage often constitutes a multi-plant structure, where the disruption of production can have an impact on surviving plants: situations in which the organ-

ployees lies in a highly unionised workforce:


isation is closing down completely deprives employees of much of their power(271.

Subjective sources of power The structural determinants of power dis-

cussed above conform to the objective aspects mentioned by Hyman and Fryer. There is, however, a subjective element to power if workers are to confront their employers. This concerns the attitudes of the employees - d o they perceive a conflict of interest and d o they perceive resistance as the best means of satis- fying their interests? The question then remains which factors make employees more or less likely to contemplate resistance?

The wider and local environments and managerial strategies can influence both structural and subjective sources of power, render- ing employees more or less able to confront managerial decisions. The following two sections take each of these in turn and examine how they have affected responses to closure during the seventies.

The political-economic environment

The wider environment clearly has an impact on the structural sources of power, most clearly in the case of union membership and density[28]. During the seventies union membership grew rapidly. This may have provided the necessary support for resistance movements in the early seventies. Economic factors have also had an impact on attitudes: inflation and prospective unemployment can increase membership rates and militancy as workers become concerned about their standards of living. And so, although the percentage of strikes does not show a distinct pattern. the relatively high percentage of days lost due to pay claims may indicate efforts to protect earnings, particularly as the index of average earnings shows that wage rises kept ahead of inflation until 1976 (see tables). * These patterns of industrial activity may reflect an increasing concern with materialistic values, noted in both Britain and the USA, and considered to be the result of worsening economic conditions[291.

In addition to protecting themselves against

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* It is Important to note that militancy is not purely a n economic response: i t is also political. and high strike levels in the early seventies must also be related to the Con- servative government's industrial relations pol~cy. which prompted national strikes in many sectors.

Table 1: Percentages of strikes and WDL over pay[301

Year % strikes % WDL

1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976

49.8 53.5 53.1 46.0 40.6 35.7 47.2 40.7 49.1 34.2 42.2 56.6

64.7 71.4 62.3 77.6 74.6 85.3 91.3 90.9 72.8 89.7 75.6 53.3

Table 2: Index of average earnings: YO change

1970 (Oct) 13.5 1971 11.1 (8) 1972 15.7 (8) 1973 15.1 (81 1974 20.0 (12) 1975 23.4 (20) 1976 13.2 (23) 1977 8.6 (17) 1978 13.8 (10) 1979 (June) 13.4 (9) 1980 (June) 21.7 (18)

Figures in parentheses denote annual percentage increase in the retail price index. Source: Department of Employment Gazette (various issues).

Table 3: Local unemployment rates ~ ~ ~ ~~~~

Year Local National Area (June) rate averaqe

UCS, Glasgow 1971 6.5 3.2 Fakenham, Norwich 1972 2.5 3.6 Kirkby, Liverpool 1972 7.2 3.6

1973 6.6 2.4 1974 5.6 2.3

Meriden, Coventry 1973 2.3 2.4 1974 2.4 2.3 1975 4.4 3.7

SDN, Glasgow 1974 4.7 2.3 1975 5.5 3.7

Source: Department of Employment Gazette (various issues).

inflation, employees may also have taken steps to protect themselves against increasing unemployment. The occupations, even the worker co-operatives, appear to have been a pragmatic response t o a worsening economic climate, which was reducing the chances of finding alternative employment. rather than a radical attempt to assert a new form of worker-

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based control[311. As James Airlie, one of the leaders of UCS, declared:

our only purpose is to save the jobs of the men. If. as a by-product. a n e w form of protest or control comes about then that is welcome - but it is not our aim I32 I

If this is the case. one would expect the local situation to play an important role in stimu- lating resistance. The local unemployment rates support this assertion. All the co-operatives, apart from Fakenham, were established in areas where unemployment was considerably higher than the national average (see Table 3).

If the occupations and co-operatives were pragmatic responses to a difficult economic environment at national and local levels, and they were able to attract widespread support, why did they not persist into the latter half of the decade, as unemployment worsened? As Hemmingway and Keyser wrote in 1975:

there is no obvious reason why one should regard the redundancy sit-in as only a temporary phenomenon [331.

The deepening of the recession provides part of the answer. As unemployment has increased, union growth and density has declined[341. robbing employees of an important structural source of power. Furthermore, it appears that while the threat of unemployment has a positive impact on union membership: when job losses become a reality the effect is negatiwe[351. The same may be said of the effect on militancy[361. So. whereas the prospective job losses of the early seventies stimu- lated resistance to closure, as unemployment increased the subjective commitment to resistance diminished as unions were weakened, and job losses became ‘inevitable’.

Another factor to consider is the dichotomy that appeared to arise between local and national responses to prospective job losses. With the election of the Labour Party in 1974, a new industrial policy was created to regener- ate British industry. It was, however, aimed at national union leaders, who were drawn into negotiations with the government to support particular sectoral strategies. which often involved specific closures, as with BSC and BL. Localised attempts to stave off job losses often suffered from a lack of support from t h e union leadership. which was in n o position to support local resistance campaigns[37 I , and the absence of direct communication with a supposedly supportive government[381.

Managerial strategies Political and economic developments, at

both national and local levels, affected structural and subjective sources of union power. Alone. however, they d o not fully account for the weakening resistance. There is another issue to consider: the role that managerial strategies have played in producing quies- cence. Industrial relations has recently been criticised for ignoring the impact of managerial strategies[39]. The following discussion shows how important a role they play.

The recession has appeared to have placed employers in a powerful position to resist union/employee challenges[40].

Perhaps most important, unemployment has increased dramatically and. as the recession deepened. some employers have adopted a much tougher stance toward trade unions[411.

In particular, employers have been able to influence the legitimacy of closure and that has had implications for those groups wishing to oppose plant closure.

It has been argued that organisations strive to achieve social legitimacy for their actions [421. Without such legitimacy, the external institu- tions that impinge on the organisation may feel prone to intervene. If an organisation is engaged in activities that are not deemed legitimate, there are a number of things that it can d o to try and rectify the situation: it can change the activities to ones that are acceptable: it can associate the undesirable activities with symbols that d o have a high degree of inherent legitimacy: or it can redefine legitimacy[43]. It seems that in the early seventies closure and redundancy were not deemed legitimate: a society that has previously emphasised growth and full employment finds it difficult to accept closure, redundancy and unemployment. Fur- thermore, closures leave people without jobs, unions without members, and communities without services. For these reasons. it is not surprising that they were deemed illegitimate, as evidenced by the resistance of employee and union groups, and the intervention of the government in the worker co-operatives. In response to this. however, employers were probably hard pressed to change their activities: if the economy is depressed, the rationalisation of operations may be the only way to protect the organisation as a whole. The second choice of associating the undesirable activity (i.e. the closure) with more legitimate symbols (such as consultation, union involve-


ment, redundancy compensation) has been found to occur within individual organisations[441.

The result is that employers have been able to redefine what is, and what is not legitimate, thus making the act of closure more acceptable. As closure has been justified, the more justifiable it has become. For example, the closures and redundancies in BSC have been accompanied by economic and technical arguments put forward to justify them, as this extract from a paper written by the Secretary of the Steel Committee (a union body) in 1974 demonstrates.

The steel industry in this country is passing through a time of rapid, far reaching and contin- uous change. This has posed a great dilemma for the unions concerned in the industry. The unions know full well that all the other major steel industries in the world are undergoing changes in response to alterations of their environment brought about in particular by the advances made in recent years in iron and steelmaking technology, in the nature of customers’ requirements (e.g. for new types and qualities of steel), and in the relocation of their main source of raw material supplies. The objective of each national industry in making these changes is to continually improve its competitiveness in order to be able to capture a larger share of world markets for its products, or to at least retain that which it already has. The unions also recognise, therefore. that in these circum- stances comparable changes must take place in the British steel industry unless it is to be con- demned to an obsolescent technology while its competitors rush headlong into a new steelmaking era . . . These are the hard truths, of which the Steel Com- mittee has been reminded time after time over the past few years in one meeting and another with successive Ministers and the Chairman and Chief Executive of the BSC (emphasis added)[451.

It appears that at the national level at least, union leaders were persuaded of the necessity of rationalisation, resulting in the failure of an effective campaign to resist the closures at the local Ieve1[46].

The continual justification of closures and redundancies on the grounds of economic, technical and commercial criteria makes them more acceptable because they become to be considered necessary or even desirable. This rein- forces the values which. Fryer argues, are already implicit in public policy.

Where redundancy is concerned, public policy has defined the problem largely in managerial terms

. . The assumption has not been that redundancy as such is undesirable and should, there-

fore, be eliminated. On the contrary, the very legitimacy of redundancy has been defined in terms of how best to facilitate managerial decision- making and encourage workers to accept the inevitability, indeed, the desirability of redun- dancy1471. If BSC took pains to justify their closures,

there is no reason to assume that other companies did not d o the same. Other work by the author[481 provides details of the strategies used to legitimise hospital and factory closures, and demonstrates the importance for managers wishing to avoid resistance of providing reasons that justify the closure decision. An analysis of the reasons given in press statements for closures by Courtaulds demonstrates the trouble taken to justify closure and absolve the company of all blame. One way this was done was by pointing out the efforts taken by Courtaulds to prevent or delay the closure. (The emphasis in these quotes is added.)

In spite of strenuous efforts over the past year to expand all the subsidiary’s processing activities, business has continued to decline. Costs had risen due to higher wages and prices of raw materials and it had not proved possible to raise selling prices to compensate. (Times article on the closure of a Courtaulds subsidiary, 15/7/70.) We have spent a lot of money on it but it is a costly process and the product has been more suscept- ible to the difficult trading conditions than most man-made fibres, and prices have been well below the cost of the product. We have continued to bear lossesfor a long time in the hope that the situation would change. but we have got to the point where there is no sign of any change in the market situation. (Times article on the closure of a textile plant in North Wales, 23/10/76.) The situation has been aggravated by the chronic over-capacity in this country and in Europe. The plant at Dowlais has been kept running to maintain employment but its operations have been quite uncompetitive. (The Times. 23/10/76.) Although the Company has made strenuous efforts to improve trading operations at the Grantham factory . . . significant losses have been incurred for a number of years and these have continued long beyond commercial acceptability. (The Times. 28/10/76.)

Closures were attributed to labour problems. to the extent that had a change in the workforce’s attitude occurred the closure could have been prevented, The Skelmersdale factory, which was later reprieved, was:

The inevitable consequence of the cumulative effect of labour difficulties. (The Times. 11/10/72.) The Company said that the decision had been

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taken because of the industrial disruption there . . , A management spokesman said last night that any move to reopen the plant would depend upon the attitude of the workforce. (Times article on an acrylics plant at Grimsby. 20/12/74.)

Closures were attributed to long term economic plans, rather than panic measures.

The extensive rationalisation of productive capacity is the result of a full internal review by Courtaulds of all its home and overseas operations rather than a series of panic reactions to market conditions. (Times article on the closures of factories in Skelmersdale, Rochdale and Gran- tham, 28/10/76.)

These statements effectively validate and justify closures as necessary evils. If other firms were acting in ways similar to Courtaulds and BSC it is not surprising that closure, although previously viewed as an illegitimate activity, became a more acceptable strategy for firms to adopt. Once this process has succeeded, firms may not have to legitimise their actions. As can be seen from the Courtaulds’ closures documented in The Times and the Daily Telegraph between 1978 and 1980, rather less trouble was taken to explain the reasons behind the closures, or to ensure that blame would not be attached to the company; instead they are ex- plained by relatively short statements, attribut- ing them mainly to demand or technological factors

More than 500 employees . . . are to lose their jobs because of falling orders. (Times article on redundancies at Aintree and Wrexham. 4/3/78.) Courtaulds blames world over-capacity and severe competition from low cost imports from America for the decision. (The Daily Telegraph on the closure of three textile plants in Northern Ireland, 15/9/79.) The works is ‘undoubtedly’ a victim of funda- mental technological changes in the textile industry. (The Times on a Preston factory, 19/ 11/79.) Both mills were operating at a loss and were f 1 million in the red. (The Times on two mills in Cumbria. 17/5/80.) A group of officials blamed falling demand for yarn . . . resulting in over-capacity and increasing losses. (The Times on the Lansil works in Lan- cashire. 27/9/80 ) [Courtauldsl blamed the closure of the mill . on problems caused by cheap imports and the relative strength of sterling (The Times on an Oldham mill. 11/12/80.)

The evidence suggests that the cumulative efforts of many firms has served to redefine the legitimacy of closure, making it a far more

acceptable activity. In effect, closure has become a fact of life. And if closure is viewed a s necessary, justifiable, or inevitable, doubt is cast on the legitimacy of opposition to closure. During the early seventies, UCS had promoted the ‘popular legitimacy of the fight for a liveli- hood’(491: redundancy and closure had been contested because they were viewed as morally and socially undesirable.

UCS promoted the idea throughout this country and abroad that unemployment and redundancy need not be tolerated[501.

Towards the latter part of the decade, as closure became to be defined as a n economic necessity, opposition on these grounds was on a weak footing unless it could demonstrate rational, technical, or commercial reasons why a factory should not close[511.

Summary and conclusions The pattern in the responses to closure and

redundancy clearly indicates the impact the wider environment has o n union and employee power; both structural and subjective components. Thus it becomes clear that in order to understand patterns of militancy and resistance we must look at political and economic factors in the national and local contexts. Equally important is the influence of managerial strategies on employee/union attitudes and actions. The recent recession has almost certainly increased the ability of employers to confront and prevent challenges by redefining legitimacy.

The apparent acquiescence of trade unions to redundancy may be a function of either impot- ence. due to failure to prevent it or passive accept- ance of its inevitability: or accepting the legitimacy of managements‘ arguments for the need for redundancy [52 1.

It is important for researchers to recognise the impact of managerial strategiesL531. Industrial relations has long since abandoned the unitary perspective, but has tended to adopt a pluralist framework[54]. However, as Fox has pointed out, this can be unrealistic as it presupposes a fairly equal distribution of power between the main players. This analysis shows that this is not always the case. Firstly, in that employee groups are clearly subordinated to the existing bias of the systemf551, in which both structural and subjective components of their power are subject to political and economic changes. Second, that employers, by recourse to what has been termed the third dimension of

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powerf561, can define legitimacy for other groups, severely constraining the ability to resist.

Patterns of industrial confrontation reflect the battle for legitimacy between the different interest groups, with success being determined by the balance of power as it pertains to both structural and subjective components. The early 1970s were characterised by strong structural sources of power for union groups at the macro level; local and national unemployment, which provided motivation for resistance; and the relatively new phenomenon of closure, which was deemed illegitimate. The result was relatively widespread resistance. As the decade progressed, political factors, in particular the election of a Labour government, robbed local unionists of an effective source of power; and increasing unemployment appears to have reduced the motivation to resist. Also important has been the learning curve. As occupations failed, unionists began to question their efficacy and, at the same time, employers learnt the importance of employing strategies that would legitimise their actions. The balance of power shifted, the legitimacy of closure was redefined, and market criteria prevailed.

What of the 1980s? The current (1984) miners’ strike is, among other things, a fight against proposed pit closures. In effect, it represents another staging of the battle to define legitimacy: whether closure is acceptable on the basis of market criteria alone or whether social considerations should be taken into account. It would appear that a number of changes have occurred since the 1970s, which brought the legitimacy of closure back into question and made such concerted resistance possible. First, the election of a Conservative government polarised the union and its employers, particularly with the appointment of Ian MacGregor, renowned for his rationalisation activities in the National Coal Board. As a result, the union, under the leadership of Arthur Scargill, has consolidated and the link between national and local .levels re-established. So while union membership has been depleted in recent years, the reunification of national and local levels has added an important structural source of power, which has, undoubtedly, made such a sustained fight possible. In addition, increasing unemployment, the threat of the dissolution of complete mining communities and the intransigence of the Thatcher government regarding union

power, by influencing the subjective com- ponent of power, having produced a commitment to and motivation for resistance.

Ironically, in its bid to reduce union power, in this case at least, the Thatcher government has increased i t , reversing many of the weak- nesses resulting from the policies of its Labour predecessor.

The outcome of this struggle is. as yet, un- determined. Certainly, in national union support and strategic leverage, the miners are stronger than many of the resistance groups of the early seventies. The length of the struggle is testament to that. Yet they face a powerful government with considerable public support for its actions. The outcome will be a deter- mining factor in forthcoming patterns of resistance: if the miners win, the question of the legitimacy of closure on economic grounds will, once again, be questionable. If they lose. the Conservatives will have reasserted the role of market forces as well as weakening, structurally and subjectively, the union movement

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22. Burkitt, B.. ‘Excessive Trade Union Power: Existing Reality or Contemporary Myth?’, Industrial Relations Journai. 12(3). pp. 65-71. 1981.

23. Bright, D.. Sawbridge, D. and Rees. B. . ‘Industrial Relations of Recession’, lndustriol Relotions Journal.

24. Hyman. R. and Fryer, R . H.. ‘Trade Unions - sociological and political economy’, in McKinley, J . B. (ed . ) , Processing People. London, Holt. Rinehart and Winston, 1975. p.162.

pp. 29-48, 1984.

14(3) , pp. 24-33, 1983.

25. Ibid. 26. Pizzorno. A, , op . cit. 27. Ibid.: Lane, T . . ‘We’re Talking about a Closure Move-

ment’. in Rainnie and Stiriing (eds.). Piant Closure. Newcastle. Faculty of Community and Social Studies, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Polytechnic, occasional paper. 1981.

28. Edwards, P . , op. cit.: Bright, D. et a l . , op. cit: Price, R . and Bain. G. S.. o p . cit.

29. See, for example, Glenn, N . D . . ‘Class and Party Support in the US: Recent Emerging Trends’. Public Opinion Quarterly. 37 , pp. 1-20. 1973-4: Abrams. M . . ‘Changing Values’. Encounter. 43, pp. 29-33. 1974: Miller, W. E . and Levitin, T E . , Leadership and Change, Cambridge. Mass.. Winthrop. 1976; Nie. N . H. et a l . . The Changing Americon Voter. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. 1976.

30. Smith, C. T . B. et al.. Strikes in Britain. London, Department of Employment, Manpower Paper No. 15. 1978. tables 6. 7.

31, Buchan, A. , op. cit.; Bradley, K.. op. cit. 32. Buchan. A , , op. cit.. p .144. 33. Hemmingway. J . and Keyser. W . , op. cit, p.32. 34. Edwards, P . , op . cit.: Bright. D. et al.. op. cit.; Price.

R. and Bain. G . S., op. cit. 35. Price, R. and Bain. G. S.. op. cit. 36. Edwards, P . , op. cit.: Bright. D. et al.. op . cit. 37. For examples, see Ursell, G. D. M . , A Sociologicol

Study of the Containment of on Extra-Union Organ- isotion amongst Steel Workers. M.Sc. Bradford, 1976: Beynon. H. . Working for Ford, London, Allen Lane, 1973: Beynon, H. and Wainwright. H.. The Worker‘s Report on Vickers, London, Pluto Press. 1979: Bryer. R. A. et al.. op. cit.; Price, K. M., Mass Unemployment: The Closure of Consett Steelworks, paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Sociological Association, Bradford, England. 1984.

38. Wainwright, H. and Elliott, D. . The Lucas Plan, London, Allison and Busby, 1982.

39. Timperley, S. , ‘Organisation Strategies and Industrial Relations’, lndustriol Relotions Journal. 11 (5). pp. 38-45, 1980; Wood, S.. ‘The Study of Manage- ment in British Industrial Relations’, Industrial Relotions Journol. 13(2). pp, 51-61. 1982; Thurley. E. and Wood, S.. Industrial Relations and Manage- ment Strategy. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1983.

40. Edwards, P . . op . cit. 41. Price, R. and Bain. G. S. . op. cit.. p .62. 42 . Dowling. J . and Pfeffer. J. , ‘Organisational Legiti-

macy’, Pacific Sociologicol Review. 18. pp. 122-36. 1975.

43. Ibid. 44. Hardy, C . , op. cit. 45. Bryer. R. A. et al., op. cit.. pp. 319-20. 46. Bryer. R. A. et al.. op. cit. 47 . Fryer, R. H.. ‘Redundancy Values and Public Policy’,

Industrial Relations Journol. 4 (2) . 2-19. 1973. 48. Hardy, C. . o p . cit. 49. Hemmingway. J . and Keyser. W . , op. cit.. p.5 . 50. Clarke, T. . op . cit.. pp. 18-19. 51. Hardy, C. . op. cit.: Trade Union Research Unit,

Fighting Closures: A Case Study. Ruskin College. Oxford, March. Occasionat Paper No. 79. 1982.

52 . Fatchett. D. and Ogden. S. G.. op. cit.. p.210. 53. Wood. S., op. cit.: Thurley, E. and Wood. S. . op. cit. 54. Fox, A , , ‘Industrial Relations: a social critique of

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55. Bachrach. P . and Baratz. M . S . , Power ond Poverty. London, Oxford University Press, 1970: Wester- gaard. J . and Resler. H. , Closs in o Capitalist Society. London. Penguin. 1976; Parry, F. and Morriss. P.. ‘When is a Decision not a Decision?’, in Crewe. I . (ed.) , British Political Sociology Yearbook, Vol. I . 1975.

56. Lukes. S.. Power: o rodical view. London. Macmillan. 1974.

Responses to industrial closure

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