CLOSE THE GATES!

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2022 :: RMTnews 23 Fifty years ago, on a day that came to be a key moment in trade union militancy, some 30,000 Birmingham workers downed tools and joined the picket of Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham in solidarity with miners striking for a decent pay rise at a time of high inflation. This extraordinary expression of solidarity which took place on February 10, 1972 effectively secured victory for the miners and a 30 per cent pay increase and brought down a Tory government. As part of the industrial action the National Union of Mineworkers sought to prevent coal from being transported and the largest stockpile in the country was held at Saltley. A small group of miners from nearby Staffordshire set up a picket line at the works at the start of February with little affect. However, within days, several thousand miners from South Yorkshire and South Wales joined in and requested solidarity from local workers. Bill Mullins, a newly elected shop steward at the Rover Solihull Plant, remembered a young Arthur Scargill, at the time a Yorkshire NUM official, appearing at a local meeting of the AUEW engineering union. There he famously said that he didn't want just collections of money for the miners, he wanted Birmingham workers to come down to Saltley gates and stop the lorries leaving with the scab coke. “From the Monday onwards shop stewards around the Birmingham car and engineering industry, including myself, went down to Saltley gates and joined the miners' picket lines. “But when it became clear that we would need far more "bodies" to stop the lorries, we agreed that we would try and get solidarity strikes off the ground. “I remember on the Thursday morning, February 10, I and a number of other stewards from the plant who had been going down regularly, went to see our convenor. “We wanted to get him to agree to call a mass meeting of the 8,000 workers in the Solihull factory to ask them to go on strike in support of the miners and for as many as possible to go down to the mass picket. “As we were speaking to him a knock came on the door. A shop steward came in and told us that that the word had got out and the workers were already walking off the job without being asked,” he recalled. Bolstered by the arrival of tens of thousands of workers from other Birmingham industries and police ordered the depot to close its gates "in the interests of public safety". “A huge cheer went up from the mass ranks of picketers with this victory. It was undoubtedly the most significant moment of the strike and a massive victory for workers,” remembered Bill. It was a victory that not only won a fair pay rise but showed the way forward for other groups of workers fighting to defend their living standards. To mark this important working-class anniversary, Banner Theatre has been commissioned to embark on a multi-media touring show of its rousing production, The battle of Saltley Gate which will also be available on-line. The production includes a celebrated song about the chant that went up from workers pouring spontaneously out of the factories and workplaces of Birmingham, “Close the gates, close the gates, close the gates”. This song also appears on a 2014 Topic Records compilation of radical song called Voice and Vision: Songs of Resistance, Democracy and Peace. The Battle of Saltley Gate is available for bookings. Contact Dave Rogers on bannerauto2013@gmail.com CLOSE THE GATES! Trade unionists celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Saltley Gate this month Photograph Credits: Tony Coult.