Bernie Steer d. July 21st 2022 Pentonville Five & beyond
Bernie Steer the last survivor of the Pentonville Five dockers who successfully defied 1970s Tory industrial relations law died on July 20th just days before the 50th anniversary of the event itself. In the end it was unofficial strike action that got the Government to unearth the Official Solicitor who determined the dockers had been wrongly jailed. The TUC had called a General Strike for the 31st July.
While Bernie Steer is rightly remembered for that glorious moment he continued on in labour movement activity.
In the 1980s times had changed and with the Thatcher Government and mass unemployment the TUC encouraged the setting up of a network of unemployed workers centres. Bernie Steer was involved with the one in Haringey which had premises in West Green Rd Tottenham near Seven Sisters tube.
The centres were generally under the auspices of the local Trades Council. In Haringey this was controlled by the Communist Party. However it was the beginning of the period when the CP split and reconfigured. At the same the extra-Parliamentary Labour left was making an impact in the area through young activists like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Grant.
The Unemployed Workers Centre was politically disputed territory. The idea was to offer advice to workers and to point them into involvement with the official movement. The Right to Work campaign based to a degree on the experiences of the 1930s preferred marches and protests. At the same time local libertarians and anarchists wanted a much more activist focused approach.
It wasn’t Pentonville but Bernie Steer stuck at it, and although I might have had the odd disagreement with him myself the spirit of keep on keepin on shone through
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