In the early days of the 1984–1985 strike, the NUM made a decision to picket the integrated steel complexes. Scargill invoked the notion of the old "Triple Alliance" whereby the unions in coal, steel and rail were bound to support one another, and asked steelworkers not to handle deliveries of coal. Bill Sirs of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC) rejected such calls on the grounds that industrial action by steelworkers at the integrated complexes could incapacitate the rolling mills and billet forges, and cause job losses. Sirs stated, in defiance of Scargill, that his members would continue to handle any fuel that presented itself.