- Secret

| Years fo

an extensive educational program for its members
both within the union.and utilizing facilities at nearby
Universities. Grievances and contracts are studied,

ut so is economics, labor history, and many other
Subjects as well:

Inthe evenings, we visited several pubs, which are
very different from the bars in most Appalachian
Mining towns. Like the nationality clubs in areas like
Western Pennsylvania, many of them are not owned
Privately, butrun as a service for their members. The
NUM itself built some, beginning 80 years ago, called
Miners’ Welfare Clubs (under the Coal Industry So-
Clal Welfare Organization, or CISWO). Many have
Same rooms and some especially if they were built
before public libraries were widespread, have many

0oks and facilities to encourage miners and their
families to read and write. The Working Men’s Club

| 4nd Institute Union (CIU) also has a nationwide net-

Work of clubs, which cost one pound (about $2) a
year to join. The Grimethorpe local held its regular
Meetings in the Monk Bretton CIU. In addition to the
regular bar area, this club has a large room for din-
ners or dances, a game room with snooker tables and

‘dart boards, and several smaller rooms for meetings

and other activities.

Many miners also belong to other recreational
Clubs, such as clubs for racing pigeons. Miners in
ifferent areas sometimes specialize in certain ac-
tivities — choirs in Wales, brass bands in Yorkshire,
and bagpipe groups in Scotland — and participate in
National competitions. The miners in Kent, in the
Southeastern part of the country, have fishing clubs.
“any Kerit miners’ work in the pits only six months
€ach year, and on fishing boats or on ferries the other
SIx, Being only an hour across the English Channel
Tom France, many Kent miners have established
Close friendships with French coal miners.

Tn the pubs, I also got to talk with miners about
eir contract. Most make between $120 and $160 each
Week, but prices in Britain are somewhat lower and
Services such as medical care are completley free.
fter one year, all miners get three weeks annual paid

| Vacation, seven other paid personal leave days, and
| £lght paid holidays — including May Day, theinterna-

onal workers’ holiday. The training of young miners
1S very rigidly controlled by law; and involves a com-
bination of attending classes and working under-
stound throughout their first year. A better training
Program here in the United States might help reverse
the present situation where, according to the U.S.
Bureau of Mines, the accident rate for miners is more
than four times as high during his (or her)first year
hderground than in subsequent years.
- fa man is injured or becomes sick in Britain, he
"eceives 80% of his regular wage for up to six months.
hemployment benefits last for a year, and he can
apply for supplementary benefits if he still cannot find
ae The British government also makes more of an
onempt than ours does to bring light industries into
h al areas where there have been layoffs; they also
ave Programs to re-locate miners who lose their jobs
*om pit closures.
wo Scottish miners’ headquarters is near
en town Edinburgh, the country’s capital. Their
novcutive board meeting room was decorated with
ya raits of NUM leaders like Abe Moffat and Keir
Tdie, a picture of a colliery, and a red and yellow

; ener from the Soviet coal miners in friendship with

© Miners of Scotland. The Scottish miners have al-
“YS been particularly conscious of-international af-
deja; During the height of the Cold War, they hosted a
Wereation of Soviet miners in their country; they
"e the first organization in Great Britain to invite a

. ste eetion from North Vietnam while the war was

S0ing on there. When I was introduced to their
Solia uy» Eric Clarke, he was working on a rally in
jung tY with the people of Chile against the military

sopvtichae! McGahey, NUM vice president, also
ag aS President of the Scottish miners’ union and
taiceaitman of the Communist Party of Great Bri-

n. The Scottish miners hold elections every two

r their officials. Since 1942 when Abe Moffat

| Was ¢ é :
ae first elected president, the Scottish miners have

| :
Scted a Communist as their top officer.

| hea, “ring the afternoon I visited the Edinburgh

Quarters, I went with two of the officers to a

Impact Ripper used to tunnel through hard rock

meeting with officials of the National Coal Board in
Scotland. They discussed improving the housing in
Newtongrange, an old coal town whose Lady Victoria
Pit began production in 1896. The union was anxious to
improve the poes housing, and to do it with help

m the NCB rather than allowing private investors
fe Both sides planned a joint trip in May to South

Wales, where housing in some mining towns had al- —

ready been renovated in a co-operative union-

nment effort.
oe That evening we visited a miner’s welfare club in

_ Danderhall. Most of the miners were drinking Scotch

and beer, like most miners in western Pennsylvania
do. I got to meet the branch president, George
Montgomery, and several rank-and-file coal miners.
McGahey, vice-president George Bolton, and general
secretary Eric Clarke were also there and obviously
had the respect and friendship of everyone who came
in. George Montgomery recalled that back in 1958,
Paul Robeson had sung at the Woolmet Colliery, only
a couple of miles away from Danderhall.

The conversation ranged from American coal
miners, their own union, a title boxing match won by
the Scottish contender that night, and international
affairs, to the poetry of Robert Burns. At one point,
when I asked’McGahey why the NUM was so strong in
Scotland, he answered: ‘Our officials always keep in
close communication with the rank and file. You can
see that right here tonight. We also have youth groups
in our union, where we encourage our young miners to
become active. And there’s one more thing — we have
the Communist Party. It’s very strong in the coal
fields. The party helps provide leadership for the
union, especially here, in South Wales, and in Kent.
But the party is active in all the coal fields of Great
Britain.”

The next morning, I went down into the Moktanhall

Pit; its shafts were sunk in 1953, but production didn’t
begin until 1964. Today, 1,750 miners produce 1.1 mil-
lion tons of coal, which is used for electric power pro-
duction in south Scotland. The seam I visited was 42
inches thick and 3,000 feet deep. It was mined with
longwall cutters which moved back and forth across a
600-foot coal face. Whenever,the coal shear moves, the
face is constantly sprayed not only with water, but
with a combination of both oil and water. Along the
entries going up to the face area, there are piatforms
every 20 feet or so poled high with rock dusi i crushed
limestone); the impact of any explosion ai the face
would scatter this rock dust, preventing it from
spreading to other sections of the mine. ‘‘We got the
idea from the Polish miners,” Bolton observed.
__ Later, I mentioned to Bolton: “I’m surprised that
the miners and the bosses seem to get along so well
here. Why is that?’’ He answered: ‘‘That is no acci-
dent. We had to work for this. Today the NUM repre-
sents 100% of all coal miners, and management has to
be friendly to us. They have no choice but to treat us
right.”

The miners have already established some of the
safest mining conditions in the world, but they have
also created decent living conditions for mining
families, including many varied social and cultural
activities. The Miners’ Welfare and the CIU clubs,
coupled with the social activites of every NUM
branch, don’traise wages directly. But they buildup a
strong collective spirit which is often weak or absent
from our own coalfields. And it is no accident that a
union so active in improving the social and cultural
lives of people in their own mining communities is
also'very conscious of international relations as well.

But Britain_is still a capitalist nation, and serious
problems still face coal miners there. Mechanization
after World War II cost nearly 500,000 jobs. Not
everyone laid off found work again. Whole pits have
been, and are still being, closed, reflecting in part the
crisis in the whole capitalist world. Workers in
capitalist nations, such as coal miners or steelwor-
kers in the United States, often suffer when the
monopolies import products from countries like South
Africa (where coal is produced cheaply because min-
ers are So Severely exploited) and lay off their own
employees at home. And they suffer because
capitalist nations generally refuse to develop exten-
Sive trade relations with socialist and progressive
Third World nations.

It is obvious that tremendous advances can be
made by working people while still under capitalism.
Nationalization has improved the lives of British min-
ing families immensely since 1947, and would im-
prove the lives of American mining families too. Pow-
erful trade unions can win these inprovements. But
more is needed. The security and welfare of working
people can be fully guaranteed and protected only
under socialism. Both the struggle for immediate im-
provements and the struggle for a more just form of
society need the leadership of the Communist Party.

- The case of Britain makes this clear.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 19, 1979— Page 7