LABOR

‘With your support, we will win’: NUM

Special to the Tribune

EDMONTON — The Canada-wide solid-
arity tour on behalf of Britain’s striking coal
miners is off and running.

Backed by a letter of introduction from
Britain’s Trades Union Congress, striking
coal miner Frank Clarke and his wife, Val,
launched their solidarity tour on behalf of
the National Union of Mineworkers Oct. 24
with a meeting here which drew more than

150 trade union members and strike sup-
porters.

More than $2,000 was raised in support
of the nine-month strike to save 20,000 coal
miners’ jobs and the future of mining com-
munities threatened by the Thatcher
government’s plan to close some 20 pits.

This will be the immediate result of the
National Coal Board’s rationalization plan,
which the NUM reports will eventually
cripple the coal industry by closing more
than 70 pits and sending a total of 70,000
coal miners into the ranks of the millions of

unemployed in Britain.

Clarke stressed that shutting the pits, and
wiping out a secure future for thousands of
miners, their children and mining commun-
ities throughout Britain was, in his opinion,
a secondary objective to the Tory govern-
ment’s main target — smashing the NUM
and breaking the back of the TUC itself.

“As far as the miners are concerned,” he
said, “‘we’re living in a police state atmos-
phere where all of our rights are being sus-
pended and we are in constant danger of
illegal arrest, detention and police vio-
lence.”

Miners’ homes are being broken into and
miners have been dragged from their beds
by police and detained for up to 96 hours
without charges being laid on suspicion of

planning to picket against new laws limiting
labor’s traditional right in Britain to engage
in secondary picketing.

They are no longer free to travel their
country’s highways because police road-
blocks have the power to turn back miners
who can be identified as strikers. And the
police, both mounted and in riot gear, have
been violently unleashed against the strikers
in unprecedented numbers throughout the
country.

The Tory government has also tried to

starve the miners and their families into
submission by denying social benefits to
unemployed and pregnant women asso-
ciated with the strike. :

It has reduced social benefits from £23 to
£8 for family heads out of work — including
those out of work as a’ result of strike
action — while at the same time deducting
this benefit from pregnancy allowances for
women whose husbands are on strike. A
family of four ekes out an existence on £8 a
week while unmarried strikers get nothing.

EDMONTON — Frank and Val
Clarke, touring Canada on behalf of Bri-
tain’s striking National Union of Mine-
workers, are here with the full backing of
the powerful British Trades Union Con-

ess.

A letter, signed by TUC general secre-
tary Norman D. Willis confirms that the
Clarkes have the trade union centrals’
support and it urges Canadian unions
and their members to channel all dona-
tions for the miners through the Cana-
dian Labor Congress.

The letter, dated Oct. 22, introduces

inform Canadian trade unionists of the
dispute between the National Union of
Mineworkers and the National Coal
Board in Britain and to seek support.
“The TUC fully supports the NUM in
their campaign to save their jobs and
communities by stopping the National
Coal Board pit closures,” Willis writes.
The TUC executive continues: “Mr.

British TUC backs miner’s tour

the Clarkes as “visiting Canada to‘

and Mrs. Clarke will seek contributions
for the humanitarian relief of striking
miners.

“The TUC appeals for assitance for
the miners and their wives and children
and the Canadian Labor Congress has
responded generously to the appeal
made through the International Confed-
eration of Free Trade Unions.”

Frank Clarke is a rank and file coal
miner who’s been mining since he was 15
years old. He dnd his wife, Val have three
children, the eldest Steven is an 18 year-
old miner. Clarke is an executive
member of both the NUM and the Brit-
ish Labor Party, and is on the NUM’s
Yorkshire Area executive, reprsenting 22
NUM branches in the Barnsley area.
He’s also a member of the Yorkshrie
area strike co-ordinating committee, and
Val is an active member of the wives’
support committee. An office cleaner at
the mines, she has refused to cross the
NUM picket line.

- you can.”

What has kept the miners on their f
Clarke reported, is the tremendous supf
the NUM is receiving from the British tr
union movement and public aid and ff
the generous assistance of unions arol
the world including Canada, Scandina’
the Soviet Union, France, Australia, \
Zealand and elsewhere.

‘“We’re determined to win,” Clarke t
his Edmonton audience. |

“And there’s no question that we will
as long as we keep getting the same kin
international support we’ve received sO
That’s why we’re so pleased this tour’
arranged. We chose to come to Can
rather than remain with out members
the picket lines because we know |
important it is for us to tell you our St
and to encourage you to help us as muc

Dave Werlin, president of the Alb
Federation of Labor, one of the key SP

“sors of the Canadian tour, said the Br

miners’ struggle is of tremendous imf
tance to unions all over the capitalist wo
particularly in Canada where unions
under attack by provincial Tory gov!
ments and where the Tories have scof
powerful majority in parliament.

“‘We must make sure the miners win!
battle or their defeat will be a sign
Tories everywhere that unions can
beaten and that this is the time to atta¢
he said.

He urged Canadian workers to dig di
in solidarity with the NUM, and said thal
funds collected in Alberta for the strih
will be forwarded through the Canad
Labor Congress to the TUC. :

Miners deserve better than McDermott’s doubts

Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever ... or perhaps
not forever. Perhaps not even solidarity. It seems in the
view of some Canadian trade union officials, solidarity is
something best reserved for the struggle against social-
ism, not the struggle against capitalism.

Thus we find the eagerness with which the president of
the Canadian Labor Congress, Dennis McDermott
championed the cause of Poland’s Solidarnosc does not
translate into similar enthusiasm for the British coal
miners.

After having refused a request of the Alberta Federa-
tion of Labor to sponsor a tour for the British miners in
Canada, McDermott has since sent a letter out to
members of the executive council of the CLC, ranking
officers of affiliated organizations and labor councils,
distancing the CLC from such a tour which was spon-
sored initially by the Alberta Federation of Labor, Dis-
trict 18 of the United Mineworkers Union and the
Grande Cache Local of the United Steelworkers.

Not Asked, CLC Protests

In a letter dated Oct. 4, he has the following to say,
after protesting that neither the British Trades Union
Congress nor the National Union of Mineworkers of
Britain had asked the CLC to sponsor such a tour:
“Furthermore the purpose of such a visit would be to
produce material humanitarian assistance to the belea-
guered miners and their families.

‘‘We are compelled to take this position because we
must face the unfortunate reality that outside the ques-
tion of humanitarian assistance, the dispute in Britain
has engendered divisions in the British Trades Union
Congress, sister trade union central body, and the CLC
will not willingly foster these divisions.

‘Further, the CLC has considerable difficulty ration-
alizing a position which would provide support for a visit
to Canada by representatives of the NUM given the
regrettable negative attitude expressed by that union’s
senior leadership toward the Miners International
Federation, and even of greater significance, the denun-
ciation of the Polish Solidarity movement and approval

of the Jaruzelski regime, which ironically is busy export- —

ing strikebreaking coal to Britain.”
A few words on the content of the remarks. Both the

Labor in action

William Stewart

British Trades Union Congress and the British Labor
Party, meeting in convention, overwhelmingly voted to
support the British miners’ strike, not just for humani-
tarian reasons but for the very issue of job and commu-
nity survival which lies behind the strike. The splitters in
these circumstances are surely those few unions who
refuse to back the TUC and Labor Party and with-
hold their support from the courageous miners. Just
exactly how McDermott can blame the miners for the
refusal of some unions to support a cause endorsed by
the highest tribunal of workers in Britain, requires some
explaining.

On the issue of ‘‘Polish Solidarity’’ we have an even
stranger configuration. If anything ever split the trade
union and labor movement of the world it was Soli-
darnosc. The trade union movement in the capitalist
countries was, and remains split on the issue of the
events in Poland. This did not for one minute, however,
impede president McDermott in his lavish support of
Solidarnosc — at a time, incidentially, when unity was
essential in the fightback against big business and its
governments in Canada and worldwide.

Principled Struggle

But in any case one can accept that fact. Fundamental
questions arose in the ‘‘Polish Solidarity’’ issue which
remain today inside the trade union and labor move-
ment. No one, least of all this column, wishes to avoid
the ongoing debate on those differences. To raise the
spectre of Solidarnosc, however, as a means to weaken
support for the great principled struggle being waged by
the British coal miners, demeans the position of the
president of the Canadian Labor Congress.

Every bit of support which can be mustered behind the

miners’ cause needs to be generated. Not just, or evel
primarily, for humanitarian reasons, but rather becaust
their struggle is ours, and their victory will be ours, as U®
Metro Toronto Labor Council noted in a letter to
affiliates urging such support. ‘a

Just as the struggle of the Metalworkers Federatio.
Germany for shorter hours, was of great internati
significance to the capitalist world trade union m
ment, so is the heroic battle of the British miners. It
an example, for workers in all capitalist countries
they do not have to stand by while their jobs and
future of their communities are sacrificed to the needS
giant national and multinational corporations, OF ©
governments acting on their behalf. 3

Canadian workers have a right to expect such le
ship from the Canadian Labor Congress. In fact
nine-point fightback program, which seems not to!
gotten off the paper since the CLC conven
demanded just such struggle and solidarity. Perhaps
fact that the nine-point program was brought into ©
convention in spite of, and not because of Mr. Mc
mott, has something to do with his attitude to its imP™
mentation. Perhaps, as well, upcoming provincial lab
federation conventions may be reminding the CLC 0
commitments.

Our Full Support

It is to the credit of the Alberta Federation of La!
the Saskatchewan Federation of Labor, the B.C Fed
tion of Labor and the Vancouver Labor Council
are sponsoring the tour of British miners in the west,
they have declined McDermott’s advice to cold-shoullde
the tour of Brother Clarke and his wife, Val, who ®
currently touring Canada asking, not just for human!
ian assistance, but basic trade union solidarity inclue”
dollars, but most of all our full support, whatever ©
may require. to win a victory for them and us 11 ©”

critical battle. : | |
It is not too late tor the Canadian Labor Congres? —

rethink its attitude to this whole battle and the cUr™,
tour. Let’s leave our differences on ‘‘Solidarity Polat
to be resolved in the future. How about solidarity nip
with our doughty brothers and sisters in the British
ers. ig

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 31, 1984