Ji

JIM ok |

FEATURES

}

7

By MIKE PHILLIPS

The headlines have died down, but the British min-
ers’ battle to protect their coal pits and the jobs and
futures of their communities and for their children
continues.

Recently, [an Ferguson, a member of the Yorkshire
area executive committee of the National Union of
Mineworkers, and branch. secretary of a local
representing the pits near Doncaster in the Yorkshire
area, assessed the outcome of that epic strike.

“People might be astounded to learn of the unity
that still remains within the union”’, Ferguson told the
Tribune during a Toronto visit last month.

‘Part of the attack against the miners was an at-.
tempt by the government to destroy the NUM, to
destroy the unity within our union and the morale of
the members. Far from this happening, I think there’s
a greater determination to continue the struggle to
defend the pits’’.

As proof he cited a survey taken by Independent
Television shortly after the miners’ return to work
March 5, that showed 68 per cent of the miners polled
said they were prepared to take industrial action again
in the defense of their pits. ,.

With the return to work, the battle has shifted to a
mobilization of the NUM to force the National Coal
Board to reinstate the 750 miners who have been fired,
as Ferguson declared ‘‘for nothing less than conduct-
ing themselves in the best traditions of any trade
unionists — fighting to save their jobs.”’

The NCB has been targetting local branch and
executive leaders in what Ferguson believes is an’

imported tactic by U.S. union-buster Ian MacGregor,
who was brought-in by Margaret Thatcher to do the
Same job on the NUM that he’d attempted on U.S.
miners and British steelworkers.

Despite-the NCB plan, local leaders who’ve been
sacked are being re-elected by their branches with
huge majorities — a signal to the government and the
employers that the miners don’t intend to have their
militant organization smashed.

Getting these miners their jobs back, and providing

Yi ILS

© findiially for thei -Ahd their Fiinilies are, aside from

the on going battle against the pit closures, the union’s
priority task. While those who’ve not been fired are
now feeling the crushing burden of the year’s huge
debt load falling around them, the sacked miners are
in a much tougher position.

The Thatcher government treated them as strikers,
and so denied them any social welfare benefits. Under
pressure, the government relented somewhat, and

started providing unemployment benefits a month
after the strike ended.

‘*An average family with two kids would be getting
about £40 a week (about $69), with an additional child
benefit of £6 (about $10) a week per child’’, Ferguson
pointed out.

To provide for the families of the sacked miners, the
NUM has set up a trust fund, financed from a volun-
tary levy of 80 cents a member, and contributions
from other British trade unions and workers through-
out the world.

Assessing how the miners’ strike ended, Ferguson
admitted, ‘‘I don’t think anybody can deny that the
way our strike was ended was a set back for the trade
union movement in Britain, but I don’t accept that the
miners were defeated.

However, they did learn that ‘‘determination and
commitment”’ alone, aren’t enough to win in a battle
with the state. What is needed is all out mobilization
of the trade union movement into action in support of
unions under attack.

er

en

OBS NOT

Thousands on the march in Sheffield, England,
demanding the reinstatement of Britain’s sacked min-

“ers.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

| Miners fight to protect pits, jobs, future

Miners’ leader lan Ferguson speaking to a Toronto
audience.

On the Trades Union Congress failure to live up to
its October convention commitment to organize such
support for the NUM, Furguson pointed to an attitude
among the leadership of fear and a sense of futility in
challenging the policies of the Thatcher government.

“It’s a crazy philosophy, because what they’re re-

cally saying is that they’re prepared to tolerate this

government, assuming Thatcher will do enough bad
things to get herself kicked out at the next general
election. It doesn’t happen that way.”

Ferguson also pointed to the fear of unemployment

among workers that creates ‘‘the biggest obstacle to

the trade union movement responding to the chal-
lenge that Thatcher is throwing down. People are
more concerned about losing jobs than fighting to
preserve them and fighting for thier rights. That state
of affairs won’t last forever though. At some stage the
people will decide ‘enough’s enough’ we’re going to
stand and fight!’

Despite the negative features, Ferguson said the
strike was distinguished by the way in which women
came to the fore, and by the political education young
miners received about the British political and eco-
nomic system. The miners welcomed the massive
international support they received, not the least of
which was the help from Canadian trade unionists
who pitched in to support the NUM, along with union
members from both the capitalist and socialist
countries.

These international connections must be main-
tained and strengthened, the miners’ leader con-
cluded.

)

H

DUNDY
MONEY:

The price
for not
working

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 26, 1985

By JIM TAIT

GLASGOW — The buying and selling
of labor power usually involves workers
and employers negotiating a price for
doing a job.

In recent times however, many British
workers and their unions have been
forced to negotiate the price for not doing
a job — the price for redundancy, or as it
has become known here: ‘‘dundy
money.”

The news that 600 workers at the Scott
Lithgow oil rig and ship yard in
Greenock on the river Clyde in Scotland
have just volunteered for redundancy
came therefore as no real surprise to
anyone.

It is the third major redundancy at the
lower Clyde yard in 18 months during
which time the workforce has been re-
duced from 4,000 to the present 2,000.

But if Scott Lithgow is in any way
typical of British industry then what is
most significant about this latest jobs
blow is that employers are steadily run-
ning out of volunteers willing to sell their
jobs for a handful of the ‘‘fool’s gold”’ of
dundy money.

Scott Lithgow was part of the state-
owned British Shipbuilders until it was
bought-over in March 1984 by the British
shipping and hotels conglomerate Tra-
falgar House in what was the first major
sale or “‘give-away”’ to a private com-
pany of a nationalized shipyard.

When Trafalgar House arrived they
demanded and got 1,000 redundancies
and sweeping changes in working prac-

tices to speed up production. They also
warned that they would reduce the work-
force to a ‘‘core’’ of 1500 if new orders
could not be found.

Those 1,000 redundancies - were
achieved through workers volunteering
to sell their jobs for a one-off lump sum
redundancy payment.

For their latest 600 redundancies
Trafalgar House also sought volunteers
with the threat of compulsory redundan-
cies if they could not get enough volun-
teers.

In principle trade unions and shop
stewards’ committees are against all
redundancies. But in shipbuilding since
the joint union-employers agreement in
1979 compulsory redundancies are the
unions’ bottom line while the evil of
voluntary redundancies was regarded as
something the unions could not stop.

And this was the case at Scott Lith-
gow. Shop stewards chairman Bart
Monaghan said: ‘‘We have asked the
company to withdraw its compulsory re-
dundancy ultimatum and we have told
them that if any worker is made redun-
dant that will trigger off industrial
action.”

He added: ‘‘We understand the pres-
sures that make people accept redun-
dancy but our concern is not for those
who take redundancy but for the people

who want to remain at Scott Lithgow and ~
who may be made compulsorily re-.

dundant.”’
Scott Lithgow’s redundancy pay was

about $1,730 for every year of unbroken?
service. By the management’s deadline
around 400 had either enquired about of
volunteered for their dundy money. |

The company’s problem in failing to.
reach their 600 target was that earlieT
redundancies had attracted most of thé
yard’s older workers with the most to
gain financially.

After assessing the situation the com-
pany decided to extend its deadline and
make a new offer to lure younger work:
ers into the dundy money trap.

That new deal was posted up all ove! -
the yard offering all workers under 40.
years of age tax-free bonus of aboul
$3,460 in addition to their dundy money —
entitlement with the guarantee that n0
worker would get less than about $6,920. .

When the new deadline expired there
were enough volunteers and the com-—
pany reported that 599 workers would
lose their jobs. E

The company had eventually got theif
volunteers and stepped nearer their ai™
of a 1,500 core workforce. For the work-
ers, their principle of no compulsory
redundancies was kept intact without re
sort to industrial action.

With well over four million unem
ployed (the government falsely claims
3.2 million or 13 per cent of the working
population) the dundy money syndromé
has all too often become a regular feature
of labor bargaining.

First of a two-part series. Next week: How
the redundancy scheme came to be. A