LABOR

- British miners strike
fo save coal industry

Special to the Tribune
LONDON — The right to ajob and the

survival of the British-coal industry are [J

the key factors which have propelled the

four-week-old strike by the 184,000- |} yo

member National Union of Mine-
workers, (NUM).
With all of the forces of monopoly and

Thatcherism arrayed against it, including |

the courts, police, media and even scabs
within union ranks, the NUM is in the

grips of one of the most critical battles of f :

its history. The NUM strikes have shut
down 138 of the country’s 170 pits.

Taking up its responsibility to British
miners and the country’s working class,
the NUM has engaged Margaret That-
cher’s Tory government in a deadly bat-
tle to scuttle the government’s plan to
butcher the state-run coal industry, and
wreck the future: of thousands of
‘workers.

The union.charges that National Coal
Board chairman, Ian MacGregor, ap-
pointed to head the British coal industry
by Thatcher, plans to close more than 90
pits over the next four to five years and
just about slash the work force in half.

Right now, coal provides some 80 per
cent of the fuel for the country’s produc-
tion of electrical power, but NUM presi-
dent Arthur Scargill has charged that be-
hind MacGregor and the NCB’s planned
closures is the government's intention to
switch over 90 per cent to nuclear power
by the year 2020.

British coal reserves are practically in-
exhaustible, the NUM points out and by
far coal remains the country’s cheapest

source of domestic energy. The union’s —

fight is aimed at saving this industry as
well as the lives of the workers and the
’ communities dependent on coal for sur-
Vival. a

Also at stake is the prospect of the
Tory government wrenching this valu-
able resource from public hands and
‘privatizing’? whatever it hasn’t de-
stroyed through MacGregor’s plan, into
the greedy hands of the government’s
monopoly patrons.

The NUM has fought MacGregor’s
closure plans from the very beginning. In
1982 and 83 Scargill tried to get 55 per
cent support from the members for na-
tional strike action to halt the closures.

On both occasions the union fell short
as internal union divisions coupled with
the government’s threat of retaliatory pit
closings took their toll. However, an
overtime ban launched last November,
was broadly supported and cost the NCB
10 million tons in lost production valued

at $554-million. This ushered in a re- °

newed militancy as the loss of 20,000 jobs
over the past year was driven home to the
miners.

With the prospects of another 40,000
miners slated to be propelled this year

into the ranks of Britain’s 4.5 million job- .

less, the awareness that now is the time
to resist before it’s too late has grown
strongly within NUM ranks.

When 56,000 Yorkshire miners im-
mediately responded to the announce-
ment of two pit closures in the region
with a strike March 5, the fuse was lit by
the NCB for the militant confrontation
that has developed.

On March 6 the union’s entire Scottish
district came out in support of the York-
shire strikers bringing their numbers to
70,000. That figure steadily climbed to
100,000 when miners from Kent,
Durham and South Wales joined the
strikes, leaving those miners dominated
under right-wing leadership, in the mid-
lands and northern England still at work.

Miners’ leader, Scargill, battles media
and government hatred to save jobs.
However flying pickets were sent out
from the struck areas to set up picket
lines at many of these locations and by
the middle of the second week of the

strikes more than 130,000 NUM mem- -

bers were on the street demanding the
Thatcher government scrap. its closure
program.

It is in those areas where the right wing
has control of the district leadership that

the strikes have been the weakest and

calls for a union-wide vote on the NUM’s
actions have been heard. This despite the
fact that the loudest calls for such a vote
come from the Tory government and the
big business media, and the fact that al-
ready some three-quarters of the NUM
membership have voted for the strikes
with their feet. oe

Scargill answers the media’s incessant
cry for such a vote by noting that the
Thatcher government didn’t put either
the Falklands war or its decision to blow
$18.5-billion on the Trident missile sys-
tem to any ballot.

He also points out that unlike Thatcher
and her appointee MacGregor, he was
elected by an overwhelming majority of
NUM members.

While exaggerating the divisions and
preying on every hint of violence as
strikes defend themselves from the
police, little mention is made in the media
of the government’s deployment of some
7,000-10,000 specially trained police to
head off the flying pickets in the so-called
““moderate”’ coal fields. In one instance
the police actually stopped a group of
Kent miners on their way to join a picket
line in Nottinghamshire: The NUM chal-
lenged such blatant abuse of police
power in court but failed to get an injunc-
tion to restrain the police. ;

The decision prompted a miner’s
leader in Kent to comment: ‘‘We’re on
strike simply because we want the right
to work. It is hypocrisy for the Chief
Constables, judges and ministers to say
they are defending the right to work.”’

The striking miners have also won the
support of some key sections of the
British-labor movement including the
seamen’s union which is refusing to
move coal imports while the strike is on,
and both railway unions who are advis-
ing their members not to cross NUM
picket lines. ‘

Scargill ignores the barrage of hatred
vented toward him by the media and
focusses his members’ attention on the
formula for success. ‘‘Provided my
membership remains loyal and com-
mitted-to the union’, he said on a recent
television broadcast, “‘in two or -three
years’ time they’ll be able to look back
and say: we fought not only to save our pit
and our job, but the job prospects of our
sons and daughters.”

UNION’S FEARS VALIDATED

OTTAWA — The union representing
federal meat inspectors released docu-
mented proof, March 27 that more than
15,000 kilos of meat where’shipped out of
a Calgary packing plant without a single
piece being inspected.

The discovery verifies warnings the
union has been issuing since Ottawa’s
introduction of a looser inspection policy
in an effort to pinch pennies, that Cana-
dians are being threatened by the new
policy with the danger of. eating con-
taminated meat.

Fred Coates, president of the Public
Service Alliance of Canada’s Agri-
cultural Union, released the proof in a
copy of an Agriculture Canada ‘‘Report
on Vehicles or Products Received in Un-
satisfactory Condition’’ dated March 19
showing that 15,757 kilos of fresh dres-
sed beef hips arrived at Intercontinental
Packers Ltd., in Vancouver, from Mon-
tagne Meats in-Calgary.

Quoting from the Agriculture Canada
report, Coates noted that, ‘‘not one hip
was stamped with inspection legend”’.
This means that the meat wasn’t in-

~ spected and that there was no means of

verifying where it came from, the union

-inspections and looser controls OV

_ public service employees, they risk be!

Meat slips inspection |

Canada to get the government to scl@P is
new Frequency of Inspection, of ¥ al
program which replaces the traditio®
system where each piece of meat ha a
be stamped by federal inspectors wil
new method of random, spot chee
er ae
cess to fedéral inspection stamps. he
PSAC has been urgently warningé 2
public of the dangers to public health :
the new system, and has publicly a
vealed that already thousands of kilos 4
meat have been rejected by Britain a”
the U.S. because of contamination. . 4
By raising these warnings, Coates oi
March 27, after releasing the governme
report, ‘‘the Alliance is passing 09 7”
formation. provided by the meat 7
spectors it represents. They can’t make
public themselves, because as ies

fired if they speak to the public or to the

news media on the hazards of the ©

program. 4
On March 26, Coates took fede i
Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelat
task for.the FOIL program saying it We
‘ludicrous’? and ‘‘deceitful’’ for th
minister to pretend that reduced me

leader told reporters. ~

tion of the meat on arrival in Vancouver
as ‘‘unsatisfactory’’.

meat inspectors’ battle with Agriculture

inspection will result in a better ove™
level of inspection. — : eo .
“This hypocritical statement !
contradicted by Whelan himself who
admits that he would like to increase #
number of inspectors but isn’t doing ®
because of restraint’’, Coates said.

The federal report described the condi-

This development is the latest in the

ie

(A
SM LaborBriefs _

Loe: '
Reject Teamsters CLC urges Typos

OTTAWA — Praising the Canadian caucus of the International Typographical
Union for urging Canadian ITU members to reject a takeover of their union by
the Teamsters in a forthcoming merger referendum in May, Canadian Labot

Congress president Dennis McDermott last week urged Canadian ITU members
to vote against the proposed merger. a

The CLC warned that an ITU-Teamster marriage would “cut long-standing —
ties of solidarity and friendship” between the ITU and the rest of the Canadian
trade union movement. The Teamsters were expelled from the AFL-CIO in the
early 60s for corrupt leadership, and from the CLC shortly after. . ;

McDermott also stated: “in the unlikely event the total North American vote
favors merger with the Teamsters, I want to assure the Canadian ITU members
that they will always find a home within the CLC and the legitimate Canadian
labor movement.” ; :

Eaton’s workers get their union

BRAMPTON — The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union has
cracked that bastion of anti-union paternalism, the T. Eaton Co., having won
recognition by the Ontario Labor Relations Board as the representative of 125
workers in the company’s local branch here.

The board in a unanimous decision, March 28, accepted the application for
automatic certification after the union showed it had signed up 85 per cent of the
workers in the store over a six week period of campaigning. The board dismissed
allegations by one opponent of the union drive that she was watched and harassed by
the pro-union forces, as the normal by-play of forces in any situation where workers
are seeking to get organized. : 3

Union organizer John Clark called the workers’ victory historic and said that as"
long as other Eaton’s, the Bay, Simpson’s or other retail industry workers show
interest in the union, the RWDSU will be glad to help them out. The union has also
applied to certify 125 St. Catharine’s Eaton’s workers and is holding meetings in
Toronto testing the waters for a drive to organize the company’s flagship Eaton’s
Centre.

Carole Currie, the other RWDSU organizer in the Brampton campaign said
plans are moving very well to sign up the Eaton’s Centre staff, though she
reiterated the union’s interest in the workers at the other department stores. She
said more than 3,000 workers attended a mass meeting March 28, organized by the
union to explain its plans to organize the Eaton’s 6,000 Metro Toronto workers.
More such meetings are planned. i

More women added to CLC executive

OTTAWA — The CLC executive council decided last week to expand its
numbers by six extra positions, exclusively reserved for women. The move, which’
will be ratified by the biennial convention next May, will bring the number of
women on the 32-member council to 10 and reflect the 30 per cent of Canada’s
trade union movement who are women. The decision came on the recommenda-
tion of the Congress’ Women’s Committee.

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 4, 1984