stronger than ever By MIKE PHILLIPS This is a story of war, of people brutalized by the forces of privilege and authority, of torture, kidnap, terror and more. It isn’t happening in the places we normally associate with such brutality and terror, like Chile, South Africa or Northern Ireland. This is a story about the class warfare going on today in Great Britain outside the coal pits, steel mills, and on the docks as part of the 25-week old British coal miners’ strike. At stake is whether Margaret Thatcher's neo-conser- vative economic program will win out and working people, British miners in the first place, will be forced to pay for the deep crisis consuming the world capitalist system. The miners hit the street March 12 protesting the National Coal Board’s plan to immediately wipe out some 20,000 jobs by closing down 20 coal pits, the Tory government says are not profitable. The National Union of Mineworkers, which has been able throughout the strike to shut down about 80 per cent of the country’s coal production, says the strike will not . end until the NCB drops its plan. The NUM says that in reality some 70,000 jobs and 70 pits are threatened by the NCB, and further warns that Britain with its lack of abundance of coal reserves would be sabotaging its future and that of its workers if it was to carry on with the Tory scheme. Calling for *‘Victory to the Miners’’; the NUM has been able to rally dock workers, seamen, railway work- ers and other transport workers around the miners. There have also been encouraging signs of growing international support. For what’s at stake isn’t just vic- tory or defeat for the miners, the preservation of the coal industry and miners’ jobs, but the very survival of the organized trade union and labor movements in Britain. Turning Point The miners argue that their fight must be the turning point in the government’s stratégy to hand over the country’s publicly-owned industries to the multi- national corporations and in the process maximize pro- fits by driving down the people’s living standards. The only obstacle to carrying such a plan through, however is the organized trade union movement. So Thatcher’s neo-conservative game plan demand a show- down with labor. That’s why Thatcher and her govern- ment and police are taking their best shot here, at trying to smash the unions. The government has indicated it is willing to spare no expense to achieve this goal. NCB chairman Ian Mac- Gregor, an American brought in by Thatcher at about $1-million a year to dismantle the coal industry and ready it for privatization, has admitted to the union that the strike has cost over two billion pounds sterling, and seen the country lose 46-million tons of coal. Torture, Kidnap, Terror British miners haven't been spared any brutality or indignity as the Thatcher government and its National Riot Force unleash their violence against the miners. Workers are prevented from travelling from one district to another, particularly in the Yorkshire and Notting- hamshire counties, where some of the hottest battles of the strike have taken place. Workers’ homes are searched illegally, people are turned back from entering certain towns by police road- blocks. Several thousand miners have been arrested, (3,758 between March 14 and June 28), hundreds have been injured by police and on the picket line, and two NUM members have been killed defending their picket lines and the right to strike. Particularly in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire miners are being individually harassed by police, their families are systematically terrorized, and along with their wives 8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 7, 1984 But repression grows As a woman cries out for help for an injured miner, a mounted policeman prepares to bring a truncheon crashing down on her head. Only the speedy response of another miner who charged the, woman to the ground, saved her from serious head injuries. Below a middle aged miner fares less well and is pursued and knocked to the ground. Such violence occurs with sickening regularity on the : miners’ picket lines. Two miners have already been killed by scabs. News of police atrocities are censored from the British media. | | | ! i they’re being threatened with arrest for ‘“‘harboring”’ travelling miners from other districts who are helping to mobilize strike support. Others report of being kidnapped, handcuffed and beaten by police. Torture at the hands of the police is also becoming alarmingly frequent. One miner reported to his executive in the Yorkshire area of having been beaten, handcuffed, choked with a truncheon and having pieces of paper rammed up his nose by a policeman. Such everyday police violence against the strikers was finally brought to light with the sadistic behavior of the police and the National Riot Force during the last week in May at the Orgreave Coking Depot in Yorkshire, which was covered by the media. Calculated Attack While painted in the establishment media as a violent outburst by the miners against the police it was in fact a well-rehearsed and calculated exercise by the NRF and: the Thatcher cabinet. With massive police forces in evidence, some 6, 000 officers backed by horses and vicious dogs, highly paid scab truckers, and the NRF’s manoeuvering of the min- ers into Orgreave in the first place, this was to be the major confrontation of the strike that would smash the union. Rather than weaken the miners’ resolve, Orgreave and all the other violence hurled at them by Thatcher and her government have bound the union together more tightly than ever. Throughout the strike, despite desperate at- tempts by the government to organize a back to work movement, and despite the massive propaganda barrage against the NUM and its militant president Arthur Scar- gill, they have kept most of the coal industry idle. The strikers, in fact are gaining strength in the know]- ( é ‘ | 4 a ¢ ] t edge that as fall approaches, Britain’s inadequate cal reserves are even lower now than they were during 1974 strike that brought down Edward Heath’s Le government. At that time Heath had to put the coun on a three-day work week because reserves had drop to 17-million tons. The NUM points out that the currett . reserves amount to only 15-million tons, and no govelm , ment can afford to go into autumn in such a position. Powerful Solidarity - Secondly, other unions, like transport workers, th seamen, and the doctors have shown their active solidar | ity. The dockers, last week launched their second me tional strike in support of the miners, while a massivt ; grass roots support movement is thriving throughout tht» country, flooding the NUM offices with money and foot The miners, like their union leadership are confident that time is on their side, and that in the end the suppot of the British working class will assure them victor), , Indeed, support for the Tory government has falleh sharply since the strike, and Thatcher’s reactionary pd ’ icy is creating deep splits within the party and even th , cabinet. Current opinion polls show the Labor Party fol . and a half points ahead of the Tories, and the latter ata , all-time low in public opinion. , i: This advance in public opinion for Labor contradiclt , the views held by the right wing leaders of the Trait , Union Congress that launching a massive fight again , the government’s policies will isolate the labor move , ment and turn the public against it. In fact just the opposite is happening as the people Britain see labor fighting for the country’s future, for jobs and a better living standard. For those in Canada wht , think a militant trade union movement, fighting ft. peoples needs is a handicap, there is a powerful lessor be learned from the British miners.