LABOR

British miners hold on
_. despite offensive from
_ Thatcher, police, courts

Tribune Combined Sources

Embattled British coal miners,
on strike across the country against.
a plan by the National Coal Board
to close down 70 mines and lay off
some 70,000 miners, are remaining
firm despite the massive forces
arrayed against them from police,
the courts and the Tory govern-
ment of Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher.

Thousands of miners were bar-
ring the National Union of Mine-
workers’ headquarters in South
Wales to prevent bailiffs seeking to
carry out a court order levying a
fine of 50,000 pounds against the

union for defying an injunction.

The union is reported to have
transferred its funds to foreign
banks to avoid seizure.

NUM president Arthur Scargill
met last week with the executive of
the Trades Union Congress to dis-
cuss further support for the miners

who have been on the picket line
for nearly 22 weeks in defence of
their members’ jobs.

The miners’ stand, which has
inspired an outpouring of support
from Britain as well as around the.
world, has also defied predictions
by the Thatcher government and
the government-appointed National
Coal Board that the workers could
not possibly hold out so long and
would be forced to concede.

But hold out they have — in the
face of a staggering deployment of
police against them.

More police than have ever
before mobilized against. striking
workers have been brought in —

“15,000 police were used -on one
Nottinghamshire picket line alone
— to breach picket lines and to
prevent miners from reaching
scabs.

Hundreds of miners have been
hurt in the police actions which
have often included military-style
charges by mounted constables.
Between Mar. 14 and June 28, a
total of 3,758 miners were arrested.

The Thatcher government has
made the strike a centre of its cam-
paign to rationalize British indus-
try and turn major sections over to
private monopoly. Consequently,
the NUM struggle against pit clo-
sures and the layoff of thousands
of British miners has provoked a
ferocious propaganda campaign
‘both from the government and
from much of the British press.

Thatcher, in an attempt to
invoke the same jingoism that bol-
stered her flagging popularity dur-
ing the Falklands campaign, has
linkened the miners to the Argen-
tinian army, referring to them.as
“the enemy within.” But it is a

charge that has drawn more deri-
sion that support and, if anything,
has added to the thousands of
donations of gifts and cash that

‘have poured in to miners’ families.

And the comment by Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson
on the closing day of Parliament
before summer recess — that
whatever the cost of the miners’
strike, it “represents a worthwhile
investment for the nation” — dem-
onstrated even more clearly that the
government and the National Coal
Board were utterly callous in their
disregard for the thousands~ of
miners who would be thrown on to
the unemployment rolls.

Mick McGahey, NUM vice-
president, has charged that Thatcher
“wants to destroy public owner-
ship of the coal mines and return
them to the private sector.”

Ian McGregor, the chairman of
the coal board, was brought in
from the U.S. by Thatcher to carry
out the mine closure plan at a
salary of nearly $1 million annually.

McGregor came from U.S. Steel
Corporation where he had been
one of the chief architects of the
major steel plant closure’ program
carried out over the past few years
in the U.S.

- He is still a partner in the Wall
Street firm of Lazare Frerers,
which is connected with Duke
Power Co. of Harlan County,
Kentucky. Duke Power sought to
smash the United Mineworkers of
America organizing campaign at
the Brookside mine in Harlan
County, a campaign that was later
made internationally famous in

Barbara Kopple’s film “Harlan.

Country, U.S.A.” That film is now
doing the rounds in Britain.
Unionists in other - countries
have caught the significance of the
British miners’ battle and support
has poured in. Miners’ unions in
Australia and France have already
embargoed coal bound for Britain
and the International Mineworkers
Union, which takes: in miners’
unions in the socialist countries
and to which the NUM is affiliated,

has pledged to embargo coal for
Britain. Last month, the Swedish
Trade Union Federation, the main
labor central in the country,
announced it was sending material
aid to the British miners and their
families. That was followed shortly
after by an ammouncement of aid
from the Danish Special Workers’
Union.

There have also been resolutions
backing the British miners in their
struggle from around the world
including this ‘country.

That support has been particu-
larly welcome for the miners
because after -more than five
months of strike, they are increas-
ingly hard-pressed. The govern-
ment had counted on hunger
forcing them to accept the pit clo-
sure plan but as the weeks go by, it
is government support which is
declining, not that for the miners.

A poll conducted at the end of
July for the Guardian found that
the Thatcher government was at its

lowest point in the public opinion .

polls in three years. The polls

_ showed that the Labour Party,

which has been behind for most of
those three years, was.now ahead
by 4% points.

The. turnaround has .belied
claims by some within the Trades
Union Congress — as well as
some union leaders in this country
— that mounting a major fight
against the government’s conser-
vative economic policies would
turn public opinion against the
labor movement. In fact, the oppo--
site has happened and the miners’
strike is being watched by unions
throughout the capitalist world
who themselves face governments
out to rationalize industry and cut
the work force. ;

NUM president Scargill’s meet-
ing with the TUC last week may
also have a bearing on events at the

‘TUC annual congress set for early

September. The TUC already has a
resolution before it from the
Transport Workers and the NUM
for a one-day stoppage in support
of the miners.

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8 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 8, 1984

Newfoundland trawlers strike
versus wage freeze

ST. JOHN’S — Some 800 trawlermen employed by Fishery
Products International (FPI), a company which is controlled
by the federal government, went on strike last week against

the employer’s contract proposal, which the Newfoundland ;

Fishermen, Food and Allied Workers Union says would

freeze the fishermen’s wages for a minimum of four or five —

years. a

The union conducted a strike vote among the trawlermen it”
June but continued negotiations with FPI right up to the eve of
the strike which brought all of the federally-controlled com: —

pany’s 61 deep-sea fishing trawlers back to port. E oat

FPI was the recipient of massive doses of provincial ant
federal government money last year to help restructure the —
Newfoundland fishery, but union president Richard Cashin
accuses both levels of government with bungling the project -
by ignoring the workers’ and fishermen’s needs. He says the —
FPI wage-freeze proposal is totally unacceptable particularly

since the workers have already been under a wage freeze for |
the past two years. ° oe

AFL rescues

embattled farmer

EDMONTON — ‘“‘It’s a gesture of solidarity’’, Alberta
Federation of Labor president Dave Werlin said last week as
he delivered a cheque for $6,600 to farmer George Payeur of
New Sarepta Alberta, a farming community 65 kilometres
southeast of here.

Payeur was under the gun by a finance company that was —
intent on repossessing his $21,000 bale wagon because the
beleaguered farmer has missed two payments because of an
injury.

The finance company; Sperry-New Holland Credit Corp.;
in Calgary flatly refused the farmer’ s offer to pay off his debt in
three installments, $1,000 now, $2,000 later in the summer and
the balance next year. :

Payeur was aided by some 25 members of the Alberta chap- —

_- ter of the Canadian Farm Survival Association who converged

on his farm and used their cars to block his driveway tO —
prevent sheriff's officers from taking the machine away.

_ The Lougheed government turned a deaf ear to the farmers’ _
protests. : ‘ i
Werlin presented the cheque to Payeur as a loan, which the
grateful farmer has promised to repay as soon as possible. —
Werlin said the federation took this step, “‘to give govern
ments a signal that labor supports farmers and the govern-
ments better bloody well do something to help the farmers in

Alberta and throughout Canada.”’

ITU-Teamster merger _ 2 <= |

foes sweep Typo vote

COLORADO SPRINGS — The team that was backing Bob - |

McMichen for president of the International Typographical

Union on a platform opposing the union’s planned absorption i )

by the Teamsters swept to victory in the final count last week

of a U.S.-government supervised re-run of the union’s leader- |

ship elections.

McMichen, whose earlier 5,000 vote edge over incumbent —
president Joe Bingle was challenged by the latter, defeated his —
rival once more by a-vote of 28,167 to 15,296. Bingle, the —
architect of merger with the Teamsters tried to use the intel" _
vening period leading to the re-run to ensure the Teamster

takeover.

The election of McMichen and the three other candidates OP ~

his slate give the ITU executive a majority against the Team

ster merger, making it likely that a planned merger. referendum
set for Sept. 19 will be dropped. Bingle’s running mate, Tom —
Kopeck, and unopposed Canadian Alan Heritage, who sup” ~
ported the takeover were re-elected. :

McMichen and the forces supporting him on both sides of
the border, including the entire Canadian ITU convention ~

_ delegates’ caucus representing the top locally-elected ITU

leadership across the country, consistently projected a merget
with the Graphic Communications International Union as the
preferred alternative to Teamsters takeover... ee
They argued that such a move was more consistent with the
traditional drive within the printing trades toward the forma
tion of one powerful printing and graphic communications -
industrial union. Unlike the Teamsters, the GCIU is an af-

{filiate of both the Canadian Labor Congress and the AFL-CIO.

An ITU-GCIU merger could now open the door to the

long-awaited one big union in the industry withthe inclusion - |

the Newspaper Guild, which was on the verge of merging with |
the ITU when the campaign to sell the ITU off to the Team”
sters was launched, by Bingle and company. |