What next for the NUM?
information, details from the receiver - is that it is unlikely that they have more than 21,000-22,000 members. In Nottinghamshire [an area where most of the pits were working throughout the strike], we have 4,500 loyalist NUM members out of a total labour force of 24,500. Miners are rejoining the NUM at a rate of 50 per week
IT'S OVER a year since the end of the British miners' strike. During that time, 25 pits have been closed resulting in the loss of over 8,000 jobs. In total, nearly 33,000 jobs have been lost in the coal industry - mainly through voluntary redundancies.
Here, Peter Heathfield, the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers [NUM], gives his assessment of the current situation for the union. This is part of an interview given in April 1986 to Finn
Jensen, a supporter of the British weekly newspaper, Socialist Action.
in the mining industry and in the NUM
Answer. Looking first at the state of the industry, it's pretty obvious that the industry is once more under attack. The decline in oil prices have situation prevailing in the midsixties, when coal lost its traditional markets to fuel oil At that time, oil was being almost given away by the multinational
Central Electricity Generating Board
(CEGB, the state-owned electricity producer) is talking about converoil and linking this with its intention to import 40 million tons of cheaper coal each year.
So the industry is under considerable pressure, particularly when those in charge of it are prepared to apply
"market-force the situation. Energy can't be treated like manufacturing industry and short- term experiences shouldn't dominate the scene. There are enormous pressures with more threats to employment and talk of further cutbacks.
We are still in the middle of a very difficult period.
On the trade still engaged in a legal confrontation both with the National Coal
Board INCB - the employers of the nationalized industry] and with the
• receiver who is in charge of our affairs. (1) But I'm not at all pessimistic about the outcome of all this, as it is an attack on well-established conciliation and consultation procedures. Ian MacGregor [ the NCB's chairman] is also attacking the miners' scheme and the industry's pension social welfare organization.
Why are the union's funds
Q.
still being controlled by the receiver?
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Because the appointed by the courts. came to see us in November 1985, he said it would only take a few weeks to sort out. And here we are in April and he is still controlling the union's
This has made life very difficult. We are prevented from functioning like a normal trade union. Our expenditure is restricted by the receiver -he only pays those bills he wants to pay, others he just refuses to pay.
The receiver has also to charge myself, Arthur Scargill [NUM president] and Mick McGahey [NUM vice-president] with the costs incurred in recovering NUM funds from European banks. It is anticipated that this trial will last from 10 to 12 weeks, and inevitably they will find two or three hours of that time to declare the three of us bankrupt. The consequences of that are pretty well known - individually we face enormous problems.
Q. Have you resolved your pay claim with the NCB yet?
No, they are being difficult, which rather proves our allegations attitude to the NUM's pay claim is determined on the basis of their role as the main recruiting agents for the Union of Democratic Mineworkers [UDM - the scab union set up during the strike]. They have got this queer concept that if miners aren't able to get the wage increase immediately they will flock to join the UDM. That's not the case at all.
Q. How many members does the NUM have today, and how many miners belong to the UDM? How are you going to fight back against the UDM?
A. The UDM stated in the autumn which is relatively slow. But if we are able to get NUM recognition in Nottinghamshire (where the NCB will only recognize the UDM at present) we are confident that there will be some impetus to that switchback. Beyond the boundaries of Nottinghamshire UDM influence is minimal. Elsewhere there are less than 1,000 UDM members nationwide.
The NUM has around 135,000140,000 members. One of the problems that has emerged from the NCB's attempt to fragment the NUM has been the emergence of nonunionism. There are approximately 2,000 non-union members now in the industry.
In the last year approximately 25,000 miners have been made redundant and 25 pits have closed. But we were aware that seven of those pits were going to close in any case through exhaustion and so on. So the coal board has succeeded in taking 18 pits that we felt should have been retained. There are examples where there was militant trade union organization and the pit was losing money, so the NCB chose to close it. Significantly, it planned to close two of the Kent pits for this reason, but it has withdrawn the closure threat because the pits are now making a profit.
Q. How do you explain that up
25,000 miners accepted redundancies instead of fighting to keep their jobs?
A. Many miners left the industry because they weren't prepared to tolerate the new management regime. Others, with the debts that they incurred during the strike, inevitably saw an opportunity to straighten them out, and took advantage of the offer of voluntary redundancy with a lump sum payment. We think they were rather foolish. It is a short term expediency and will not help them to overcome the difficulties. But nevertheless people chose that as a way out.
1. During the miners' strike a receiver was appointed by the High Court to take charge of the NUM's funds. This was done after a ruling that the strike was illega because no national ballot had been on the strike action.
International Viewpoint 2 June 1986
Peter Heathfield How would the lessons from the miners' strike?
A. I would say that the principles that motivated us in March 1984 marked the politicization of a. substantial section of the working class in Britain, which was unique in the sense that we were not fighting for wages or better conditions of employment. We were fighting in defence of jobs and in defence of the mining communities. The British labour-movement scene at the moment is complicated because of our inability to achieve those objectives. My own view is that had the movement in total rallied around the British miners, Rupert Murdoch wouldn't have emerged. (2) The whole pattern of industrial relations would have been advanced rather than retarded as it is at the moment.
attacks on trade unionists, on teachers, on printworkers public services - that is continu the and on organized labour within We said during the strike that it wasn't a struggle for the miners. It was a struggle for the face of trade unionism
Britain. And there are a lot of people within the movement that are now acknowledging for the first time miner's dispute presented tremendous opportunity for the whole labour movement to fight back against Thatcherism, but it didn't take up the challenge. So we face enormous problems. But it is not a question of dispirited, downhearted despondent, because I am absolutely confident that in the course of the next two years the tide will turn and reassert our influence and authority on the economic scene.
Q. How do you think we could ensure that a future Labour government implemented socialist policies, for example, stopping the building increasing coal production?
A. What is important is that we
International Viewpoint 2 June 1986 get a Labour government that is committed to public enterprise. are already discussing with the Labour around a new plan for the coal industry. So we would anticipate that an incoming Labour government will reverse the present trend and bring to the industry a measure of stability that has been missing since
Sadly, on the question of nuclear energy, most of the nuclear stations that are coming on-stream now were authorized by the former Labour government.
One cannot ignore the military involvement in the development of nuclear energy, because it is common knowledge that plutonium is being warheads. No doubt it is coming back in the form of cruise missiles. We hope to call for a moratorium on the development of nuclear energy, leading to phasing out nuclear power
Why is it that Thatcher and the right wing of the labour movement still want to get rid of Arthur Scargill
The miners' strike cost the British government around 78,000 million pounds. Obviously their labour strategy is to defuse militant trade unionism. They see the NUM as being in the vanguard of the British labour movement and they continue to attack us for obvious reasons.
The suggestion in Ian MacGregor's book, which is being published in the autumn, that he plotted with Margaret Thatcher to plan a strike is not surprising. What is surprising is that for the first six months of the strike Thatcher said she was having nothing at all to do with it - that it was a matter for the National Coal Board to resolve. We said throughout that period that she was deeply involved. That has now been proven.
I suppose the supplementary question that arises from that response is: why did you come out on strike in the knowledge that it was a Tory of the executive is if we had not responded we would have been trampled on. It is better to have fought and not won than not to have fought at all. We resisted the pressures they were seeking to impose on us.
We didn't achieve our objective. But we think the strike had tremendous influence on the rest of the recognition that sooner or later working people have got to defend their gains of the past, defend their interests - or the capitalists will take
The National Justice for Mineworkers Campaign (3) seems to be a big success. It appears as though the NUM both inside and outside the trade unions and the Labour Party. What are your perspectives?
think it is a question of seeking to extend areas of influence beyond the Labour Party and beyond the Trades Union Congress [TUC -national federation of trade unions]. If we are to make any progress at all there has got to be a lot more political activity communities, in the mining communities and else-
We try to build that will protect the interests of working people. As a socialist I would
La broad-based socialist alliance will emerge from that kind of development. So we can hopefully develop those kinds of alliances within the trade-union movement and within the broad left.
Both Arthur Scargill and myself said in our election campaigns that we wanted the NUM to be a campaigning organization - obviously campaigning on behalf of the miners, but also on the broader issues: the problems faced by ethnic minorites, old people, the sick and injured. We have a role to play and we feel that other trade unions should be part of that campaign.
You can't look at working people's problems in isolation. You are not going to resolve all the problems of working people in negotiation with the employers. You need to be a pressure influencing those in power who are subject predominantly to the pressures imposed by multinational corporations. a campaign across the board, not on one sectarian approach, but on a broad-based front to bring about changes in society. I wish some other trade unions saw it in the same way.
Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) is the grouping you're working most closely with. There has been a decline in their activites since the strike. Do you think that some of this is due to the fact that WAPC wasn't recognized for affiliation to the NUM?
A. The emergence of women's organizations within the mining communities is an exciting development. The whole of the movement should
2. Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the News International Group of newsPaper International has sacked 5,500 printworkers. See Viewpoint, No. 97, April 21, 1986, for articles on the dispute.
3. The National Justice for Mineworkers Campaign was set up after the strike, with the support of the NUM, to fight for the reinstatement of sacked miners, the reimbursement of sequestrated NUM funds and to call for a review of all cases where miners are still serving prison sentences. See 'IV', No. 96, April 7, 1986, for details.
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learn that in struggle, if got the family, the women behind can become a forforce. In many women's action groups added a new struggle. In the meeting regularly; they are involved affairs and are still busy trying to raise money for the sacked miners. And they are a force to be reckoned
It was a disappointment for myself and Arthur Scargill that we didn't succeed in the rule-change conference in getting associate membership for WAPC. Since that time the Scotland region has accepted a proposition that members of the Scottish WAPC should be associate members of the union. And I am sure others will follow soon, so all is not lost. Many of the women are now involved in eminent public speakers still touring miners' behalf. I think been an important development for the broader labour movement. From the national union's point of view we want to promote WAPC and ensure that it continues to prosper.
It is significant also that the miners' support groups that emerged beyond the coal fields throughout the country are in many instances still active and most are now associated with the Justice for Mineworkers Campaign.
The NUM made a lot of international contacts during the miners
How many of these are you We are trying to administer the union with the impositions of the with the It is therefore very difficult the emergence of the new miners' international organization, which we are deeply involved in, will enable us to maintain international relations in that fashion.
There are about 40-43 countries affiliated to the new miners' international and we are hoping for many more in the course of the year. We are planning a major conference on unemployment, in London at the end of 1986. It is an important development for the NUM to be host to such a conference. We will be planning another international conference for 1987 on peace and detente, which is really a follow-up to the initiative taken by the NUM in 1982 and the Soviet miners in 1983, and that's an ongoing thing. So we have a deep international relationship across the political divide, and hopefully we will continue to be involved in that. 14
But there have been discussions inside the NUM around the union's international relations. You broke with the Miners' International Federation (MIF) and formed the International Miners' Organization
Some have called this an East/West division, is that the case?
A. Not at all. I don't see it in those terms at all. We left the MIF because of difficulties that were imposed on us within that organization. But it is untrue to say that the emergence of a new miners' international was just because of the difficulties that faced us in the MIF. In reality the new miners' international - to have one miners' was a concept of Joe Gormley (former president of the NUM), who felt that the divisions, the political and philosophical divisions that created two miners internationals were bad. There were those affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and those affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions. Gormley was of the opinion that a single new miners' international would be stronger and would have more
There is still a lot to do because are those who want to maintain the cold-war attitude. But the problems facing miners whether they are American, British, French, Chinese or Australian are precisely the same.
ability to overcome those difficulties depends on our ability to work together. And I am sure that in the course of the next few years we will be able to do that.
spoke recently at a labour movement conference in Manchester on South Africa. How do you see the NUM's role in the international class struggle? For example, what are your relations with the NUM in South Africa?
A. We have had a relationship with the Black African miners a pretty long time. Since the emergence of the new miners' international we have been trying to reestablish contact with Cyril Ramaphosa, the general secretary of the NUM in South Africa. It is pretty obvious that our communications to him have been intercepted. We now *Some day, son, all this will be yours. Closed pits, no work, dying communities, no future know he hasn't received any of the letters we sent him in the course of the past 18 months. However, a representative from the African National Congress (ANC) visited our national office a couple of weeks ago and he was returning to South Africa with duplicates of all the letters we had sent to Cyril. Hopewill re-establish contact
Throughout my adult life the NUM has been actively campaigning against apartheid. I can remember in the midsixties resolutions being passed at conference for the release of Nelson
That seems light years away and he is still detained in prison. We have had ANC spokespersons and representatives of the South West African Peoples Organisation at conferences and meetings. So as part of our general strategy, we are helping others that have been deeply involved in the anti-apartheid movement.
What's happened coal imported during the strike, for example from Poland?
A. We had enormous problems, and we still have a difficult relationship with the Polish miners' organization. They continue to argue that Polish coal imports to Britain were not increased during the strike, and it's a downright lie! One thing about shipping agency, it tells the truth because it is interested in money - and they were able to name the boats, the ports and so on. It was all logged. Poland virtually doubled its imports into Britain during the year of the strike.
Q. But Solidarnosc tried to oppose this. Do you have any contact with Solidarnosc?
No, we have no relationship. •.. no relationship with Solidarnose. I question whether it is a trade union. It is anti-state. Well, we have problems with them, we had problems with them.
Q. Do you think that Margaret Thatcher and the NCB would import coal from South Africa, as they have with cheap coal from the USA?
A. Yes, they'd do it tomorrow. They did it during the strike and they will do it again because of business interests. South African coal was brought into Europe during the strike - there were considerable efforts made to camouflage it. In fact it was sent to Scandinavia, blended with other coals and brought into Britain under a trade name, so it lost its identity. The Danes have taken a very positive attitude on importing South African coal and have completely banned it, which is a very important development. International Viewpoint 2 June 1986
Workers Opposition
POLAND stitutions of workers' self-management that would represent workers' ownership in the enterprises. •It is working through its provisional organs - the workers councils in the plants and the unions of work-
Alliance Program
Introduction ers' councils - which are the embryos of the future independent institutions of workers' self-management.
The totalitarian regime, based on a bureaucratic-police working through an antiworking-class and antinational party, [Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza - Polish United •Workers' Party, the