International solidarity meeting called - February 16
The second international miners' solidarity meeting organised by Socialist Action will take place on Saturday February 16 in South Wales.
in the Miners' Welfare Hall of Penrhiwceiber Lodge of the National Union of Mine-
The meeting will be addressed by leading figures in South Wales NUM and
International trade unionists and those involved in solidarity with the British miners will be very welcome. For details phone Jude or Redmond at (44) (1)
interests shared by the Tory government and the industrialists who sit on the BR Board.
The FPRS is not recognised by management. The closed shop agreement gives negotiating rights to only three rail unions, including the white collar union, the Transport and Salaried Staff Association (TSSA). Now this could all change. The 1982 Tory anti-union laws stipulated that from January 1985 the closed shop agreement will no longer have legal status unless a full 80 per cent of the workforce endorses it through a secret ballot. This ballot has not yet been held at BR
The FPRS has applied for negotiating rights in the 1985 pay round. It has the
Currently, entering its eleventh month the British miners' strike is now the longest law on its side, and it will not be shy to
At the same time it has also sparked off the largest move-
Today the FPRS is not a use the courts.
ment of international solidarity for any industrial dispute at least since the Second serious force in the industry. But it will in no way be ignored by the BR Board.
Rank-and-file trade unionists from all over the globe have been sending in dona-
To the contrary, the BRB will use the tions of food and money. In Denmark there are now 125 miners' support com-
FPRS as a welcome weapon to put presmittees across the country. Australian dockers claim to have stopped all shipment sure on the bureaucracy of the major of coal to Britain over the last ten months. Support has even arrived from trade unions in the industry.
unionists in Afghanistan who sent £10,000 and 10 tons of dried fruit!
Another serious development has been
However, coal continues to arrive in Britain from Germany, Poland, Russia, recent newspaper reports outlining plans
South Africa and even China, to the extent that coal imports have more than by supposedly 'ordinary' railworkers to doubled in the last year. If even the narrow guidelines of the TUC to maintain coal use the courts to prevent the rail unions exports at levels before the strike were adhered to, the situation could change from channelling resources to aid the
The miners have documented miners.
The solidarity shown for the miners so far illustrates that it is possible on an inhow right-wing employers' organisations are behind the so-called 'ordinary' miners ternational level to get the kind of support needed.
In Belgium, for example, support for a blockade is now very strong. Dockers the NUM who are trying to destroy in Ghent, Antwerp and Zeebrugge have agreed not to load extra shipments of through the courts.
The FPRS is a ready
As one port workers' leader explained to a BBC interviewer:
tool for such organisations.
It is a social struggle and we have met these situations in
The use of the courts against the rail
Belgium and we are maybe going to meet them in the future.
unions will be one further element of feeling of solidarity for people who are fighting to save their jobs.' the assault which is underway at every
In Australia the miners' federation has a 10 dollar per month levy on each of its level against workers in the rail industry.
building workers and longshoremen have all
Britain's bosses know that to increase contributed to the estimated 800,000 dollars (about £570,000) so far forwarded productivity to the degree they require, to the NUM. The Seamen's union and the Waterside Workers Federation have banthey must take on and defeat the rail
According to miners' leader, Arthur Scargill, unions in open combat. Today their aim
6,000 Australian workers have been laid off at one time or another as a result of is to weaken the unions as much as possible in preparation for this battle. And
The USSR has provided more than any other country in donations and money.
above all, they know they must bend over
By last November, Russian aid had reached the &1 million mark.
backwards to avoid a rail strike while the in particular have shown support with anything up to three quarters of a million roubles being raised in some regions. This kind of support has not been matched at miners are out.
the level of concrete action, for Soviet coal is still going to Britain despite initial
But if widespread industrial action by
The refusal of both the Soviet and the Polish authorrailworkers does break out, this will be ities to stop coal exports to Britain flies in the face of the solidarity shown by no thanks to the new 'left wing union rank-and-file workers the world over in support of the miners.
leadership. Instead, it will be a testimony to the power of the miners' strike and to
The bourgeois press in Britain has chosen to ignore this widespread solidarity militants like those at Coalville who are and concentrate instead on money supposedly coming from Libya.
Union of Mineworkers has effectively countered this propaganda campaign, deprepared to act on their firm class principles.
SUBSCRIBE TO
INTERNATIONAL
VIEWPOINT ternational Viewpoint 28 January 1984 in the country's history.
coal.
normal, simple strike.
13,000 members.
ned the shipment of coal to Britain.
this action.
statements to the contrary.
*..this is not a
We have a strong
Soviet miners
The meeting will be held
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International solidarity with British miners SHOW OF MINE MOS COAL NOT DOLE
this information immediately. All hospital records of victims and postmortem reports of the dead must be made public. All information - process details and toxicological data of products — of all hazardous plants in neighbouring areas [should be made available] in a