How miners could win

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THIS Friday's special conference of the NUM has ban could go on almost forever real impact hard decisions on the questions of pay and jobs.

On the wages front, even right wing dominated areas have been re- This makes it an inadequate tactic to pursue either the jobs struggle jecting the NCB's miserable 5.2% pay offer - and along with it the implicit blackmail on jobs embodied in the blunt statement by Coal The reason it is being proposed so eagerly is that NUM leaders have retreated from the fight for all out strike action.

'the final offer is based on co-operation in eliminating uneconomic Yet the only way Monktonhall can win; the only way the jobs issue can be confronted successfully; and the only way the wages issue can b . In other words even the crumbs on offer come with strings - the. won is through the fight for national strike action. acceptance of NCB plans to axe up to 70 pits and at least 70,000 jobs. The topic that should be central on the agenda of Friday's conferIn response to this, most area leaderships have been voting to reject ence is how best to create the conditions to achieve such a strike. the offer and many for a policy of a national overtime ban in support o In particular the Scottish area should be called upon to reconsider its partial, protest action around Monktonhall and go for an indefinite have wha mappears to selle ate one an in ere r The promised solidarity of the "Triple Alliance' of coal, steel and ra limited protest actions in support of the Monktonhall miners on strike unions should be invoked, and calls issued to other transport unions to Last year saw the mistaken tactic of linking a ballot on defence of Backed by mass picketing in defiance of the Tory anti-union laws, jobs with a decision on a pay offer miners were not prepared to strike such action could make a nonsense of the NCB's six-month supplies -against. This year it appears that wages are seen as the main issue - and set the stage for the spreading of strike acion on a national level. while action on jobs has so far been voted down in a spring ballot The spreading of strike action should also be prepared by the immediate publication, in popular form, of the extensive information There must be a fight to increase the 5.2% offer and no agreement already possessed by the NUM's research department on NCB closure on any pay deal involving closures: but there must also be strike action plans and their implications for the various coalfields.

The demand must be raised for the opening of the NCB's financial .While it is true that a national overtime ban is the most that can be books - to enable elected lay committees of miners to uncover the called by the NUM leadership without yet another pithead ballot, the network of banks, suppliers, distributors and industrial consumers whe policy is inadequate to deal with the problems facing miners.

With coal stocks estimated sufficient to last six months, an overtime The answer to the current level of overproduction is not the bosses vandalistic axing of pits containing workable reserves of coal, but to raise the level of wages to ensure a decent basic rate and cut the hours worked by miners, to share the work available with no loss of income.

The demolition-squad tactics of MacGregor and his henchmen at the NCB underline as clearly as anything could the need for miners to challenge the whole hierarchic control of the industry by a caste of management answerable only to the Tories and the bankers.

Although formally nationalised, the mining industry has never been controlled by the workforce: and though the union has made gains on Join LABOUR AGAINST THE WITCHHUNT health, safety and other issues, the latest drive towards speed-up and Membership open to Constituency Labour Miners must open the books of the NCB not only to discover the Parties, trade union organisations, Labour hidden Tory plans which they must fight in the current battles but also to acquire the information on which to develop a workers' plan for defence and development of the mining industry, and the fight for duals and other organisations £3. Write to- mass picketing of several recent strikes, NUM delegates could go back Armed with such an approach, and encouraged by the successful LAW, 11 Wilderton Road, London N16. to their areas with real hope of victory over the Tories. And - as we near the tenth anniversary of the historic miners' strik which toppled the Heath government - such a victory is sorely needed Board deputy chairman James Cowan that capacity.

demands for a rise of up to 25%.

in defence of their jobs.

to prevent the threatened redundancies. ' AGAINST THE WITCH-HUNT!

Party affiliates, and individuals. NCB or the Tory government.

or the pay fight. area-wide stoppage.

halt the movement of coal from NCB stocKs. profit from their sweated labour. productivity carry dire threats for the future.

workers' control.

and long overdue. without

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