Miners firm on £5 demand
1970Stephen JohnsMiners Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
'WE ARE not bragging. We are sticking on.' This was the general feeling of the 2,000 miners who marched in support of their pay claim yesterday from Hyde Park to the National Coal Board headquarters.
The march, with a contingent of 200 from S Wales, confirmed the miners' determination to fight to the end their 334 per cent claim which has been turned down by the NCB.
Roy Lynk, Sutton, Nottingham, NUM branch secretary, expressed the militancy of the entire demonstration when he said: 'I think it must come to strike action.
'Robens has put up 12} per cent, but this is just not enough.
'We also know it will be a political battle. The Tories are out to make an example of some of the workers, but we are not afraid of this.
'Act now'
'We have been too loyal too long. Now is the time to act, there is a shortage of coal.
"The present leadership have promised strike actio better but respond to the Isle of Man resolution.
"To my mind many of the leaders have forgotten what it is like to work down a pit.' The miners then went on to lobby union leaders as they at Hobart House. knees, Joe. arrived for talks with the NCB You'd better not retreat on this one, one man shouted into the face of Joe Gormley, right-wing leader of the Lancashire miners.
'Want something' 'Official or unofficial - it makes no difference to us. We want something out of the till this time, called another group from Nottingham.
Noise reached a crescendo as NUM leader Lawrence Daly pushed through the crowd at the main door.
He smiled, but was visibly nervous as he faced a massed chorus of: 'We want £5' • See late news