Victory to the miners

Shackles. working THE MINERS are about to engage If the union had called every. in their biggest and most vital -hot 35 modi have been strike since 1926. CANUTE-LIKE manoeuvres by Every miner knows that he is union leaders failed to stem the in battle not only against the rising tide of support for national Thine Thes, in of earin National Coal Board, but against strike action amongst miners the combined forces of big business yesterday. and their Conservative governShe exasperation and tur and Scottish miners who remained he capitalist class is tersel expressed. solidly on strike yesterday are now The miners' wage claim must be won. That means the government must be defeated. almost certain to be joined next week It means There is no room for compromise. by at least an equal number—3,500 of When the Tory government faces the them in Kent. miners, it shows all the hatred and fear which Britain' dustrial the ruling classes have always shown throughout history.

Heath, Barber and Kobens stand in line with Winston Churchill, Lady Astor, the old coalowners, and ironmasters. The first necessity in the miners' strike is to know £2 7s 6d to £3 pay ofier.

this enemy, to prepare every possible weapon to defeat him, to ensure an all-out national strike that will paralyse the next week. government and force ther to capitulate.

It will be class against class.

Smarting from the defeat inflicted upon them by the council workers, the ConservaThe Tinie ane is wander tives will use everything they have to put down the miners, their traditional enemy. They know that the miners are historically the vanguard of the working class, and they hope, that by deteating them they can press with the unforgettabl Dunn said yesterday. ahead to legislate their anti-trade-union laws.

to per cent in tictobe Justified Warning one pros This miners' strike, entirely justified by the cardency, The rimes thet insulting NCB offer and then the vicious cuts people until Monday. announced by Barber, has had to be forced by militant action from below, against stubborn resistance by the union right wing.

but be the termination If Barber had made his cuts before the strike ballot instead of after, there would Britain's have been a two-thirds majority. Yet by 13 resis indecion Prophetic votes to 12 the right wing on the executive voted to accept the miserable new 10s offer of Robens.

Han the has come back It is these leaders and not the miners who men out. are running away from a fight with the government. Now that the area leaderships in Scotland, Yorkshire and Wales, followed people's beliet in by others, have been forced by the men to endorse strike action, there must be no going back and no hesitating to listen to these right-wing leaders. 1 ory government! The union leadership must now be instructed from every single pit meeting to plan Not commendly it is forced a swift victory in the strike, a victory which gives Sandoctrine desi the lead to all workers in all '50s is not unions to defeat the government and its anti-union laws.

The mobilization of all the resources of the miners' union, enough'-B'ham courage the organization of a massive political campaign throughout the working-class movement in support of the miners councilmen against the Conservatives -this is the test of every NUM leader who has ever claimed *strugge weis fat won 01 indeed the dustmen's to be a militant.

No more arguments about MIXED feelings over the Scamp inquiry findbeing 'prisoners of the right Section wing on the executive'! It is ings were expressed by Birmingham Transport gend in the begin wagt now or never. and General stewards we spoke to following Leaders who fail to lead now are as good as joining a meeting with local officials yesterday.

cer settlements ent the right wing. These are the I think it's diabolical'. Willi ther Hear said Peter Kendall, a daymake his overjoyed state- No coal shift public works steward.

'55 bob was low, but 50 ments on TV. Big chief Robens has spoken bob is diabolical. We have The my dee ene sine na - the 10s iş absolutely the had to accept; there is no final offer, and strikes will not point in the men suffering sit that men be miners' get any more. He will eat his hardships for another four words l or five weeks for an extra Until the full claim is five bob.' won not a ton of coal must This last point was agreed of the fight. be produced. Not one truck•load of coal must leave a the public works. Wheady take back in in single pit-yard or stock- 'The union has agreed. I yard. Not a single train or don't think we're all pleased already a single lorry must supply about it, but we have beaten industry with a single load the Tories. For the extra of coal or coke. five bob it wouldn't have This means a • number of been worth staying out. The mosth the steps are immediately neces- important thing is that the sary ! Tories haven't won' pect near tuture. savage cuts in Pickets from the areas on strike must sew up the stop- OVER page in every pit in their own is after area. Leonard Mathers, a deputy They must then move into shop steward, said: other areas, especially Notting- It would have been over hamshire, to make the strike in a fortnight if they'd ging inflation national and complete. fetched the lot out.

The NUM executive must 'We found this out at mary treadmill vote next Thursday to support Tower Hamlets in London. officially every area on strike. By fetching the lot out they The union, at national, dis- got the 55s. We could have trict and local level, must call done the same thing' cost on the transport and railway Mr Stanley Greathead, and housewives be unions to black all transport- leading public works departing of coal immediately. ment steward, agreed with • BY DAVID MAUDE The 50,000 or so Yorkshire, S Wales Kent's National Union of Mineworkers area council will strike But it wants miners to stay at work until Wednesday of Before branches Today's decision will go before the county's three NUM branches tomorrow and then come back to a further meeting of the area council on Monday, area secretary Jack Yorkshire area secretary acting NUM national president Sid Schofield announced that the special area council meeting scheduled for today had been postponed In what can only be interpreted as a desperate bid to avoid all-out official area strike action, he is reported to have earlier tried to cancel the meeting on the ground it would serve no useful purpose-since all four Yorkshire panels have now called their Committed Schofield is now expected to argue against a coalfield strike on Monday because voting at the N and S Yorkshire panels was 'very close'.

'This has always been my argument. The strike could have been settled in a week, instead of bringing out bits and dabs. Definitely, I really mean that. "As regards the 50 bob, we are not really satisfied.

As I said outside the Council House on Wednesday, the 50 bob has been absorbed, it's gone thanks to the Tories.' "They ought to stick the 50 bob as far as I and a few more are concerned', said Joseph Staunton, Transport and General Workers' shop steward from the salvage department at Tysely.

It should be 55s, that's what we came out for. Our shop stewards have gone down now to the Council House to apply for extra money for clearing the extra rubbish. We're not clearing it otherwise' Many of the men we spoke to expressed appreciation of the reporting of their case in the Workers Press. • SEE LATE NEWS Swelling tide for all-out strike But most of the county's 70,000 miners are now committed to joining the strike despite him.

This in itself is an indication of the miners' determination, since Schoheld and the Yorkshire right wing. have always been able to hold back the coalfield in the past.

Even in the middle of the county's solid 1955 fillers' strike, he was able to swing a nine-to-one vote for a return to work.

The Coal Board, meanwhile, has coal stocks amounting to only 8,600,000 tons nationally —seeming ill-prepared for a prolonged strike.

terrersin Birmingham council workers told Workers Press they were nor ANDRE AMALRIK, the Soviet oppositionist writer is expecSverdoring No mort i 'Le Monde', Amalrik, arrested last May and held in prison Soviet slanders'.

Amalrik's book Will the Soviet Union survive to 1984?' was published in the West in 1969.

Determination

Interviewed secretly by an American TV correspondent gramme on which a number of Some 20 million tons were in stock this time last year.

Meetings Plans for the 40,000-strong S Wales stoppage at everyone of the coalfield's 52 pits are to be completed over the weekend.

The area executive will also see local officials of the Transport and General Workers and the National Union of Railwaymen and ask them to instruct their members not to move coal from stocks.

'We will be in contact early next week,' S Wales area secretary Dai Francis told Workers Press yesterday.

'Of course we would like to see no movement of coal from Monday, onwards, and, we would ask workers involved to observe this request before more formal agreements with the unions aré drawn up next week.' In London, an NUR spokesman said that any approaches made by Thursday's NUM national executive meeting. could be quickly consideredbut it was unlikely that his union would act at national level on the strength of approaches from miners' area councils.

In Scotland, meetings at all 33 of the area's coalproducing collieries are expected to bring all 24,000 miners there out on Monday., sl..= It ente lessle in satisfied with the 50s offer.

CHALLENGED in the Commons yesterday what spreading anti- lessons the government had learned from the council workers' strike, Minister of State Paul Bryan said: "The lesson is that we will in fact remain steadfast on our policy already put forward. "It will take courage and steadfastness and that is what you will get from this government?

Brave words— but also Council strike ends on note THE BULK of Britain's 70,000 striking council workers yesterday agreed to return to work on Monday when operation clean-up will start in earnest. appeared to be one of guarded optimism, but many workers felt that they would be asking for more money soon to meet the cost-of-living increases introduced by the Tory government.

opposed to the 50s settlement and in COVENTRY the dispute may continue unless / a locally-agreed pay award of 12s 6d is not But in major centres like SWINDON, BIRMINGHAM, NEWCASTLE, LIVERPOOL and CARDIFF employees are expected to work from Monday.

In most areas local union officials were negotiating special payments for refuse men who will have to tackle the huge mounds of rubbish blocking streets in many cities and towns. Laund fort loche of optimism The mood in London and the provinces A minority of council workers were conceded on top of the national increase.

Nearly 30 councils who broke ployers away from the empay their workers 55s, a fact that has increased the bittérness among some workers who felt their unions should have held out for the full award.

Union officials at BIRMINGHAM were yesterday negotiating special payments for the 1,400 dustmen who will tackle accumulation 35,000 tons of rubbish in the In LIVERPOOL corporation workers are expected to return on Monday. There the settlement is expected to add £1,300,000 to the corporation's wage bill.

At SWINDON workers at the town's sewage plant, which was threatened with the intervention of troops, started work yesterday afternoon.

But dustmen in the town will not resume work until Monday. The settlement will cost the council £262,000 a year.

For the first time the town council is being recommended to levy a supplementary rate of 6d in the f from January 'ds from echoed by millions of workers equally determined to defend basic rights and living standards.

Bryan continued: We shall be dealing with each situation as it arises in the same sort of way have done this time, as we Employment Secretary Robert Carr was asked what action he proposed to prevent a bitter miners' strike and replied:

"As to the miners' strike, if it takes place, that is a Yesterday's complaint from Employment Minister Robert Carr that the Trades Union Congress refused to discuss details of the proposed lawreported on page four—is, of course, a cynical blind.

Alongside makes clear in regardleses intend to press that the Tories intend to press just four weeks' time, go to its sècond Reading in the House December 14-18, move into the end of February.

committee So thee emergency timal.

after the Bill's passage through Bone the di That, in any event, is the But powerful forces are still building up in the trade union movement against the Billwith the miners now in the front line!

Resolution

From Oxford's Cowley No Union of Vehicle Builders Nationa November starts at WE'RE STILL talking about your magnificent effort behind the success of our October fund.

We promised you a Workers Press which would fight night and day against the Tory government.

Rest assured, we will live up to that promise.

Now we are off to a start on the November fund.

›on't leave it to the las ninute. Send your donation at once to:

186a Clapham High St, London, SW4.

he Tories matter for the minister as the situation develops' From the Labour benches Carr's predecessor Mrs Barbara Castle offered the Tories some advice on keeping down wages.

If Carr had allowed his department's conciliation services to be used in the normal way, she said, 'then he could have got a settlement which would certainly have not been higher than the present one and might have been lower! Beganizis Bod vorkers at britis comes the following resolu•Cowley No. 4 Dranch Cal start laws by the ConAt the same time, the executive sure to bear on the convene a special meeting for the purpose of formulating a united policy to defeat the proposed legislation.

'Hole back

oficials now appear to ben con But some trade gaged in a concerted campaign to hold workers back behind their official leaders' suicidal 'wait-and-see' policy.

Transport and General Workers' Midlands engineering officer George Wright was reported yesterday mitting that 'it was only with difficulty that full-time officials revalled on delegates Monday's notors section Birmingham defer rict comcampaign, "he mittee 'to action support TUC meterence with a 130 interference the campaign would not b tolerated. vas that it would Waken and we cannot keep unionsople without strong And at London's Imperia College branch of the Associa tion of Technical and Managerial moton was diated similar motion when its chairman - a Comnunist Party member who sit on ASTMS national execudimand for a national one the against stoppage.

He claimed that such actior premature and could alienate potential white-collar workers.

• Such fought anc the struggle to stop Tories and force successful. resign is to be Yesterday's Industrial Society conference (full report age four) heard relations eyland industrial director Pat Lowry point out that the Tory law would aid the trend to what he termed national framework agree. ments.

"There are difficulties in securing implementation of agreements of that kind,' he said—in what could be interpreted as reference to his own combine's difficulties over the Measured-Day Work clauses of the engineering package deal.

The Tory proposals would aid in getting. such terms accepted. added, ded the major retorms i collective bargaining will still continue to be carried through largely on a voluntary basis.

Asked how British-Leyland stewards would react to the accepted it, Lowry neSsed to answer 'on the record'.

I were to answer this question it would probabl cost my company 1,000 cars on Monday' he said. • Sou coland and LATE

PAGE T SATURDAY Saturday, November 7,

A spokesman at the union's tions as soon as all concerned are reauy • wages and conditions.

Speakers from the floor urged local officials to send letters of thanks to housewives in he borough who blocked roads with rubbish in a bid to prevent contract labour from shifting it.

"The support they gave us was magnificent-it helped us fight our battle, said one Hackney dustman.

Hackney dustmen have been on strike from the start of the dispute and last week services in the borough came to a standstill as all the employees walked out in protest against the use of contract labour. work. Reluctant return at Swindon majority voted in favour, there Although a three-quarters set up to fine the open control | over price and for the nationalization of the distributive trades. Such a campaign will not only expose the attempts of the Tories to blame workers for high prices, but will completely undermine the drive of the trade union leaders— the council workers' leaders included-to wages Those who view such a prowell to study with scepticism will Irish Congress Trade Unions to beat inflation. The Congress has gone he or for a ding scale on wages in line with the cost living apart from generally negotiated increases.

This proposal has shocked th rish bourgeoisie "The Irish Independent' laments (November 4): 'There is much to be said in favour of this idea when Prices are fairy table is suffering from a severe price inflation such proposal is prescription for disaster' To this the Irish and English working class must reply: if capitalism incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish! The lessons of the dustmen's strike for the whole working class are now very clear. The strike illustrates in extremely vivid way pertinence of Marx's obthat the British workers exhibit in a single isolated industrial battle against a section of capitalists enough power and endurance to overthrow the entire capitalist class.

the dustmen can win 50s there is little suite that ea similar display of determination and unity by the whole working class, on the strength of the miners' strike, can smash the anti-union laws and throw the Tories The Tories are weak and vulnerable.

The anti-union laws can and must be defeated before they become law.

Those who argue, like the 'International Socialism' Bre a of Mr T. Cliff, that anti-union laws cannot be defeated before they go on the statute books are in the same defeatist position the Lambeth dustmen's ex-leader Mr Sully who said that the dustmen 'were fighting the wrong government at the wrong time'. The dustmen have given him their answer: this is the best possible time to take on the Tories Now it is the task of all militant trade unionists to generalize unions to make the leaders fight for a general, one-day strike against the Tory government.

Forward to the defeat of the Tories! leading oppositionists spoke, he expressed his determination not to yield in the fight against Stalinism, recognizing that the struggle would be long and bitter.

According to 'Le Monde' the official 'case' against Amalrik and Oubojko will rest on a duplicated letter: 'An open letter from Andre Amalrik to Anatoli Kuznetsov' found in Oubojko's possession.

In this he accuses the writer Kuznetsov, who earlier this year defected to the West, of having collaborated with the Soviet police in order to do so. Leyland threat SIXTY THOUSAND workers in British-Leyland's AustinMorris division were warned yesterday that the group's finances were in a 'serious position'.

The warning, given in a statement by divisional director George Turnbull, is seen by stewards as another ploy in the company's push for Measured-Day Work.

Only last week 9,000 Leyland workers at Pressed-Stéel Fisher, Birmingham, were warned their jobs would be in jeopardy unless an 'uneconomic' bonus scheme was scrapped.

CONFERENCES 2.30 p.m. LATE NEWS COUNCIL PAY (See page one)

In Bristol, about 150 council workers voted against a Monday return to work at a mass meeting yesterday. They were reluctant to return until one negotiated for learnts the rubbish backlog.

Local union officials wère meeting with Hackney employers to discuss the removal of contractors from the borough late yesterday afternoon.

JOURNALISTS' SIT-IN Students at the Madrid school of journalism staged a sit-down yesterday in protest against the absence of any lectures or classes since the present session began three wéeks ago. Without qualifications from this school, journalists cannot work in Spain.

Swt.iad (miche, di-m.ucia.. claim to be representativé, because they have lost a reasonable degree of leadership- and control over their members.' The corporatist character of his proposals was made even clearer when he told the conference:

'In the long run unions require public consent for their continuance just as much as governments.

"The trade unions know that they of all bodies live and die constitutional processes and by constitutional support -a clear threat to the very existence of unions under the Tories.

Lord Delacourt-Smith, Post Office Engineering Union general sècretary-the sole union leader who could be prevailed on to attend-emphasized his fear for British capitalism's future if the Tories' assault goes ahead.

• Additional complicating elements' would be introduced into present disputes and the emotional temperature would rise,' he said.

Most discouraging of all, it would have an adverse effect on the TUC policy of voluntary co-operation to discipline Professor Ben Roberts, London School pf Economics professor of Industrial Relations, felt sure the trade unions would revert to their traditional 1926 role of 'cooperation'.

But a following speaker, from the Civil Service Union, pointed out the misleading character of the parallel:

If an Act is passed on this basis it will lead to the biggest struggles since the 1920s, Trade unionists in these jobs must themselves move in solidarity with the miners.

No transport or railway worker must cross a miners' picket line! No dockers must work cargoes of imported coal!

The miners are out in front in a fight which is the fight of every worker, against the plans of the Tory enemy to drive the working class back to the 1920s and 1930s.

Every ounce of pressure and agitation must be applied to force the Transport and General Workers' Union and National Union of Railwaymen executives to black coal supplies.

In the meantime, miners will picket coal stocks and appeal to their fellow trade unionists.

We all know that the capitalist press will turn viciously against the miners.

But so-called 'public opinion' consists 90 per cent of other workers in struggle for wages and against anti-union laws, and of housewives struggling to protect their children from the attacks of the Conservatives.

The Workers Press will bring together the struggles in every area every day. It will answer the lies of the press about the strike.

It will answer the Tory attacks. It will watch the union leaders like a hawk.

It will win support for the miners' fight throughout the working class.

In trying to hold back the strike, the right wing has been attacking the lead given by the, miners in the All