Miners'strike FO can bring down Tories

for miners CASTLEFORD miners and their wives marched 150strong to nearby Ferrybridge power station, Yorkshire, yesterday to get coal movements blacked.

Headed by the Wheldale strike committee's red banner calling for unity of all workers around the miners fightrikel shunted Generai "Tories out'! and carried placards saying: 'Our fight is your fight' and 'Don't move coal'.

They formed a picket outside the power station gates and gave out All Trades Unions Alliance leaflets which called for no return without the full claim being met, and for rank-and-file strike committees to take control of the strike out of the hands of the right wing.

The strikers are hoping for more backing from Castleford Trades Council which meets tonight.

Doncaster, the miners are being supported by local rąilwaymen who say they will not move any coal from the pits.

'If the miners fall on 7 per cent there is not much chance of our union winning a decent rise,' ASLEF branch secretary Martin Hicks told Workers Press in a personal capacity.

But he was worried about the TUC's failure to support the miners more wholeheartedly.

Three weeks ago ASLEF requested the TUC to get the transport unions and the NUM to meet. The TUC is supposed to have said it wasn't necessary.

"The TUC is literally doing a 1926 at the moment,' he said.

Coal stocks in S Wales are so low that there will be no regular picket at the pithead, lodge officials said yesterday.

But where fuel is available at open-cast. sites, the NUM says the rush of volunteers to man picket lines has been so great they've had to be organized on a rota basis.

EXCLUSIVE MINER'S union secretary Lawrence Daly was expecting the TUC to organize transportunion solidarity with his members' strike, he reveals today.

In part one of an exclusive interview printedlaon page today's leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers would like the support of other unions to make the battle 'short, sharp and victorious.

If the Tories try to make an example of the miners, he would be in favour ..., if they are determined to smash us, to call upon the whole of the trade union and • labour movement to escalate industrial action to a point where it would be possible to defeat the Tory goverament. his views on He gives nationalization and agrees that workers' control in the mines is now on the agenda. plants as well as the colleries.

Railwaymen and dockers have begun to seal off all supplies of coal from ports like Southampton, Cardiff and Middlesbrough.

The solidarity and militancy of the miners has dispelled completely the hopelul pre• that high coal stocks pres dictions of the capitalist similar to that suffered by the postmen would defeat the strike.

Expressed : here is the potential of a great mass movement against the govern. ment, which has grown since the postmen's strike because of unemployment, rapidlyrising prices and the Tory rush into the Common Market.

The big question now is what policy and leadership can take this movement through to victory and remove the Tory government?

Every worker must be on is guard; the stronger th olidarity from the ranki the more the union anc labour leaders will take fright and look for a formula to sell out.

Miles Behind The trade union leaders are miles behind their members.

The Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, under Hugh Scanion could have planned national action of its members against the employers and the government on their own wage claim. Instead its policy-making committee voted this week to abandon the claim at national level.

On the same day, the TUC "inner cabinet, took its notorious decision not to call unions together to discuss solidarity action with the miners.

The trade union bureaucracy is more attached to its official positions and its relations with the capitalist state than it is to the interests of its members. In a show-down it will take the side of the government.

The TUC and Labour productivity, he argues that no deals should be signed if they make miners work harder.

Daly told staff reporter Stephen Johns that the miners expect unions at home and abroad to prevent any bid by the government to break the strike through coal imports.

IN TOMORROW'S Workers Press, he condemns the Polish government for exporting stocks to Spain while the Asturian miners were on strike against Franco's fascist government.

He says the union has written to the Polish government drawing attention to the fact they are offering coal on the W European market. united political and industrial action to secure a General Election, but they fear the working class.

They do not want to be placed in government by a mass movement which will insist on policies of nationalization under workers' control and without compensation.

The same fear animates the Communist Party leaders, who are desperately trying challenge the strike movecat by obscuring its political implications. Listen to "Morning Star':

'Back Down' If the resources of the Labour Party and the TUC were also thrown into this fight, combined with solidarity action by trade unionists, the government and the Coal Board would be compelled to back down in double quick time' (January 12, 1972).

This attitude is politically cynical, dishonest and reactionary.

On Tuesday, the 'Star' deliberately covered up the strike-breaking role of the TUC with the headline 'Don't cross picket lines-TUC call'.

Now it glibly talks about the TUC resources being thrown into the fight and still refuses to condemn the treachery of these bureaucrats.

What is worse, however, is that the 'Star' once again tries to con the miners into believing that the Tories can be made to back down', and that we can have our Tory cake and eat it too.

This is a colossal lie. If the strength of the working class can make the Tories back down then it can just as easily make them resign.

Will the union leaders answer these questions as their ancestors did in 1926, when the General Strike was called off and the miners were starved back to work?

Parallel

Will they do what miners' leader Robert Smillie and others did in 1919, when the then Prime Minister Lloyd George sent for them before threatened strike by the Triple Alliance of miners, railmen and transport workers.

He told them frankly that the Triple Alliance was strong enough to defeat the government — a clear parallel with today-continuing:

'But if you do so, have you weighed the consequences? The strike will be in defiance of the government of the country, and by its very success will precipitate a constitutional crisis of the first importance.

For if a force arises in the state which is stronger than the state itself, then it must be ready to take on the functions of the state, or withdraw and accept the authority of the state.

sidered, and •Gentlemen if you have, are have you conyou ready?' Robert Smillie, recounting the story to Aneurin Bevan, concluded: 'From that and we knew we were, beaten moment on we were Today there must be no flinching from the task of mobilizing in every coalfield to win solidarity from trade unionists, of building the alternative leadership to defeat the Tory government and of electing a Labour government pledged to socialist policies. stations yesterday.

Mass pickets foiled an Electricity Board bid to use scab contractors and keep fuel supply lines open.

The angriest clashes occurred in Fife, where miners from seven pits mobbed private convoys carrying coal to Kirkcardine power station on the Firth of Forth.

Despite requests for police protection, the scab drivers had to turn their lorries back. •One individual who tried to drive through the ranks lost courage after his headlamps were smashed.

Other miners prevented the Southern Scotland Electricity Board moving fuel from the Longannet power station to the big Edinburgh electricity plant at Cockenzie.

At Kirkcardine men shouted at the drivers: 'Are you getting a good wage? I'll bet you are because you're getting it by cutting our throats.' Willie McDougall, member of the Scottish miners' executive, was in charge of the operation. He said the use of private contractors had begun because drivers in the Transport and General Workers' Union had refused to shift supplies.

Mr McDougall said: 'We won't stop at any time. We will have to consider mounting a picket at night.' The Electricity Board action exposes their boast that stocks are high. They are bringing in supplies from old closed: mines and the few privately-owned pits in the Loathians area because the poșition is so desperate.

¡he action by the men plus the black' put on coal by the 1& GWU and the rail PRODUCTION of Morris Marina cars halted at the British-Leyland assembly plant at Cowley, Oxford, yesterday after a stoppage involving inspectors in the assemblyworks paint shop.

The inspectors walked out after the cancellation of* a meeting called to discuss paint shop manning arrangements.

Engineers slam against miners ENGINEERS continued to slam union chiefs' abandonment of their national pay claim as la stab in the back for the miners' yesterday, although the decision to pull out union members in the pits was welcomed.

At Wilson and Matthieson in Leeds, convenor Dick Mitchell said that the national committee of his union had struck a blow against the miners.

"The decision to refer our pay claim back to local level not only lets the miners down, it lets our members down as well' He said: 'If claims are going to be thrown back to local level, what are we paying national officials for? What are they there for? It's a retrograde step?

He thought Workers Press was 'exactly right' to describe the decision of the ING LTD.

Two hurt A SAVAGE incident occurred outside the gates of Grimethorpe Coalite plant near Barnsiey, Yorkshire, yesterday when two miners were knocked down by a lorry which drove into their picket line.

Eyewitnesses said the lorry painted with 'Scania' markings—drove at speed into the picket knocking down George. Shaw (47) and Bran Chapman, both Wombwell miners.

They said the lorry's back wheel passed directly over Mr Shaw, who was later detained in hospital with suspected ankle and leg fractures.

Mr Chapman's injuries fortunately proved less serious and he was released from hospital after treatment for cuts and bruises. Mujib proclaimed SHEIKH Mujibur Rahman-named president of Bangla Desh during his imprisonment—has now been proclaimed Prime Minister under the country's provisional constitutional order.

Dr Abu Sayeed Choudhury was sworn in as President of the new Bangla Desh republic.

Under the new constitutional the president will act on the advice of the premier in all his official functions. In place of the previous Pakistan National Assembly and the former Provincial E Pakistan Assembly there will Constituen Assembly.

Amalgamated: Union Engineering Workers stabbing the miners in back.

'And the TUC decision to give "general sympathy", instead of mobilizing supporting action, is useless, he added. If this strike doesn't get support, it will be a repetition of the postmen's strike. The Tories will pick us off piecemeal.' A similar view came from Gersham Jones, now working at the Jaguar factory in Coventry, but until 1964 a miner, at Coventry colliery.

He was sacked for his part in 1964 sit-down strike in the mine.

"The TUC decision on the miners' fight is disgusting', Gersham said.

"They're leaving the miners on their own.

*If we had all supported the postmen last year we would not have been in this position this year. Mersey will stop Jan 27 THE WHOLE of Merseyside will come to a standstill on January 27 in a protest against the rampant unemployment in the area.

'stab' Dick Michell "The AUEW decision not to fight their national wage claim is a complete letdown of the miners.

'All the unions should come out in support of the miners. This individual effort is no use to the working class-the Tories must be thrown out.' Chris O'Connor, AUEW convenor at Bird's Eye, Kirkby, near Liverpool said 'the decision was a retreat-leaving the miners in isolation to fight battle we should be involved in'. ex-partisan fighter and former parliamentary deputy Vlado Domazet, has been arrested and faces possible charges of 'spreading hostile propoganda and slandering Yugoslav institutions.

According to the newspaper 'Borba', he had blamed officials for the 'bad conditions in the country.

Eddie Loyden, president of the Liverpool Trades Council, told a mass meeting at the occupied Fisher-Bendix plant at Kirkby that all trades councils on Merseyside had agreed to support the stoppage.

Mr Loyden said: "The action of the Fisher-Bendix men is the first positive action against unemployment in the area.

"They are the advance guard in the fight against unemployment and they require the complete mobilization of the trade union movement.' Pledge The councils also called on the TUC to arrange a 24hour nationwide stoppage as part of a campaign to bring down the Tory government.

Jack Spriggs, chairman of the factory's stewards, told the 1,000 Fisher-Bendix men and their families that he had attended a meeting of stewards on the docks. They had pledged to put a 'black' on all Thorn Electrical products. Thorn owns the closure-threatened plant.

Iain Stewart, chairman of the London (Heathrow) airport shop stewards, said 230 stewards had decided to black Thorn products at the airport.