Scottish miners leader calls for General Strike

tinues to grow.

Winat we chiinkx MINERS on strike against the Tory government and its pay policy were snubbed this week when TUC Finance and General Purposes Committee fused to organize co-ordinated solidarity» action. Some miners might have expected different action from a committee containing 'lefts such self-proclaimed as Hugh Scanlon, president of the Engineers, and transport-union chief Scanlon certainly had a great opportunity.

His own members had had their wage claim rejected by the employers, procedure exhausted and his national committée met the same day the inner committee-its cabinet'. A miners-engineers alliance could have paved the way for the defeat of the Tory government. But Scanlon was absent from the 'inner cabinet' on the ground that he had to attend his national committee in the same dinis Scanion helped lead committee into a decision to abandon any national action or negotiation on their pay claim, and enter only plant action for higher wages.

The Fleet Street press then held out hopes that Scanlon was about attend Wednesday's meeting of the TUC Economic Committee, where joint action with the workers, who also wave a we discussed. Ading, he failed to turn up.

Yesterday the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions endorsed Scanlon's abandonment of national claims, a decision which will affect some . 3 million workers. Scanlon's actions are against the interests of engineers as well as miners.

He abandons his own members to isolated disputes and at the same time helps TUC secretary Feather isolate the strikers in the The CSEU has a long-stand- coalfields.

ing plan which proposes the nationalization the the centre of Long Cheng was at an end. en engineering industry under workers' control.

At a time of 1 million unemployed with major redundancies occuring every week in engineering, surely this was the time to start a national struggle for this plan-and to link it with the miners who need workers' control in mining and the end of compensation payments.

We have heard many brave words from Scanlon on the subject of workers' control. He has graced the platforms of the self-styled Institute for Workers' Control and written in their publications.

Now, however, we have had the real test.

This same Scanlon was advocating industrial action defeat the anti-union laws, and he warned that after they were carried we would have bitter industrial strife. Can we now avoid the conclusion that this was merely notice of his intention retreat once the Industrial Relations Act came into The Stalinists of the British Communist Party and the 'Morning Star' continue to build up Scanlon and his union's executive as some sort of fighting leadership. But everyone knows that his decision to break off negotiations on the national pay claim was a result of the declaration by the engineering employers themselves in April 1971; that they would give no further all-round increases.

The miners' strike and the engineering wage claim drive home the most essential lesson of all for the working class.

There is no substitute—no matter what the "left' phrases—for the building of Marxist leadership which fights against the reformist and Stalinist traitors and tells the working class in unmistakable terms what is involved: a unified struggle to make the Tories resign and return a Labour government to carry out nationalization under workers' control and without compensation.

Even before their union gave instructions to throw 24-hour pickets around coal depots the rank and file strikers shamed the TUC and surprised their own leaders with an unparalleled display of combativity which has shaken the Tories' arrogance.

By the weekend it is expected that every coal-fired power station in the country will be picketed.

These pickets would not be necessary if the leaders of the coal-handling trade unions — the Transport and General and the General and Municipal — pledged their support to the miners and instructed their members accordingly.

Yet in spite of these difficulties, the miners are determined to make the strike bite.

These actions by the miners are being closely followed by principal customer the Central Electricity Generating Board.

On Wednesday the CEGB stated that the result of the miners' could be serious, and if followed up nationally result in a national emergency.

Telegraph', shares CEGB's has called on the government and the employers the full force of the Industrial Relations Act-and police - to picketing.

The "Telegraph' commented editorially: 'If the miners are determined to turn their dispute with the Coal Board into and battle with the public and the government, they must expect a determined and conspicuous official resistance.' This, however, is not the standpoint of NÚM president Joe Gormley. After a meeting of the national strike committee on Wednesday, he remarked:

'There is only one way this dispute can be settled, and that is if more cash is made available from some source. The length of the strike 1s entirely in the hands of the National Coal Board.' Contrary to Mr Gormley and the 'Morning Star' which prints this remark without comment we believe that the length of the strike, its outcome and the sort of solidarity it evokes will depend entirely on its political content and scope.

The miners are not fighting for wages alone.

They are fighting for the security of their jobs and the defence of their democratic rights which are threatened by an arrogant employer backed by an equally vicious government.

The salvation of the miners can only be secured by the resignation of the government and the election of a Labour government which will legislate the demands of the miners and expropriate capitalism. Pickets out with a message ignored by union leaders at A SCOTTISH miners' leader called yesterday for a General Strike to prevent the miners from being defeated.

James Tennyson, agent for 10,000 Lothian miners, said he wanted to see engineers, power workers and transport men-who all had pay claims -striking alongside the miners, writes Stephen Johns.

Speaking after an Edinburgh Tories plan clamp on TORY education chief Margaret Thatcher is now almost certainly considering registration as the means of politically controlling student- union finances.

A Private Member's Bill entitled 'A Bill to Provide for the Registration of Student Unions and the Purposes Connected Therewith' coming up for a second reading in parliament on February 25.

In charge of it is Sir Gilbert Longden, Tory MP for Hereford SW. Longden is also the honorary secretary of the National Advisory Council on Among those supporting the Bill is Tory MP Norman St John Stevas, secretary of the Federation of Conservative Students.

Earlier this week when Mrs Thatcher announced her postponement of the changes in student-union financing for a year, Stevas announced that this move 'particularly encouraging for his federaIt meant, he said, that there was now ample legislative time for the government to intro meeting of strike committees from the Lothians area, Mr Tennyson said: 'I would rather have a General Strike and finish quickly than see starvation.

'With this government in much longer we. will have a position of near starvation. And I would like to get this government out rather than see this.

'It is the view of everyone including our delegates that we have started a battle and it is the government we are students duce a registrar which lack of •parliamentary time had previously made infeasible.

Stevas has been the leading advocate for tie introduction of a registrar and objects to the present consultative document on the basis that it is awkward to put into operaThe postponement, which called an initial victory for the opposition to Thatcher's proposals, was also welcomed by the Conservative students' chairmanthe government. shows is responsive to responsible student pressure', was his comment.

Also supporting registration for student unions is Angus Maude, Tory MP for. Stratford-on-Avon. Maude is perhaps best-known his regular weekly column in the right-wing 'Sunday Express'. ) Take for example, his contribution on Sunday, January •..freedom cannot survive without authority. There must be an accepted central authority charged with the making and enforcement of acceptable laws.' . (Emphasis in the original.)

Commenting on the BBC's recent debate on N Ireland, Maude continued: Ferrybridge power station, Yorkshire, yesterday fighting,' said Mr Tennyson, a member the Scottish miners' executive.

Despite these militant words, however, demands for central organized strike committee to mount solidarity action were ignored by the platform who argued that the power to do this lay with the local strike committees and union branches.

The meeting, at which all branch committees and strike committees in the Lothians area were represented, called Thatcher 'What is going on now can 1o longer be tolerated In the end, it is our treedom that is at stake. A tiny minority cannot be allowed to undermine the civilization that gives us our right to live in peace and without fear.' (Maude's emphasis.)

This is what he says about the BBC!

All students should now take note. The Tory government is not going to retreat on its proposals for attack on miners, engineers, for driving up unemployment or for its attack on student unions.

NUS president Digby Jacks and the Communist Party, by continuing the illusion that students will be able to gain a victory over the lories on their own, are preparing a betrayal of students' interests. carrier Alain L D is scheduled to off-load 22,000 tons of US Last year Cardiff, Swansea and Newport imported 1.6m tons of US and Australian coal with ships docking at the rate of about one per port every fortnight.

Five further loads are expected at S Wales ports in the next ten days.

The arrival yesterday oi the Alain at Cardiff was being seen as a test of the miners' strength, but NUM officials were confident dockers would refuse to unload the cargo.

PICKETS also arrived in the London area for the first time yesterday.

They aimed to stop coal supplies being shifted to power stations from big coal feeder depots at Tilbury and Fulham.

The stations have very small stocks on the ground and depend on daily supplies, said NUM president Joe Gormley yesterday..

He added that pickets had already secured agréement that 1 million tons of continental coal stocked at Kingsnorth power station on the Isle of Grain would not be moved.

Shop stewards on the Kingsnorth site yesterday met picketing miners and pledged 100 per cent support. The Kingsnorth men also offered to take a collection to finance the picketing.