Yorkshire pickets allege isolation

Leeds, coal stocks are still being moved into the generators.

Five, six or seven weeksthere is loo cleae stone al to how long stocks last. One thing is clear, however, and that is where to place the responsibility for keeping miners outside power stations for such a length of time.

Undoubtedly it must be placed the whole of the trade union leadership.

The men moving the coal inside power stations are all union members. Yet they have been specifically instructed by men like Tack Jones of the T&GWU to continue this sort of work.

'The trade union leadership are backtracking and doing the same as they did to the postmen,' Teff Summers, rganizing pickets as secretar of nearby Rothwell pit, tak 'These men appear on TV talking about their strength and so on. But once a strike gets going, they change their tune discuss "holding fast", "compromising" "negotiations"

If Gormley and Daly [NUM president and secretary] try this with the miners, we'll have to get shot them and the rest of the leadership and get some men who will fight in their places. ack Grinder was earl Another was even more itter about the role of the strike. betrayal before during 1926 General Strike.

We're fighting a battle fo workers in all industrie to efeat the government, yet ti UC hasn't done muc Be and just fence workers and the government Xeis miners ses ce, said jath can fall wit bout his Lus his 1 m Scion men bet and Wey did with the postmen deeds, They ut they 10 hate to tal it help us, it heresh ut alls euri did whe ories, just as the front fakes to me sis a week, told Here 12n Gong one, by The leaders Some hole Ruhr coal gi FINANCIAL disaster threatens Ruhrkohle, W Germany's biggest coal cartel, which is reported to have lost £107m since it was formed in 1969.

The company was set up by 24 Ruhr firms in a bid to overcome the problem of coal production by industrial concentration.

Sources in Dusseldorf say that next month it may be unable to meet its bills because of its cash crisis.

Its problems are made worse by a stock of over 8 million tons of unused coal wor coke, tying up £119mworth Ruhrkohle's liquidity.

But instead of nationalizing the near-bankrupt enterprise, MINERS' ATUA MEETINGS St Rooms.

AYLESHAM: Monday January 24, 7.30 p.m. The Greyhound.

DEAL: Tuesday January 25, 1 p.m. The Yew Tree, Mill LEEDS: Tuesday January 25, 7.30 p.m. Quarry Hill Flats Community Centre.

SUNDERLAND: Sunday, January 23, 7.30 p.m. Ashington and District Social Club, 21 High Market, Ashington, Northumberland. A GENERAL STRIKE in support of the miners would be against the Tories' entire policy of low wages, high prices and unemployment, said Fred Woods (60), a power loader at Wyndham and Western.

'They'll starve us back if they can', said Mr Woods, who has vivid memories of 'But the men who are actually producing the coal are having a raw deal. They've come to the end of their tether and they won't stand 1926 again.

'I don't think this government will give an inch. It's a Tory government the same as last time. If the miners go down, God help them. This is a fight to the finish.

"Either this government is going to bring us to our knees or we're going to bring them to their knees.' Mr Woods talked to Workers Press at Lewistown Athletic Club of which he is chairman. He told me the miners had watched last year's succession of key strikes with keen interest.

tumbling Willy Brandt's social-democratic government, together with the state government of N Rhine-Westphalia, is discussing taking over £250m of Ruhrkohle's debts.

There is also talk of the government making an annual £42m grant to keep the company on its feet.

Ruhrkohle shareholders include Vega AG, a formerly nationalized company which was 'hived off' in 1965. Others are Gelsenberg AG and Mannesmann AG, both with giant interests in steel, chemicals and power.

Ruhrkohle's crisis is linked to the recession in the steel industry, the main consumer of coal. The mild winter has also cut domestic consumpE ENGLAND and Scotland will be dry with sunny periods after the clearance of mist and fog patches.

Western districts will become clandy with some occasional rain in the NW. Temperatures will be near the seasonal normal in the W but it will be rather cold in the E.

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PICKETS OUTSIDE THE SKELTON GRANGE POWER STATION, LEEDS Wyndham and Western is one of S Wales' most modern and prosperous pits. The 1,250 miners live In a cluster of isolated mountain villages around From PHILIP WADE the valley. IAN YEATS spent a day talking to people directly involved in the miners' fight. Today we carry the Miners won't stand fo another 'There's been a major shift in the trade union since the Post Office strike, he told me. 'Everyone is supporting They know they can't fight the government alone.

'The Tories have been away what we fought bit. The way things are going on we'll have nothing soon.

I'm a striker and iny wife and I will have £4.50 between us. I'm used to going down for a pint and a smoke-poor man's luxuries-but I'm having it all taken away from in sticking upon a living wage.' coach from Somerset being leys 1926 strike, and he hoped it wouldn't again., he what would touch 'social His reply was and brief. repots. Nothing else You'll "Minersplies out and people Well miners are suffering too.

no more in i Bur the are stronger got more But the TUC should should have leadership.

a long way. to and troops and I've ing here they find flashy, just In the last we've had to economize a You can't 'When over in day's work.

rased not contry ita raised now. The Now they Paing print Dowlais, £40. O.P. Manning on men manning the pay bus We did the same second of his interviews. Young Kent miners on Battersea picket EIGHTEEN-year-old miner Tom Howe was confidently picketing the giant Battersea • power station assisted only by a fellow member a year older.

'We're doing a very good job for 18- and 19-year-olds; he said proudly.

'We have approached every lorry. Every oil and chemical lorry we stop and they have all turned round.' Tom came up from Snowdon pit in Kent to lobby his MP on Tuesday, but volunteered to stay on for picket duty.

His landlady telephoned the NUM to offer free : digs to pickets.

The pits have taken a toll in Tom's family. most probably the NUM leadership will try and sell us out. Maybe with £3 or something' Chris Brindley, also from Betteshanger, joined in: How's the strike going? It's hard to say. I think we're winning. But those union Dear inter be the rem.

arrested on the picket line on Monday when a lorry driver started waving an iron bar around.). grandfather died at 43 years from silicosis. And after 30 years in the industry his father has three fingers paralysed, a limp and 35 per cent silicosis.

Tom wants to get out after three years but cannot find any other work near his home village of Aylesham.

'We'd like the trade union leaders to black coal altogéther,' Tom says, 'and shut these power stations down.

I think its scandalous the leaders don't fight this government when they offer us a miserable 8 per cent.

'The T&GWU should refuse to handle coal altogether and then the strike would only last a few weeks at most.' Tom added: 'I read Jack Dunn, the Kent NUM secreStar, In last Friday's "Morning and he just explained the miners' case.

'But the general opinion of the "Star" was that the TUC had done enough to help the miners.

'But Feather and company have done next to nothing to help the miners.

'He could have led the way for the engineers and electricity supply men to come out all at once behind us.' Tom recalled NUM President Joe Gormley saying a £3 increase would be acceptable and commented:

I think Gormley's a good man, but he's not hard enough. The government is putting great pressure on him. 'This country's getting more and more like Spain,' Tom added. 'You can be given three years in jail just for showing a union card there.

It's time we made a move. We've been good boys for far too long.' 21, 8 p.m. Recreation Centre, Right-to-Work cam- Old Bedford Ra, paign'.

given by HEALY (SLL national