EVICTION AT SCAWTHORPE

This job so that some pits have become known as the ‘slave camp’.

This strict industrial discipline is backed by a monstrous system of fines, wielded by the Manager in the manner of a feudal baron. The Manager also has other disciplinary measures at his disposal, such as transfer to work off the face or at the pit top involving a wage drop of £10 a week or more.

Miners’ leaders help NCB Militants can be dealt with this way and isolated from all contact with their fellow workers. They are banished to work in a remote corner of the pit on permanent nights.

Such a case arose from a demand put forward by 70 young miners at Calverton Pit. Their main grievance was that they were offered no prospect of face training and therefore their low wages would remain low. They also complained of the ignorant and dictatorial methods used towards them by deputies and overmen.

Safe in the knowledge that the union officials would do nothing, the Manager replied with bland statements and appealed to the workers’ deputation to pull together and work harder for the good of the industry. After the meeting some of the lads were warned about ‘agitators’ and the leading militants were victimized.

The hard discipline is accompanied by the maintenance of a very low day-rate wage with no prospect of overtime. Face contracts are continually under attack, and where new contracts are drawn up the Managers have instructions to force a very keen bargain with the miner. The role played by the Ernest Shorthouse, a married man with six children, has been evicted from his NCB house in Scawthorpe, near Doncaster.

His crime is that he was injured in the pit and is no longer able to work for the NCB.

When I spoke to Mr. Shorthouse, he told me that in February, 1956, he was run over by a truck in Armthorpe Colliery. He is registered as a disabled person, and left the pits under doctor’s orders.

Until a year ago he worked at the NCB workshops at Carcoft, but this was heavy work, pulling big drums of cables, and on doctor’s advice he stayed away from work.

He was then dismissed by the NCB, he told me, because he did not send in enough medical certificates.

His rent was then raised from 25s. to 38s. per week.

Mr. Shorthouse has been out of work for the past year, although he has sought work—any work—at Armcroft, Bullcroft, Bentley, and Brodsworth collieries.

Early this year the NCB took him to court. Mr. Shorthouse tells me that at the court the NCB said they were not concerned at the arrears of rent, but wanted possession of the house for an able-bodied miner.

The Coal Board got a possession order and Mr. Shorthouse was instructed meanwhile to pay the current rent of 38s. He was then brought to court again when he fell behind on this and the possession order was brought forward. Mr. Shorthouse and his family moved out the day before

the bailiffs were due. They are now living in rooms in Highfield.

Had he been able to get a job in the pits, the arrears of rent would have automatically been cleared off, by double rent being stopped out of his wages.

Miners in the area are disgusted at this treatment of a disabled man. It seems that a miner has no guarantee of his home. An accident can happen to a miner any time—and that now means his home can go as well. ' The men in this mining area are convinced that Mr. Shorthouse’s arrears of rent had nothing to do with his eviction. Only a few weeks ago, I was told, there was another eviction of a man who was not a penny in arrears, but who had contracted a skin disease which prevented him from working any more in the mines.

“You never had it so good’ has a hollow ring in Scawthorpe.

A Newsletter reporter went to Scawthorpe at the request of a group of miners there, who wrote in to this office. - Africa, but we mean to be free, to live and to control our own lives, free of foreign exploitation. As he told of the misery and poverty of the African, he also told of the tremendous determination of his people. ‘We shall be free, but your support, members of the Socialist Labour League, the Labour Party and other organizations who are today protesting, will help us to that end. We shall not forget you.’

‘Another African student, E. Agu, also took up these points, seeing the demonstrations as necessary expressions of unity.

At 2 o’clock, a united march took place through the town. ‘Members of the Socialist Labour League, the New Left Club, student organizations, Young Communist League, boycott committee, trade unionists and by-standers, with their posters and banners took part.