CURLY OWEN Militant Miner

MINERS working a one-hour day! Impossible? Not according to Curly Owen. "The seven-hour day and three weeks holiday should be the first step only, " he says. " Mechanisation should be able to cut hours to four, three, even one hour a day—and still improve the standard of living." "Of course " he goes on, " You'll have to change the whole system to get that. As things. are now, increased mechanisation only brings the fear of men losing their jobs.

Mechanisation brings other dangers- -accidents in the pit. And Safety is something else that Curly Owen feels strongly about. In fact it was over Safety that Curly had the clash with the Brodsworth Pit Management and N.U.M. officials that rocked the Yorkshire coalfield.

Thirty-nine year old Arthur (Curly) Owen has never been afraid of speaking out. Starting work at fourteen at Grimethorpe Colliery (Yorkshire), he had early experience of the Miners' fighting spirit. He can remember a union official going down on his knees in a strike meeting pleading for a return to work!

ON THE BRANCH COMMITTEE Leaving the army in 1946, Owen worked in Hucknall Colliery (Notts) for a while, then returned to Grimethorpe. After getting "Beat Knee" (a well known Miner's injury) he left Grimethorpe, which has all low seams, and started working in Brodsworth pit in 1949. Ten years later, he was elected to the branch committee where he worked tirelessly in the interests of the men, particularly on matters of safety.

Last July, he heard complaints that an electrically driven machine, which had been stopped by the driver when its cable was at full stretch, had been taken over by the Overman who caused the cable to be pulled out. of the pummel. There were complaints that sparks had been caused. Curly raised this question at a Labour Party meeting and in a letter to the rank-and-file paper *The Miner"

this sparked off (if that's not the wrong phrase) an Jack Gale enquiry by the pit management and ledi to a poster appearing in the baths, canteen, and pit-yard at Brodsworth condemning Owen as " malicious" and "antisocial". This scandalous poster concluded: " You are invited to draw your own conclusions as to the calibre of the person concerned and with what disrepute he should be held by yourselves in future."

SUSPENDED

From then on all hell was let loosefor this notice carried the names of representatives of the management and also of eight members of the Brodsworth N.U.M. branch committee! At a stormy four-hundred strong branch meeting one of the signatories-Communist Party member Reuben Buffman-apologised for his action and three other committee men explained why they had refused to sign. The branch decided to hold a pit ballot to see who was in the wrong Curly or his critics on the Committee. The result was a foregone conclusion. So the Rightwing Officials appealed to the Barnsley Area Council to intervene. The union bureaucrats hastened to oblige and instigated a "Committee of Inquiry" which said SPARTACUS nothing about the ballot, but suspended Curly from Union office for three years. The men at Brodsworth immediately went on twenty-four hour's strike and Curly issued an appeal to the Area Council and distributed it at pits all round the district.

There was strong feeling in Curly's favour , not only in Brodsworth where a mass branch meeting expressed its disgust at Barnsley's action, but in surrounding pits as well. Nevertheless, Curly's appeal was turned down. We understand that the Communist Party members on the Area Council-including the well-known Jock Kane' -did not vote in Curly's favour.

WHERE DOES PAYNTER STAND?

Nevertheless, Brodsworth militants have not given up. the fight. Curly has already appealed to the NationalExecutive of the N.U.M. Militants in the Yorkshire coalfield will watch the outcome with interest. Where will Communist Will Paynter take his stand? - Meanwhile Curly continues his fight for better conditions in the pits. Every comfortable, complacent Union official, high and low, will feel uneasy as long as militants like Curly Owen keep up the battle,