The British National Union of Mineworkers [NUM] has now been on strike for six months fighting against the attempt of the mine employers to suppress 20,000 jobs, close 20 pits, destroy whole mining communities, and smash the power of the NUM. In the course of this struggle five miners have died through involvement in the strike, two are fighting for their lives in hospitals, and there have been almost 5,000 arrests. The mining areas have become almost police states with the use of 20,000 police, the blockade of roads, and the continual police occupation of key mining areas. The assets of the South Wales National Union of Mineworkers have been seized by the courts.
This entire assault on the mineworkers has been preplanned by the Conservative Party for ten years and was presented in 1978 in a plan drawn up by the now transportation minister [Nicholas] Ridley for Thatcher. The confrontation, including the massive police operation, has been planned in detail by the Thatcher government during its five years in office.
The violent reaction of the Tory government is due to the stakes involved in the strike. If the British miners were to win, it would be a defeat for the entire policies of the Thatcher government — and a blow to all those governments pursuing monetarist austerity policies. For this reason alone a victory for the miners would be a victory for the whole working class internationally.
The British miners’ strike is a crucial part of the international resistance of the working class to the capitalist and bourgeois governments’ assaults on jobs and real income/wages which, in Europe, finds its expression in struggles like the fight for the 35-hour week in West Germany, the defense of the sliding scale of wages in Italy, the public sector workers general strike movement in Belgium, and industrial action against unemployment in France and Spain.
The miners are also a special target for the Tories since it was their action which brought down the Conservative government of Edward Heath in 1974. Since that time the Tories have plotted to destroy the power of the miners union as the key to breaking up the organized strength of the whole labor movement in Britain,
The miners have no strike pay, in order that their union can use its funds for fighting. The government refuses to pay any social security to the strikers and has reduced state benefits to their families to an absolute minimum. The government is also shipping strikebreaking coal into Britain, breaking union agreements with British dockers.
The miners have responded, stepping up their picketing. Miners’ wives have organized themselves nationally and locally to win support and fight alongside the miners. The miners’ wives, by their example, have been an inspiration to the strike and to the labor movement, They have made common cause with the struggle of the Greenham Common women against the missiles. The dockers have called two national strikes.
Coal mined in Poland is still being shipped to Britain by the Jaruzelski government. Other coal is being supplied by the South African apartheid regime. Action already being taken in support of the British miners needs to be stepped up and tightened.
Now there is urgent need for international solidarity. The Fourth International pledges itself to play its part:
¢ to get the truth out about the miners’ case, through our press and through tours of miners and miners’ wives; e to raise funds and material solidarity for the miners and their families; e to fight through the unions for the blocking of all coal movements to Britain.
No coal to Britain! Victory to the British miners!