Solidarity with British miners
A big solidarity festival will also be held in the Folkets Hus (Community Center) in Copenhagen, which can accomodate thousands of people. Famous bands and artists have agreed to perform with-
In recent months, a broad movement of solidarity with the British miners has developed in Denmark. This may in fact be the most extensive campaign of solidarity with a workers struggle abroad that we have ever seen.
The main reason for this development is that a lot of Danish workers have immediately understood that the miners' fight is also theirs. Because, if the British miners can stop Thatcher, that will be an enormous encouragement to the Danish workers in the struggle to stop her little brother in Denmark, the right-wing premier, Poul Schleuter.
Soeren SOENDERGAARD
From the start of the miners' struggle, many workplaces and unions began statements of solidarity and sending financial contributions. In July an initiative was taken to coordinate solidarity and establish a national solidarity campaign. It was the Socialistisk Arbejderparti (Socialist Workers Party, Danish section of the Fourth International)
that started the ball rolling, by inviting all the workers parties to a meeting to disground, 24 shop stewards, local and national union leaders called the founding meeting of the Landsindsamlingen til de
Britiske Hulminarbejdere (National Fund for the British Coal Miners).
Even though this assembly was held in the midst of the summer holidays, it was an enormous success. Representatives of all the political currents in the Danish union movement participated.
For a start, more than 100 unions affiliated to the campaign, including three national the
Bryggeriarbejderforbund ones
(Brewery Workers Union), the Soemaendenes Forbund (Seamen's Union) and the
Hotel-og-Restaurationsarbejdernes
Forbund (Hotel and
Restaurant
Workers
Union).
At the same time, 26 support committees were established on a geographical basis to distribute literature, hold meetings and collect funds.
though the Social Democracy,
Even which is the biggest workers party in Denmark, has not officially affiliated to the campaign, a lot of Social Democratic-led unions have done so and many are contributing to the campaign.
Practical solidarity
In the first month of its existence, the campaign already collected more than
250,000 Danish crowns (about 25,000
US dollars), and it is not unrealistic to hope that the total may reach a million crowns by the end of September. At the same time, a lot of unions are sending direct to the miners.
money
For exexecutive of the SID, the ample, the union of unskilled workers, the country's largest union, has recommended to the
6
SID's National Board that it send 100,000 crowns. from carrying coal to Britain from Poland and South Africa. The Danish dockworkers are discussing blacking goods destined for Britain. And the Byggefagenes Samvirke (Building Trades Association) has decided to bring miners families to Denmark for vacations and is calling on other unions to do the same.
The solidarity movement is so extensive that it has become a problem for the Landsindsamling to get enough literature printed. The first 30,000 information leaflets and 35,000 support stamps were exhausted in a few weeks and a new order is now at the printers.
At the moment, the Landsindsamling is preparing for a 14-day tour of a miner and a miner's wife as a prelude to a big solidarity weekend on September 28-30, when Arthur Scargill and Peter Heathfield [president and general secretary of the mineworkers union] have been inSAP publish special issue on British miners (DR)
val Støt de
• britiske
klasse-
kulminekampen arbejdere
EN UKUELIG KAMPVILJE Interview general sekrenes out pay for the benefit of the miners. The Folkets Hus is being turned over for the event free of charge, thanks to the Social Democratic-dominated District Labor Council in Copenhagen, and the surplus collected will go entirely to the Landsindsamling. A common struggle
The Socialistisk Arbejderparti has made solidarity work with the British miners one of its central activities. This involves both what the party does in its own name and the work of its members in the unions. For example, the SAP is collecting money for the coal miners at the same time that it is involved in collecting 25,000 signatures in order to be able to run candidates in the next parliamentary elections. The party has also put out a special issue of its weekly paper, Klassekampen, with material on the strike to help in the support work.
Part of the material in this issue of Klassekampen was collected on a 14-day tour of the British coal fields by a member of the SAP leadership, who is also a shop steward at the B&W marine motor factory in Copenhagen and one of the initiators and leaders of the Landsindsamling.
In the unions, SAP members are raising the question of solidarity. One example of what can be done is the decision by the SID in Als, in southern Jutland, whose members were out on strike for several months in the spring in a long and bitter struggle against the government's assault on real wages. At its general assembly on August 25, it adopted a resolution that concludes as follows:
"The similarity in the attacks of the conservative governments is striking. We can and will block the sort of brutal attack on the Danish union movement that the British NUM is facing today. A victory for you is a victory for us. A defeat for Thatcher is a defeat for Schlueter. Fraternal greetings and 10,000 crowns from the SID-Als."
This is the line that the SAP is fighting for, not abstract solidarity with the British miners but concrete solidarity based on the understanding that the fight against right-wing governments is a common one for the European working class. Therefore, solidarity work with the miners is also practical preparation for the contract negotiations here that will begin early next year and will be a difficult and decisive test of strength between the Danish working class and the right-wing Schlueter government.
International Viewpoint 1 October 1984
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DENMARK.