growing movement of solidarity with the British miners
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY -In the Netherlands …it is still not good enough. Nonetheless, it is not a bad start. More than 400,000 guilders [approximately £95,000]have been paid into the solidarity account set up by the FNV, the country's biggest confederation of unions. The account has been receiving more than 5,000 guilders a day.
A hundred thousand guilders' worth of foodstuffs, vegetables and meat have been sent to Britain by the Socialist Party's independent campaign. (1)
The British Miners' Support Fund, in which, among others, anarchist groups are working, brought 32 miners' children to the Netherlands for vacations. About a half ton of food has been collected so far by the committee set up by the Verbond van Communisten in the Netherlands. And the Onafhankelijk Verbond van Bedrijfsorganisaties (Independent Confederation of Factory Organizations) has collected fifty thousand guilders.
Twenty members of parliament from the PvdA (Labour Party), the Communist Party, the Pacifist Socialist Party, the Radical Party, Democratie 1966 (a bourgeois liberal party), the Evangelical People's Party (EVP, a Protestant religious party), and the Scholten-Dijkman Fraction (two MPs who broke from the Christian Democratic Party on the nuclear arms question) have called in an advertisement for people to send money to the FNV solidarity account.
The Nijmegen "Platform Against the Lubbers Government of Social Regression" organized an action rally on September 19 in response to the government's budget. A miner spoke there and a collection was held. to sign up as supporters of the miners' struggle.
The Enschede district organization of the teachers' union ABOP has sent 500 guilders to the miners. Various shop stewards' groups, including the one at the ADM shipyards in Amsterdam. And at Hoogovens, the big steel plant in Ijmuiden near Amsterdam, it has been decided on the basis of petitions to collect money for the miners. So, the solidarity movement is well underway.
The NUM is happy to provide speakers for solidarity rallies. Since two miners wives were brought to Amsterdam by the FNV women's organization, various other tours have been started or are in preparation.
In Rotterdam, there is a support committee working that includes, among other forces, the CP; the SAP (Dutch section of the Fourth International; the women's group of the ABVA (Algemene Bond van Ambtenaren - General Public Employees Union, the largest union affiliated to the FNV); ABVA-Ret, the transport workers section of ABVA; the VCN; the OVB (a small radical union confederation); Rebel, the youth organization in solidarity with the Fourth International; and the youth organization of the FNV.
Over the week of September 22-29, this committee toured three young mine workers in the Rotterdam area. On September 28, they went to Heerlen, a former coal mining area.
On October 9, a miner and a miner's wife are coming to Brabant. In Eindhoven, an evening is being organized by the ABVA, the Industriebond (the industrial workers union affiliated to the FNV), the FNV women's organization, and by shop stewards in Philips and DAF, among other workplaces.
On October 9, the FNV youth movement is organizing an evening in Helmond. In Deurne, an evening is being organized by the FNV youth organization, among other forces. 10
The committee that organized the reception for a mine wife in Heerlen is now considering sending a delega Britain to see with their own eyes what is happening and t liver the money collected by the ongoing campaign.
The SAP is supporting the FNV campaign. SAP and helping to circulate petitions and other materia helping to organize solidarity meetings with miner wives through support committees, union bodies stewards groups.
In Nicaragua...the gold miners of El Limon in the depe ment of Leon sent a message of solidarity to the NUM, tra ated and published by the Nicaragua solidarity campai Britain. The gold miners are affiliated to the Sandinist ers Confederation.
Dear Comrades,
A revolutionary Sandinista greeting from the mineworkers of Nicaragua.
Through this letter we, the miners of Nicaragua, would like to assure you of our solidarity with the struggle you are waging in your country to win trade union democracy, to sustain you struggle without your rights being suppressed. Brothers, would like to tell you not to lose heart. Right and reason w win through when there is the will power as strong as yours.
We know you are confronting reactionary consciousness and right-wingers led by the Iron woman Margaret Thatcher, but your struggle is just and being just will win, as the reactionary structures of capitalism are swept away by the uncontrollable forces of revolutionary and progressive ideas of the organized and conscious working class, guided by the best sons of the proletariat. Forward brother British miners, your brother miners in Nicaragua support your just struggle. A struggle which will be long, cruel and full of sacrifices, but we say t all, or death.?
Enoe Castellion Union of Mineworkers El Limon Mine
In West Germany ...the two-million-strong metalworkers union IG Metall has opened a fund for the British miners. All members, branches and districts of the unions will be able to contribute. This follows a donation of 1.3 million DM made by the union to the NUM to alleviate hardship. An IG Metall spokesperson was pressed by British journalists as to whether IG Metall had put restrictions on the use of the money. He replied that his union had received donations from British unions during their campaign for the 35-hour week, and nobody had asked them on what it was to be spent. The action of IG Metall is in stark contrast to that of the German miners' union whose leader, Adolph Schmidt, has taken a hostile attitude towards
International Viewpoint October 15, 1984