International solidarity with British miners continues No coal to Britain! Victory to the miners! have been the watchwords of the Fourth International during the course of the miners' dispute. Sections of the International have carried full reports of the strike in their papers not only in Western Europe but in the Americas, Australasia, Asia and, with important results, in Poland. Despite our modest resources, 25 tours of miners and miners' wives have been organised by supporters of the Fourth International in France, Belgium, Denmark, West Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Luxembourg, £30,000 for the miners' cause and have helped to build and initiate broad Ireland, the USA and Canada. These tours themselves raised over trade union campaigns of solidarity. At the time when the strike was called off, sections of the Fourth International were organising tours ot miners' wives for International Womens' Day in France, West Germany and Sweden. Money is being raised in support of the campaign for all those imprisoned or sacked through tours in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Below we give an account of this continuing campaign by the Fourth International in support of the miners which is aimed to raise money and to continue to spread the courageous example of the miners' struggle within the world workers' movement against all those who refuse to fight austerity and unemployment and seek to use the defeat of the miners to prevent struggle.
shire area took part in meetings in Brescia Milan and Genova and other northern cities between March 15 and 22. They also addressed workers assemblies in Genova and in the factory councils in Milan. Altogether two million lira (about £1,000) was raised.
In Spain ... miners' wife, Hazel Jones, hit the front page headlines of the Spanish daily, El Pais, during her tour.
In the tour organised by the Spanish section of the Fourth International, and lasting one week from March 4, Hazel spoke in about 15 gatherings including a women's group of the CCOO (Workers' Commission), to other trade unionists in El Vendrell, in Unidad Hermetica in Sabadell, to workers at the SEAT car factory and to postal workers on strike in Barcelona. She also addressed an International Women's Day rally in Barcelona. According to Combate, the paper of the Spanish section Fourth International, to all those who asked her about the outcome of the strike, Hazel answered proudly that "] don't know who has lost or won this strike, Thatcher or the miners: but I am convinced of one thing and that is that we women have won something because nothing will ever be the same again after what we have lived through?
In Switzerland ... three miners from Upton and two miners' wives from Kiverton Park collieries spoke to a total of 700 people in various meetings and to 1,500 women on a demonstration for International Women's Day in St Gollen. They received widespread press coverage on radio and in the daily newspapers and raised a total of 12,405 Swiss francs (about £3,865). The tour was organised by the Swiss section of the Fourth International.
In West Germany ... Lesley Boulton, a Greenham Common Woman and a representative of Women Against Pit Closures toured the country to raise money for miners' wives in South Yorkshire on the occasion of International Women's Day. Altogether 4,000 Deutschmarks (about £1,100) was raised and more links were made between women in West Germany and the miners' wives. For example, women from the Greens in Elensburg decided to start a twinship with a miners' wives group.
Women organised around the Heckel steel plant in Saarbrucken gave Lesley a particularly warm wlecome since they had had a very similar experience in forming a womens' action group when the plant was occupied by the workers against the threat of closure.
Everywhere Lesley went people understood the basic message which was that though the strike is over, the struggle continues.
International Viewpoint 8 April 1985
In Italy ... During the strike the Italian unions, especially the GCT took several measures in support of the British miners. The PCI (the Communist Party of Italy) also expressed, in principle, its support for the struggle.
At the same time, trade union leaders were not too happy with a struggle which objectively implied a criticism of their own timid behaviour. That is why, when the NUM had to suspend the strike, they began to launch their own criticisms.
One 'expert' on labour issues, the well known socialist senator, Giugni, explained that the miners had fallen into a real trap' ' (What a pity they could not consult this expert to avoid such a disaster!)
The UIL (the socialist dominated union federation) commented that the NUM had suffered an inevitable defeat comparable to what had happened in Fiat in 1980. The leader of the CGIL, Bruno Trentin, a PCI member did not beat about the bush either; he said that the strike was 'a serious mistake. In Fiat, as in Great Britain, a false objective had been set. At the beginning the miners had the right instinct (sic). The National Coal Board and Mrs Thatcher's government were not only putting jobs on the line, but were challenging the role of trade unions in modern society. Industrial restructuring and technological change are being put into practice without the unions. That is the goal. The struggle, therefore, began on a justified premise, which was later forgotten. Also the miners' union opted for an indeterminate12 ly long strike, something that we do not do any more...Such strikes of long duration preclude real participation by the workers: they dictate that the strike is widely delegated and outside of the control of the union itself.'
In other words, just like Thatcher and her cronies, Trentin is accusing the NUM of not having operated democratically. Those who are familiar with the methods imposed on the Italian unions by Trentin and his friends will appreciate the hypocrisy of this statement. This is more apparent in his closing words when he says: "They (the miners) refused to confront the problem of restructuring of industries in financial difficulty as the mining industry is. The moral is clear: the miners should have not have struggled, they should have accepted the destruction of their industry!
In an editorial on the ending of the strike, the newspaper of the LCR, Italian section of the Fourth International, Bandiera Rossa, took up just this point and accused the so-called trade union leaders of crowing. 'According to these crows,, it stated 'it would be better not to fight against anything and to submissively put your own head on the guillotine...'
Fortunately, the British miners and many other workers like them throughout Europe will not take the advice of these timid trade union leaders. The comrades of the LCR organised a solidarity tour with British miners to raise support for those sacked or imprisoned. Jim Doig of Littleton Colliery and Philip Harker from the Labour Party in the Stafford-
NEW CALEDONIA.
- it does not see any need for launching