'Scab' miners desert the national union
The July annual delegate conference of the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers), was followed by the formation of a breakaway scab union — a development which will polarise the British labour movement. At conference itself there had been an overwhelming vote of confidence in the national leadership and its conduct of the year-long miners' strike. An attempt by the Nottinghamshire area delegates who worked through the strike to censure the NUM executive was overwhelmingly defeated.
Rule changes which give the national union more control of the local areas and remove the necessity under the Conservative government's anti-union laws for Arthur Scargill, the left wing NUM president, to stand for re-election next year, were endorsed by conference. However, the proposal to grant associate membership to the miners wives support groups was defeated by one vote - a real blow to the solidarity that was developed during the strike. This defeat was mainly a result of opposition from Communist Party-led areas of South Wales and Scotland.
But the most significant development at the conference was the removal from national office of Roy Lynk and David Prendergast, two leaders of the scab miners in the Nottinghamshire area who worked throughout the strike. It was this decision, combined with the rule changes, which provided the excuse for the area to form a breakaway union.
P. McDERMOTT
The National Executive had recommended that only Lynk be sacked and Prendergast suspended. But Ken Capstick from the Yorkshire area successfully moved the sacking of Prendergast -a position which reflected Scargili's own. The breakaway union is a very important development in the British class struggle which will have far-reaching consequences for the labour movement.
It is quite clear that the National Coal Board (NCB) and employers' organisations were determined to push through a split in the NUM. They will now devote major resources to ensuring its survival. It will provide the NCB with a much improved opportunity to push forward the restructuring of the industry.
In addition to the 20,000 redundancies already announced in the industry, management have not denied reports that a further 50,000 redundancies will be announced in the future. It could help to lay the basis for a decentralised industry, and create the conditions for eventual privatisation. In the shorter term it could lead to a restructured pay system, with greater emphasis on wage differentials and bonuses. The NCB met representatives of the breakaway two days after its formation and pledged recognition, and is even talking about paying Notts scabs a loyalty bonus' This is clearly aimed at encouraging other right wing areas, such as Leicester and South Derbyshire, the Colliery Workers and Allied Trades Association (a breakaway in Durham) and the white collar section COSA to join with Lynk.
For the TUC and Labour Party leadership the breakaway poses a major problem. Notts area has 27,000 miners of whom 15,000 voted with Lynk against the rule changes, and 6
6,500 with the NUM. At the meeting which decided on the breakaway, the vote by NUM branch officials was 228 to 20.
The Notts area has long been affiliated to the Labour Party as a right wing influence within it. One Labour MP [member of parliament] backed by Notts miners, Don Concannon, has already attacked Scargill and declared that he is 'still a Labour MP'. The formal position of the Labour Party is that only TUC affiliated unions can affiliate to the Labour Party. But for Neil Kinnock fighting the "Scargill Factor' is the overriding political concern. The link between the left of the NUM and the left of the Labour Party was clear in the strike. It has been made clearer by the decision by the Bennite wing of the Party to draw up a Bill for a future Labour government to grant amnesty to all imprisoned miners, reinstatment for miners sacked for union activities, compensation to the union for the fines and losses it incurred through the courts, and compensation to individuals for losses incurred through fines, imprisonment, and loss of earnings through sackings.
The conference of the miners coincided with the final week's campaigning in an important by election in the Welsh constituency of Brecon and Radnor. Labour came second to the SDP/Liberal Alliance. The Tories came third, with their worst by-election result for many years. The Tories electoral popularity has been in continuous decline since their handling of the miners' strike highlighted their lack of concern for the problem of unemployment. But Kinnock promptly blamed Scargill's call for a Labour government to pardon imprisoned miners and sack the existing NCB management for losing Labour votes.
The Notts breakaway has said that it wishes to remain affiliated to the Labour
Party. If Kinnock openly rejects their affiliation, the media will present this as an endorsement of Scargill.
The TUC has similar problems. The trade union bureaucracy has a healthy sense of self-preservation. It is very reluctant to endorse breakaways -and has never done so in the past. But it also has an interest in defeating "Scargillism'. It is therefore likely to attempt to play a mediating role, to try and 'heal the breach'. It will certainly not take the stand that it should - for all-out war against the scab union. Instead it will take an even-handed approach. This will allow TUC leaders to link up with those forces who remain in the NUM who are hostile to Scargill.
These forces are already developing around the Communist Party. The rule changes on associate status for women were rejected with the support of the CP. The CP were also opposed to other rule changes. Indeed the South Wales and Scottish leadership both considered voting with the right against the changes. However it was clear that the price for linking up with the splitters against Scargill would be far too heavy, and would not result in the Notts-area staying in.
George Bolton, vice-president of the Scottish area, has stated that, It is not a uniform view that miners must go on strike to save the industry? Instead the CP is turning towards a campaign of publicity to win 'public opinion' against pit closures, rather than the mass action proposed by Scargill. The CP and the right also succeeded in watering down a motion to TUC congress in September for a call for a future Labour government to grant amnesty, to a call for a review' of all cases. A link-up between the Labour and TUC leaders and these forces in the union would be a serious threat to the Scargill leadership.
The real problem for these forces
International Viewpoint 29 July 1985
is the NCB's intransigence, and the thoroughly rotten nature of the Notts leadership. But the political aim of the exercise will be as much to isolate and defeat Scargill, not to privide any solu-
Interview At the end of the week-long July tions for re-uniting the miners union.
Socialists must have the clear stand of calling on the Labour Party and the TUC •to wage war on the scab union with all means possible. with Notts miner Annual conference of the National
SOLIDARITY WITH VICTIMISED MINERS In the aftermath of the miners' strike forty miners remain sacked and nearly eighty are still in prison, many serving harsh sentences. So far 173 sacked miners have been reinstated though many of them have technically been reemployed, thus losing the benefits of many years of previous service. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) national conference has now com vened a special conference for October to discuss industrial action, if the hasn't been a significant ment of sacked miners. Along the left wing campaign grou Labour MPs (members of parliam it has launched a national compo for victimised miners will major rally at this years annual Party conference. We reprint the text of the appeal issued NUM and call for a campa international solidarity to be tab
*In the wake of twelve months of industrial dispute some 700 miners have been sacked by the National Coal Board. Despite all reasonable arguments by the National Union of Mineworkers and representations to the House of Commons, lan MacGregor refuses to reinstate them. Most have been dismissed for trivial or no offences and the majority are union branch officials whose crime was to fight for jobs and mining communities. Other miners languish in jail on charges arising directly from the dispute.
The Union is pledged to assist all our members, to provide support for their families and to seek their reinstatement. The Miners' Solidarity fund is the only authorised body to work with the Union in providing financial support and only by all donations being sent direct to the Miners Solidarity Fund can a fair distribution of resources be ensured.
We welcome the assistance of the Campaign Group of Labour MP's in bringing this message to you and trust that you will continue to show solidarity with the miners and give generously and regularly to provide support for the victims of the strike. ARTHUR SCARGILL (President) PETER HEATHFIELD (Secretary) MICHAEL McGAHEY (Vice-President) Send all monies to Miners Solidarity Fund, St. James House, Vicar Lane, Sheffield. Cheques and postal orders made payable to Miners Solidarity Fund
Union of Mineworkers (NUM), leaders of the Nottinghamshire area announced their decision to walk out of the national union and form a breakaway union, saying they did not agree with the rule changes agreed by the conference. The majority of the Notts area had scabbed during the year-long miners' strike. It is estimated that some 7,000 miners in the area will remain with the national union with approximately 10,000 in the breakaway union led by David Prendergast and Roy Lynk. An estimated 5,000 had already left the union altogether.
This action by scab miners was a repeat of that taken in the Nottinghamshire area 60 years before, after the British general strike, It lea to the setting up of the so-called 'Spencer union, which, unlike today, invowed he Notts region as a whole. This scab union collapsed within 11 years. International Viewpoint spoke to a member of the Nottinghamshire area of the NUM, who remained with the strike till the end, about his reaction to the news. Paul Galloway of the Thoresby branch of the NUM and a supporter of Socialist Action, a British revolutionary Marxist newspaper, described how he hoped that the new scab union could be defeated in less time than it took to get rid of the 'Spencer' union.
Question. What happened at the conference itself?
Answer. The Nottinghamshire delegates walked out saying they would not accept the rule changes. They had conducted a ballot before the conference in the region in which 72% had voted against the rule changes and in favour of pulling out of the national union in the event of the changes being passed. At the conference itself, the Notts region were very isolated. For example they put a motion condemning the national leadership's conduct of the strike at one stage and they couldn't even get a seconder for it.
Q. What will be the situation of people like yourself who wish to remain in the national union?
A. Today [Sunday July 7], the left strike leaders in the Notts area had a meeting in Sheffield (the location of the national headquarters of the union) with the national leadership. At this meeting they decided that there should be new officers' elections since Prendergast and Lynk had been sacked. We also want an undertaking from the Labour Party and the TUC that they will not recognise the new union. The NCB, at the moment are pledged to negotiate only with one union, but Ian MacGregor has been trying for a while to be allowed to negotiate with nonTUC affiliated unions.
Q. Do you think that any other regions like Leicestershire or South Derbyshire who scabbed during the strike will follow the Notts path?
A. These regions •have no history of union breaking in the same Inde rational Viewpoint 29 July 1985 way so I wouldn't think they would go down that path although Nottinghamshire will try to get them.
Q. Did you expect this to happen?
A. Yes, but we never wanted it to happen. We were never in favour of expelling the Notts area or any scab areas. But if you are not prepared to abide by the rules of the union then you can't be in the club.
This is very very serious indeed for us. It means refighting the fight of our grandfathers. I was in the welfare club the other day and people were talking about it and an old man, about eighty years old, he said that my grandfather had refused to join the Spencer union and that was good because 'Spencerism' was just a tool of the bosses, he said. It took eleven years to defeat Spencer, and we have to do it in less time than that.
Q. What are your chances?
A. If the LP and TUC aren't mealy-mouthed like they were in the strike and if they stick by their affiliated membership and if the left like Socialist Action put their whole weight behind defeating the breakaway union, then we can make
Q. What's it been like at work since you went back?
A. We hold our own. The scabs accuse us of being too politically minded, of bringing politics into the trade unions. But the point is the government are the ones who bring in politics through their anti-trade union legislation. The breakaway union will only help the government in that respect.
MEXICO —