Rank and file trade unionists speak
WE REPRINT blow extracts from speeches by two of the speakers at the all-Scandinavian conference of trade unionists - Dennis
Pennington from Great Britain and Harry Isaksson from Sweden.
There was joint action with these people because we realised we were in the same struggle against this reactionary government.
Of course there was the rise of the women's support groups which still exist. Women recognise that their position was at the side of the men, not in the background, and there was a great political awakening by the women. In fact I believe if the women had not become active, the strike would have ended after a few months.
Dennis Pennington, of Bold National Union of Mineworkers in Lancashire, Britain. Dennis is editor of the Lancashire Miner, a rank and file newspaper and a supporter of Socialist Action, a revolutionary socialist newspaper.
...Our dispute was not a simple industrial dispute but a question of ideology. The dispute was caused by our refusal to accept a closure prog ramme and challenged the logic of the capitalist system, challenged the drive for profits, whilst capitalism is in the throes of a worldwide reces. sion. We asked the question, 'who determines our futures. Those who believe in the market forces, that is the capitalists, or ourselves the workers, those who produce the wealth of the nation?' ...
During the strike, 11,000 mineworkers and their supporters were arrested, over 900 men were sacked and almost eighty men were jailed. Two men were killed on a picket line and three others died as a direct result of the strike, digging for coal on the coal tips ...
The reason [for our defeat] was our isolation. Other trade union leaders would not heed to the demands of Arthur Scargill to offer full support to miners, to broaden the action throughout the left against the British government and its policies. strike the
Now the strike is over the Coal Board, which is the agent of the government, is accelerating its pit closure programme, which we believe will lead to privatisation of the most profitable pits. Against this is the drive for profit in a time of economic recession.
They have refused to reinstate the vast majority of sacked men - only a very small number have been reinstated ... There is a concerned effort by the government and the Coal Board and right-wing organisations to form a new union, the so-called Union of Democratic Mineworkers. Its often reported in the British press that there is a split in the mineworkers' union. This attempt by the government to form a union is not an attempt to split the mineworkers' union, its an attempt to destroy the NUM 14 completely.
Last week the National Coal Board announced that in Nottinghamshire it would not recognise the NUM. The NUM does not exist in Nottinghamshire, according to the National Coal Board.
So the main programme of the NUM is to prevent the disintegration of the union, to win reinstatement of the dismissed men and to halt the closure programme ...
At my own colliery, Bold, the Coal Board announced its closure three weeks ago. This was because my colliery was the most loyal, the most militant section in my coalfield to the National Union of Mineworkers. The Coal Board wished the men to close the pit itself by voting not to oppose the closure. A vote was held and at my pit the men voted by two to one to oppose the closure. This is despite the constant propaganda from the Coal Board to the workforce that they would lose redundancy payments, they would lose social security payments if they did not leave the industry immediately. Unfortunately on one of the coal faces at my pit a team of scabs are mining coal and these creatures decided that if the pit didn't close they would go on strike to close the pit and they went on strike last Wednesday. They sat in the canteen for the full shift and the management paid them their wages. Therefore it was an NCB [National Coal Board] strike and the NCB wages were strike pay to them. These creatures answered the call of the Coal Board in November last year, when the Coal Board constantly sent letters to striking miners urging them to return to work ...
Despite the fact, that as I have repeatedly said, the strike was a defeat, the strike did have positive results. There was a political awakening of the ordinary rank and file workforce which resulted in fact in ordinary miners printing their own newspapers to counter the coal Board propaganda. There was a recognition of the problems of other oppressed minorities notably the immigrant communities in Britain and the population of Northern Ireland.
Finally, there was the internationai solidarity which we won during the dispute. This is the reason why I'm here of course. With the seizure of our union's assets, with the government's attacks on the state welfare system, on the family allowances, we've had to go across international borders and ask people for this support which we've received willingly... Harry Isaksson, a leader of a well-known wildcat strike that took place at the Malmberget iron mines in Sweden in 1969-70, a strike which turned out to be a milestone in Swedish labour history.
For an entire year, the British miners waged their heroic struggle against a united ruling class and its repressive apparatus. They faced twelve months of organized slander campaigns from Margaret Thatcher and her stooges, twelve months of concerted splitting operations and naked police violence.
But we also remember the twelve months of organized resistance by the miners. We remember their endless sacrifices, their untiring efforts to get support from other groups of workers for the common interests of all workers.
In the six months since the miners' strike ended, the fight has continued in another form, a fight to win reinstatement for those fired and persecuted for political reasons and to regain the union funds confiscated by the authorities, and to stop pit closures.
In a year and a half of intensive struggle, the British miners earned all the support that the international workers movement can offer. They became a guiding star for our common struggle against the shutting down of workplaces and antilabor legislation. The Nordic Workers Conference has had the chance to hear Dennis Pennington from Bold tell about what is going on now. It sends back with him heartfelt greetings to the British workers. Your struggle is our struggle. Victory for the British miners in the fight against closures is a victory for a future worthy of humanity. Long live international workers solidarity! •
International Viewpoint 11 November 1985