Why the Scots miners didn't strike

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NCB to scrap more jobs. And the paign against closures is taken ou politics and track record • OI of their hands, then Polmaise ans Scottish NUM leaders McGahey, other pits in Scotland will end ul Bolton and Clarke shows that, falling victim to the NCB's offen Join the ORGANISER Party ORGANISER witch.

Labour hunt Scargill gets it right Inside for 3 months; £8.50 for 6 months; and £16 Please send me .... months' sub, I enclose £ ... To: Socialist Organiser, 28, Middle Lane, London SCOTTISH miners are in the middle of a prolonged struggle with the National Coal Board, which so far has taken the form of guerrilla warfare..

Since Albert Wheeler took over in 1980 as Scottish area director for the National Coal Board, the pits closed have included Bedlay, Kinneil, Cardowan and Monktonhall. Arthur Scargill has correctly warned that the NCB plans to shut half the pits in Scotland and axe 7,000 Scottish mining jobs. Top of the list at the moment is Polmaise, in the village of Fallin. Since July of last year miners at the pit have seen management take the offensive repeatedly. Last July, the workers were locked out for refusing - successfully - to accept trambers from Cardowan, itself fighting closure at that time. Lockouts took place again in September and October after pithead meetings were held in support of the then threatened Monktonhall colliery.

In late October-early November, development work was stopped at Polmaise, and machinery removed from some of the shafts, 'for an overhaul' In fact the machinery was transferred to Castlemill and Frances pits, where it was immediately used again, without any overhaul.

Bogside

Then, in January of this year, the NCB announced its intention of closing Polmaise.

A second pit to face the NCB's offensive is Bogside. Miners there went on strike in January over a downgrading dispute.

Management responded by switching off the power, thereby flooding the pit, and refusing miners access to the colliery to provide emergency cover over an entire week-end - and then blaming the miners for its own act of sabotage!

Although miners' president Mick McGahey has declared his intention of linking up the fight for retention of Bogside as a fully working unit to the campaign in defence of Polmaise, it has not received even the publicity which Polmaise has, never mind active support.

And last week - the week during which pithead meetings were being held to discuss the call for an all-out strike -another four pits found themselves bearing the brunt of the NCB offensive.

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Report by Stan Crooke AS the National Union of Mineworkers overtime ban grinds on, the Coal Board is forcing the pace on pit closures - especially. in scotland.

But, on Monday 20th, a Scottish NUM délegate conference voted not to strike in support of Polmaise colliery, though it did declare an official strike at Polmaise itself.

At the Seafield pit in Fife, miners walked out for what was meant to be a 24-hour stoppage in protest at the disciplining and downgradíng of a miner.

The meeting to conclude the stoppage was due to be held in the canteen. But at the time of the meeting, the colliery manager insisted — for once -on having his lunch in the canteen, thereby preventing the meeting from being held. So the 1,650 miners stayed out on indefinite strike.

The NCB then, used the dispute at Seafield as an excuse to send home the 400 miners at the Frances colliery (Frances coal is wound up through the Seafield shaft) despite an NCBNUM agreement that any stoppage at Seafield should not mean a stoppage of work at Frances.

Simultaneously with the strike at Seafield, 1,750 miners were on strike at the Killoch pit in Ayrshire, where management has been picking and choosing the men to do maintenance work at the start of each week contrary to the union's demands.

Killoch And the Killoch strike, too, was used to justify laying off workers at another pit. Coal at the Barony colliery is wound up through the Killoch shaft, so the non operation of Killoch was used as an excuse to lay off 544 miners at Barony.

Thus, the background to last Monday's meeting was: the threat of closure hanging over Polmaise and Bogside, strikes at Seafield and Killoch, lay-offs at Frances and Barony, and a union leadership which had constantly sought to evade any real confrontation with the NCB and the Tories over the future of miners' jobs in Scotland.

Plainly this is class struggle Diary 50p and on a broad front - the threat of closure hangs over Polmaise and Bogside, there are strikes at Seafield and Killoch, layoffs at Frances and Barony. The bosses have a strategy and they go all out to win.

By contrast the heavily Communist Party-influenced Scottish Executive of the NUM has been very ineffective, meandering and weak. The response of the Scottish Executive to each blow from the NCB has been to either accept closure outright (e.g. Bedlay) or offer a timid, token and ineffective resistance (Cardowan).

In January, when the NCB said Polmaise would be closed the NUM's Scottish Miner made a rallying call to action: 'Stand by to take action for Polmaise .. at pithead meetings at every colliery... the call will be for a series of stoppages throughout the Scottish coalfield in support of Polmaise."

But in fact when the special delegates met in Edinburgh on 13 February, the leadership's call was for no more than a one day stoppage.

The Polmaise miners had called for an immediate all-out strike. They are right. Nothing less than all out strike will stop the Tory government-inspired NCB offensive.

Decimate

At every retreat or surrender of the Scottish Executive the NCB's aggressiveness has increased. It will go on increasing until the miners use their muscle to put a stop to the NCB's attempt to decimate the Scuttish coalfields.

OVER 100 miners at Polmaise pit lobbied the Scottish NUM Special Delegate Conference held in Edinburgh on Monday (20th)

to discuss the demand by Polmaise miners for an all-out strike.

The miners were not in any mood for compromise. Delegates were challenged on which way they had been mandated to vote, soiled underwear was thrown at delegates who were not supporting the call for an all-out strike and they were not allowed into the meeting, while TV cameramen were obstructed to try and prevent them filming the lobby.

This went on for over half an hour as the miners controlled the entrance to the hotel where the meeting was being held.

In the end, tollowing an appeal from Polmaise delegate John McCormack, all delegates were allowed in. McCormack pointed out that the delegates were only spokespersons for their members and in certain cases, such as at the Barony pit, had put forward a strong case for an all-out strike only to be defeated in the ensuing votes at their respective pits.

Wisely, the leading members of the NUM Scottish Executive like Communist Party members Mick McGahey and George Bolton, who had been given a rough ride by the Polmaise miners at the previous week's meeting, had got to the hotel well before the Polmaise men arrived. • As the hour-long meeting drew a close, the Polmaise miners Miners at Polmaise By Stan Crooke crowded in the corridor and either threw out all the press and cameramen present or shut them in a side room.

Hotel staff called the police who looked on helplessly.

As delegates filed out of the meeting, they were jostled, booed and denounced with cries of 'Judas' ', 'Scabs' and accusations that they had 'Sold us down the river' by the miners. The meeting had rejected an all-out strıke, whilst agreeing that the Polmaise strike should be made official, and empowering the executive to take industrial action "as and when appropriate"

At the press conference following the meting, the Scottish NUM president Mick McGahey expressed his "disappointment" at the result and put it down to: fear of islation; the dirty tactics being used by the NCB; and the effect of mass unemployment on miners' morale.

McGahey also stated that the question of the closure at Polmaise and Bogside would be raised at the next meeting of the union leaders in the Triple Alliance but did not say what action the NUM would be looking for, nor did he explain what kind campaign the Scottish NUM would be mounting in support of Polmaise.

The mecting's decision was obviously a setback for miners at Polmaise and everywhere cise too, since it will only encourage the unless the leadership of the cam- SIve. Join the Socialist Labour Fight the a cuts Women * JOBLESS KEY TO Tebr Staan By Narry Kent's Staza appeal to Get SOCIALIST ORGANISER each week delivered to door by post!

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