Respect our pickets!'

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THE DEATH of Davy Jones, at Ollerton pit last week was the tragedy of a miner who gave his life for his union and the fight to defend jobs.

So just why was it that miner was pitted against miner? The background to this dispute is a blatant attempt by the NCB to destabilise the overtime ban. A lot of miners feel that the overtime ban was beginning to bite. The massive coal stocks were beginning to dwindle.

Frank Slater is an NUM delegate from Maltby colliery, part of the Manvers complex in the South Yorkshire coalfield. He spoke to Socialist Organiser in his personal capacity.

"Firstly they announced a change in shift pattern at the Manvers complex. This shift pattern has been used and agreed for the past 25 years.

"The official reason was "to improve profitability. This, after 18 weeks of overtime ban. The South Yorkshire panel of the NUM then unanimously agreed to go into dispute. The Yorks area NUM then attempted to negotiate with the board over the dispute in the South Yorks Area.

"But all they got was a snub Yorkshire Area NCB. On 28 February, the South Yorkshire coalfield went on strike.

"The Board then decided to out heartags they Closed Corth.

out warning, cosea corion Wood colliery. On 5 March, the whole Yorkshire area came out and made the dispute official a week later.

Go-ahead

•Then when Ray Chadburn said that the Notts miners would ballot but that he expected them not to cross picket lines where they were formed, the rank and file of the South Yorkshire miners not unreasonably took this as a go-ahead for flying pickets.

"When they arrived in Notts the branch officials came out and said that local members should not cross picket lines, but confused things by saying that they should be allowed in to ballot.

"Some Yorkshire miners feel that this may be because the Notts branch officials are up for re-election in June and war it to remain popular by giving members a free hand to cros s the picket lines.

"This caused much bad feeling amongst the Yorkshire lads, who felt that Notts could have had a ballot much earlier but had only held one at this late stage under pressure of a flying picket from Yorkshire.

"Nonetheless, although the press would have us believe otherwise, the mood on most picket lines has remained generally cordial, with Notts miners joining pickets and miners' wives suppor ting.

Disgusted

'I would say that the stonethrowing and all that at Thoresby and Ollerton was started mainly by local youths with nothing at all to do with the NUM. At Thoresby, where I was. the police wanted to escort the night shift out. We reached an agreement with the police that we would allow this, and that they would allow us a two-minute silent vigil for the lad who had died at Ollerton, plus five minutes to talk to Thoresby branch officials.

"I got my lads round in a square to do this and we were then attacked by the police, who pushed us off the road, smashing through a wooden fence. This was on the TV later that day.

"We called off our pickets to let them vote. But I am absolutely disgusted with the vote. There will be massive flying pickets this coming week. We respected their ballot. Now I want them to respect our pickets.

"I think support on the picket lines from other trade unionists would be dangerous because the police would be likely to pick them off, but then again it wouldn't be any more dangerous under the present anti-union laws than for NUM pickets from Yorkshire, Scotland or Kent.

"I'd love to be on any platform with Chadburn. I've not got as much experience of public speaking as he has, but our case against him is cast iron. He's given us practically no support. He's not issued any clear instruction to his members. As far as I'm concerned, with the death of Davy Jones, he's got blood on his hands."