МЯОИ CUT ALL THE CAPIT KIRKCALDY - 23.1.72 SCABS IN SCOTLAND With complete solidarity from unionised labour, at least as far as movement of coal is concerned, the main trouble spot has been at Naim Williamson and Son's Linoleum Factory where un-unionised labour working for small private contractors and scab labour have been used to haul coal to their yard and from there across Den Road to the factory power station. On Wednesday a large contingent of striking miners was interrupted by a Union member who reported that coal was being moved at Nairs-a picket of 40 left the meeting and went to the factory where it was found that 14 lorries (200 tons) had already unloaded-2 lorries however, which were late because of a breakdown were successfully sent back to the Midlands. But in the Dysart Club (the local strike centre) NUM members heard strike committee members discussing the morement of coal into Nairns on Tuesday eveningwhy was no picket, or even a lookout posted then?
Nairn's next job was to more the coal across the road from the yard to their power station- the Nair workers ugreed to black the coal but private contractors were brought in and some coal moved in spite of a continual picket which the NUM insisted be totally peaceful-even when the police banned a militant from the picket for trying to derail a waggon the NUM took the side of the police and the morement of coal was only stopped when the Contractors were told that they wouldn't be allowed to touch coal after the strike.
OXFORD: The struggle has centered around Didcot power station and British Leyland. At Didcot they already have 800,000 tons of Australian coal. So oil is key. 24-hour picketsof minerstudents at Ruskin college, other students from Oxford and Warwickshire miners have stopped many oil tankers getting in. But a whole train-load of oil was delivered on the 22nd. Ruskin college held a successful meeting attended by dozens of local shop-stewards. At Cowley car workers are refusing to allow a coal powered plant to switch to oil and are blacking coal coming in by lorry. Meanwhile meetings are being held throughout the colleges in solidarity.
ASLEF: The engine drivers' union is the only union so far to officially black coal. Such an admirable decision has forced the Governmentand the employers to persuade non-unionised lorry drivers to dirty their hands with blacked coal. It is up to the NUM leadership and rank and file miners to persuade ASLEF and its members to black all oil movements to power stations. That goes for caustic soda and maybe other things as well. The slogan is simple: IF IT'S NEEDED-BLACK IT!
FROM SOUTH WALES "We're going to fight this one out until either we've won or we've been sold out." "First of all it was about Now scabs from England have been brought in at £20 a day and the picket continues, but the coal is still moving and the NUM are still insisting that a passive approach is taken to these class traitors.
WHITBURN A joint demonstration of about 400 was held on 22nd by Polkemment miners and British Leyland and Chrysler Lothian strikers in mutual solidarity. The march included workers fromLothian Industrial Cleaners on strike because 2 miners had been taken on by the management. The mood of the meeting which followed was militant and that mood caught Alex Wilson (MP for Hamilton) who just about knocked fellow MP's Judith Hurt and Tam Dalyell off the platform by calling for a National power strike in solidarity with the miners and stating that the miners should really be claiming £4,500 a year like him.
The biggest cheer of the meeting, however, was for the Chrysler steward who attacked the TUC bureaucracy for its class collaboration position and called for the rank and file to spread the strike-"if 1971 was the year of the Tory Offensive let 1972 be the year of the workers offensive.
Earlier on in the week at Whitburn the manugement of the colliery said they wanted to clear a slag-heap. The pickets let lorry after lorry out until someone caught on. They stopped a truck and underneath a thin layer of slag was guess what? a heap of coal. That was the last lorry. This also happened at Stirlingshire.
Around the country wages but not any more. The government want to break the power of the Trade Unions and we're in the front line. "The TV and the papers are poison to HS. "We don't want any of that nastiness like up in Yorkshire. If you try anything down here we won't be arresting one of you; it will be all of you inside. South Wales cop to our comrades helping on the picket line.
BOLTON: 24-hour pickets are out at Agecroft Bolton and Kearsley power station. They have managed to turn away oil as well as coal. Local student militants are arranging a concert to collect money.
"The students have turned up bloody trumps this time. We'll help them when they need it, " Bolton miner. ROTHERHAM: All looks set for the creation in Rotherham of a Strikers' Claimants' Union. SS Office watch out!
BATHGATE-VICTORY AGAINST SS Spread this one around! Two single striking miners were each paid E6 at the SS Office. So Section 13 car be made to work after all.
MINERS' STRIKE WAI Issued by International Marxist Group (British Section of the Fourth International) 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1 Tel: 01-278-2616.
Printed by: F. I. Litho Ltd.
Mole NEWSPAPER No.2 2p. OR Essex University: The first university to be occupied in solidarity with the miners. But January 19th was different for another reason: 180 miners from Yorkshire occupied the university as well. Their job was to stop coal from Rotterdam being unloaded at the small East Anglia ports and to picket the power stations in the area-principally Ipswich.
For the Tories this was an ominous sign. Mr. John Stokes MP thundered about the revolutionary implications of miners occupying a university.
An exaggeration unfortunately. But that occupation was very important. It gave the miners a permanent base of operations and plenty of willing hands to help; it removed encrusted layers of distrust built up by years of bullshit in the mass media about long-haired louts, etc. Moreover, in that first foray they forced (at Rowhedge) away a collier which Essex shows the way local Labour Party into providing accomodation for the bulk of the 100 miners left. This showed the true collaborationist policies of the organization which had been totally incapable of mobilizing any support for the strike in the area. So the occupation proper ended with 25 odd miners still on campus or in student accomodation elsewhere. But the university continues in its role as a Red Base for conducting the strike in the locality. Joint meetings of the Colchester United Front for the Defense of the Miners' strike and the miners themselves are held everyday to discuss strategy and tactics at the picket, ete. And miners and student: have been able to thwart attempts to drive a wedge between them by developing close personal ties to add to their unity in struggle.
The Essex occupation is an example to