SocialistAction 1983–88

The paper of the Socialist League, formerly the International Marxist Group, 1983–88

'There's no alternative, we've got to fight'

· Socialist Action No. 49, 16 March 1984 · p. 3 of the scan · 484 words

The scan: 049-mar-16-1984-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
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page 3 of the scan

as chalking on the face the areas to be cleared.

When miners responded with strike action the ake the chalk marks of - but when back at work were being asked to ork found that THICS in unsafe conditions.

Management's threat, that their action would result the closure of Yorkshire Main, was me last straw. With CortonWOod Bullcliffe already on the closure list the miners want national action against pit closun forkshire it's only the Sun talking about a ballot' they said plate.

The mood was determined and with no illusions. Miners explained • that the NCB was hoping the militant areas would be isolated that tional strike would be long and bitter.

* he problem is thal we've got the wrong peo ple in the TUC' but we're counting on the railworkers, SUDOOL. dockers and all workers concerned about unemployment'. for a strike from 6 am on Monday 12 March. At my pit the meeting was solid But some lodges turned it down meetings Some of the boys said they were bitter that when they were on strike last year other • areas didn't com out for them.

After the strike over Lewis Merthyr last year we lost five pits. We'll lose more if we don't fight and we have no alternative In nine years we reckon there'll be six pits left in South Wales years ago there were nearer We've explained that the new redundancy paypayment and that they soon be on the breadline but there are a few who DIlS lave been down the men are losing their confidence But at least at meetings where the vote went against striking they've said they won't cross picket lines. And there's doubt there will be pickets. This we're not tied down with a ballot round our neck. I'm confident we'll get the boys out I know they're having trouble in Scotland The leadership went over Kinneil they've never recovered Monktonhall were out nine weeks by themselves It should have been one out all out. They shouldn't have been left out on their own. The same has hap pened over Polmaise We've got to stop the movement of coal. I agree with Arthur Scargill abou the coals stocks. The pres are claiming these are too high but this isn't true. At Penrhiwceiber there two million tons of coa which has been stockpile for between 12 and 20 years It hasn't been, shifte because its useless. There' been talk of grassing over. Now they've started to shift it because the Aberthaw power station i desperate They're down to six weeks supply and langer leve We'l already been contacted local I bran, NUR, and Seamen's Union and I rela stop the movement coal

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in personal capacity to Socialist Action. of the Sour mates area is

DAI DAVIES, chair of the Penrhiwceiber lodge and member of the South Wales NUM executive spoke

← No to pit closures!TUC Women's conference: 'Debates? Forget it!' →

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