have suffered a series of bad setbacks.
The Tory defeated both the comes policy.
Emboldened by their successes, Heath's ministers decided to crack the real tough nut - the miners. As Ine City of London Newspaper wrote: 'Months before the coal started, ministers were saying in private that would establish their "anti-inflation" policy by a resounding victory over the miners' The Times was boasting: 'Coal stocks awav THOM the pils large enough to withstand a strike tor weeks but added the cautionary words ... if it does not spread Just like now the TUC did nothing to help the miners. No call came Congress House for solidarity action. It did nothing to bring the transport unions effective embargo could be put on the movement of coal.
Naturally, was prepared to ofter its services so an amicable settlement' could be reached. In 'TUC-speak' this means help get the work fast as possible. The leader Harold Wilson, just like Neil Kinnock Louay. kept well away from the picket line. He was quick to condemn violence on the picket line that was the miners' 'violence' of course, not that of the police! place when other sections of the labour movement government that was elected in 1970 power workers and the postal workers. By 1972 it was running an unofficial inThe police the judiciary openly collaboralca wiln lne government employers' strike-breaking plans. Dennis Skinner the Labour MP, told hou police encouraged truck arivers to drive at speeds OI miles an hour at picket lines. 1 he Director OI Public Prosecution made it obvious where he stood In ine strike in the case of 'the scab and the iron bar'.
He had been sent a picture of a scab wielding an iron bar. The DPP replied: 'It would be necessary for the prosecution LU DIOVe that the truck driver carried the bar with the intention of using it to injure. If therefore he was merely holding it so as to cause the pickets to move away from ns truck so laure colic urive away wilhour dance to himself or anyone else, I do not consider that an offence would be establishI do not propose to take any action in the matLOT.
Like now the stakes were high. If the workers' moyement was going to be UCES VCIV then the miners had to be crushed. The lines were drawn. The government, the police, the judiciary and TER FUTURE the media side, on the other stood the miners and their allies, who couldn't have had a better spokesperson than the picket at Murton colliery in Durham who told the magazine Seven Davs *They want the pickets to respectable. Being respectable got us where — at the bottom'. Stocks From the beginning the TalK file set 'unrespectable' pace. Whilst their union president, Joe Gormley moaned about the men 'being a damn sight more militant than we would want them to be, at all the 140 pits the safety men were out. coal stocks totalling 31 million LOIS INC mues Seul oll flying pickets across the coulilly.
The power stations, one after the other, were closed down by Elias pickets. From Yorkshire Kent. Wales and all the coal fields the miners took to the roads and motorways. The had to spread to the power sta"NÚM доше COLLIERY! tions, donois and the rail heads it coal coke it was to be successtul, and the members of the NUM ing to be successful.
Saltley After weeks of bitter struggle came the great victory of Saltley coke depot. For week 600 police open. 'battle Saltley swung first way, then the other. Finally the Birmingham labour movement decided to act. rortv Enousane workers downed tools in solidarity with the eleven thousand of them poured down the streets on to the PICKET Flying Pickets vocal group get where the action is numbers so they can't enforce their law. miles
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Photo: MORNING STAR IT'S MORE THAN a coincidence that the miners' strike of 1984, like its predecessor of 1972, is taking
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