sand marched through Glasgow and rallies were held in six other Scottish Since then, railworkers have moved no coal to Ravenscraig. Dockers have struck twice. Yet this potential for building rea solidarity action to back miners has not been developed.
The most recent STUC demonstration was held on a Saturday; no stoppage wAS asked Ravenscraig continues at full production.
This contradiction that the miners are solid, the evidence for support from other Scottish workers is there, and yet solidarity has not been built up - is explained by the influence of the Communist Party in the Scottish trade unions, and the Scottish NUM leadership.
DONTUIT MAGGIE.
SAKCHID BURIALID picket but the CP.
talks Surated on coal has earned HEVE proven Maxwell's consistently the miners, ALLI conine to McGahey's approach.
Sunday theme, combining their with the Scottish NUM are tryview held by the CP that Thatcherism cannot succeed. In the miners' strike this means a perspective of compromise and sell-out instead of a determined struggle WIl the solidarity necessary for victory.
Mick MeGahey's formula repeated speeches from 9 May onwards - is for a settlement favourable to miners and the economy. The Bishop of Durham, interviewed in the current Marxism 1oday, who insists that the must not win outright, could agree with McGahey.
In Scotland, the situation following the TUC opportunities for the miners to win vital solidarity Key events the strikes, the strength of the dockers' strike in Scotland - show that important sections of Scottish workers will take action to back the miners.
mile i Call take initiatives translating TUC decisions into action which will assist solidarity throughout Britain. Scottish miners could now • appeal direct to power station workers;
mount pickets to stop 211(029 • call for a further one day strike;
• organise shop stewards to plan and build solidarity tonnes (metric) new capactiy by 1985.
looks at why.
IT IS NOT a new exhave 'plans coal' There have been many since nationalisation 1947. In 1950 there was a plan based on production reaching 240 million tonnes in the mid-60s.
fallen nationalisation there were 704,000 miners producing 200 million tonnes Today, there 180.000 producing million tonnes.
The various plans have done little miners' jobs. Under successive plans, usually of an expansionist Contulucy 1974 plan slowed down, DUT did not stop, this decline.
A new turn was taken in 1980 when the Tories introduced the Coal Industry Act which was the first attempt to make the coal industry break even. The Plan for Coal, however. remained the formal basis of the board's strategy.
In reality however a completely unfolded. policy was being In June 1980 a western economic Venice THE PLAN FOR COAL has formed the bedrock of the NUM's argument in its battle with the NCB. First drawn up in 1974, the plan aimed at 40 million The plan was revised in 1977 with a target of 200 million tonnes by the year 2000. This meant adding four million tonnes of new and replacment capacity each year. The plan has not worked. PAT HICKEY concluded that there was a need to expand coal pro duction. Coal was now widely reported. Also EEC policy at the time was for a big build up of nuclear power.
Less widely reported was that the proposed excoal production was based multi-national couraging investment in Columbia, Mexico and Botswana, in to that already undertaken South Africa, Australia, North America. At the same ume EEC production was lo tured "liberalise world markets, and the criterion was profitability competition with nuclear power No criteria of preserving jobs, communities, or miners' wage. adopted.
Under this criterion EEC coal did not very well. Of the tota production million tonnes, only 20t0 per cent profitable Approximate! 60 e 65 cer: 4 di 'unconclusion was that the EEC member states should encourage expansion of coa production outside The main beneficiaries of this policy Tre to like Win mel Tinto Zinc and Duffryn.
This policy determines the direction that Thatcher wants to take the British coal industry. According Monopolies Merger in 1982, using 'profitability' as its yard stick, a staggering 141 of the 198 pits being worked at the end of 1982 were unprofitable.
Only 57 collieries were operating at a profit, these accounted for 42 per cent output employed 64,000 miners.
Seventy-one pits were operating at a loss of up to Elor er torre losing more ther were losing more than f10. These are the 70 pits and 70,000 jobs which Arthur Scargill has consistently claimed were on the NCB's hit-list The NCB has denied the existence of the list.
But the truth is exactly what Arthur Scargill has always claimed MacGregor's plan to sack 20.000 miners is only the start in a long-chil restructure the British plan coal industry, in line with the EEC's plans. Once such a process starts, it is almost impossible to stop.
If the 26 pits in Wales were to close, the remaining pits become less viable because of the infrastructura Costs involved Similarly with Scotland and the north east. The result would be an dustry concentrated on the super-pits of the east Midlands, which are ripe Ior tempting targets for firm ovatisallull. like Rio Tinto Zinc.
The argument about economic grounds is therefore cen- and has been made still more so by the economic crash imposed The issue Thatcher 1979 is whether the jobs and communities o the miners are to be sacrit iced in the interests of the multi-nationals whether an unsafe energ source, nuclear power, is to replace coal.
A new plan for coal is needed, one which aims at which is based on the ex- nuclear the economy, palsion which snares the benefits of technological advance with the miners.
It will need concrete plans gasification of coal sentral to such NUM must demands for earlier retirement, longer holidays, and for the four-day week The latter demand was in fact first raised in th Sankey Commission in 1919! It is time a plan fo coal made it a reality
+ IF ZORKSHIRE MINERS UP NOSE THEN Усик alist Action 5 October 1984
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Scotrish workers on the march on 9 May day of action claims that MeGahey and
for perience miners
In fact production has Continuously ste
apable of competing wit This conclusion