TUC MUST CALL A GENERAL STRIKE THE HIGH Court has declared war on the trade union movement. Its decision to £200,000 of the assets of the NUM, and threaten to sequester the entire funds of the union, is the greatest attack on the trade union movement since 1926.
It that the hatcher government and me entire ruling class, acting through the courts, have decided to try to break the miners' strike through repression. It is the No one should have any doubt but that this legal attack is a calculated decision by the ruling class to try to smash the NUM.
The reasons for the decision are clear. The NUM is winning the strike. Already power stations representing 40 per of the coal-burning capacity of the Central Electricity the TUC guidelines not to handle new coal. More such decisions will come through in the coming days. government must win the quickly or its defeat is certain.
There must be no illusions whatever regarding the scale of the attack which has now been launched on the NUM or the scale of reply which is needed to defeat it. The court's decision unal, after eight months out solid, the NUM cannot call the strikes in Yorkshire and Derbyshire 'official' is simply grotesque. The NUM cannot back down on that even if it wanted self-governing union could.
The courts aim to smash the power of the strongest industrial union in the country. If this decision is forced through the internal affairs of no union in the country will be free from the continual intervention of the courts. The attack on the NUM is a direct and immediate threat to every every shop stewards committee, every group workers in the country.
The decision which the union movement faces today is far more serious even than the one it confronted, and failed, a year ago with No. 73 12 October 1984 the court attack on the NGA. That humiliating defeat was followed imseize mediately by the banning of unions at GCHQ, and the government forcing the miners out on strike through its provocation at Cortonwood. defeat of the trade union movement now will see a wave of reaction by the employers against every group of workers in the country.
The response of the TUC and entire trade union movement must be the exact opposite to the decisions of the General Council when the attack was launched on the NGA. The victorious fight against the Industrial Relations Act, the freeing of the Pentonville Five, shows that the law can be successfully defied and defeated.
The condition for victory is that the movement acts now to take industrial action to support the miners and the TUC is forced to give full backing to the NUM. If that is done the courts will be defeated - and the backbone of the Thatcher governThe ment wil be broken. There are Monday, set by the court, to ensure that the government knows if it acts against the NUM it will face the biggest mobilisation in the history of the working class. Sheer brute power, not law, will decide the outcome of this struggle. The urgent steps now are: • Every branch, every shop stewards committee must meet and decare that if the assets of the NUM questrated, or its leaders imprisoned, start from Monday 29 October - the day the court action to seize the assets of the NUM commences. • The executives of trade unions must meet to decide that from Monday 29 October indefinite strike action will be taken if any attempt is made to sequestrate the assets of the NUM or imprison its leaders. • An emergency meeting of the TUC of General Counci must be declare its support for the NUM and to declare that if the assets of the NUM are sequestrated, imprisoned, TUC Any fourteen days from For its leaders No more NGAs!
ATIONALUS MINEWORKERS KENT AREA ORGANISE
Socialist Action 12 October 1984 ACTION SOCiAlist