'Our fight will go on | Socialist Action 1983

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.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-3 of 7; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 2 of the scan

•THE STRIKE is over, but the dispute continues.' Arthur Scargill's statement after delegate conference expressed the spirit of struggle that continues to exist in the mining communities. The closeness of the return to work vote - 98 to 91, even after 12 months on strike — was adequate testimony to that. So was the reaction in the Kent and Scottish coalfields and at Armthorpe in Yorkshire.

would make it complicit in the Coal Board's closure programme was correct and necessary. leteriorating situation faced by the strike, and the necessity to return in the short term, it was far better to refuse to make an agreement than to dress up a capitulation as a 'compromise'.

AS ATLAUT Scargill *rote in the Observer on 3 March: "The NCB demanding that the NUM accepts closures on "economic" grounds prior such cases going through the review procedure which means that the fate of these pits and units would effectively be predetermined even before. they enter the procedures.

the Board's annat serent: US ultimatum We The crucial question Sunday's special The NUM's refusal to sign an agreement which Given the for those who voted not to go back •was rightly the issue ot amnesty for the 700 miners sacked in the coulse of the strike. This struggle is going to deepen. There are still over cases outstanding against NUM members many on serious charges such as conspiracy "The NCB will continue use these case. victimise militants. Deof those sacked 1s now a key task of the entire movement and not just the NUM.

Together with the overtime ban the immediate issue facing the union. Kent, Scotland and Armthorpe in Yorkshire Leo use way with their votes to stay out to neat lor an alliesly The outcome of the strike is a defeat not just for the miners bat for the Calle But the attitude taken by Scargill, the NUM rank and file, has created the best conditions posstole for an ongoing struggle.

This is despite the fact that the right has been sitting on its hands and waiting for an opportunity to isolate the Scargill wing of the union. And despite the fact that the South Wales executive decision to recommend a return — with the implied threat that the coalfield would go back wnatever the nauonai decided empt the discussion at Sun- eccuvey JOHN

page 3 of the scan

Socialist Action 8 March 1985 3