The ferocious battle inside the National Union of Mineworkers continues. The E30 claim was overturned when the sick Mr Gormley gallantly climbed out of his bed' to save the social contract.
The return to the formula of a substantial claim! was intended to buy time for the right wing and the Labour leaders. Everyone knows -including the right wingthat the miners will not settle for much less than E15.
TROUBLE If Gormley and company accept any sum below that amount they may find themselves in deep trouble with even the 'moderate coal felds, never mind the militant areas like Yorkshire, Scotland, Kent and South Wales, If a settlement is made strictly within the terms of the social contract, all hell will be let loose in the union. What Gormley hopes is that some means can be arranged whereby the miners will get more money as a special case.
There is little doubt that Eric Varley, the Minister of Energy, has made some re-assuring noises in that direction. The Labour Government dreads a battle with the miners, as it knows that it would lose. Furthermore, it realises that the price of losing that battle is the tearing apart of the already tattered social contract.
What preoccupies the Labour Government i, Just how much can it give to undermine the base of the left in the coal fields without causing a revolt in other sections of the working class?
ONUS This places a heavy onus on the left in the NUM. Once again the miners are to the forefront in the battle against incomes policy. The issues are clear. Either the workers pay the price of the capitalist crisis -which is the casence of the social contractor they impose a workJeff King ers' solution.
to organise and unify the great majority of the NUM members around the idea of a t3U claim, and how to get support for that claim within the rest of the working class.
MISTAKE the most promising of beginnings. The idea being floated by the left is that Cumberland, which is represented on the executive but has only one pit, should be amalgamated with Lancashire. This would deprive the right wing of one vote. A number of the left have also suggested dropping the 15,000 strong clerical section of the NUM from the main pay claim, and telling it to go its own way.
The anger of the left at the bureaucratic manoeuvrings of the right is understandable. However, I would be a mistake to split the union in this manner, and to try to outdo the right wing at its own TOVed, but to support the wage demand, and as the management made no IK. fiefs.
OPEN APPEAL The problem for the left is how To date the left has not made Dems.
The T&GWU had no alternative approaches to the works committe It is cocrect of the left to insist that the numbers of members that executive members represent be taken into consideration, But the real way to fight the right is by mobilising the rank and file, and insisting that all members voting on this crucial question be mandated by mass mectings of the members.
The tenuous grip of the right wing can be broken, providing that the left organise a campaign in the coal fields -that was clearly shown in the ballot over the productivity deal The left must challenge the right wing barons like Nottinghamshire leader Len Clarke in their own Last week a number of the TUC bosses were muttering omin claim, ously about not giving support to " the miners in the event of a strike which would lead to a breach of the social contract. The most effective way to meet that threat is for the NUM left to make an open appeal to members of other unions over the heads of these bureaucrats.
Such an appeal, however, cann- and Pamphiets on the situation in Eastern Europe produced by the International Marxist Group. Available at prices stated (plus 5p p&p] from RED BOOKS, 97 Caledonian Road, London, N.1.
COMMUNISM The Rendutionary Left VERSUS STALINISM states: "We require personnel under ot rest simply on moral calls for solidarity. The miners have to pledge that they will also sive their support to other workers fighting the social contract. This woald tear the ground from under the feet of those leaders who are prepared to see their members living standards driven down to save British capitalism.
The NUM left must prepare a claim that not only offers the miners a real way of lighting inflation, but can act as a model to the rest of the working class. It is important to write into that claim the demand for a sliding scale of wages. which is an effective way of ens uring that the inevitable increases in the cost of living do not eat into the gains made by the new The defeat of the Government's social contract and the securing of the demand for a sliding scale could act as a guideline for the rest of the working cluss. It would have an even more powerful impact if the miners unified with other sections of workers around that dem Ibssian İntellectuk la Revolt break no the militant 5,323 branch,
----- pull-quotes -----
HOST PULL THROUGH