Miners- Gone to Coventry

A sad item of news in the April issue of the eetstey of sates eae was picked up recently in The Times and given the deceptive headline, "Miners lead the way in cutting strike losses." The gist of thig story runs as follows: coal-mining strikes have fallen from 193 in the first quarter of 1966 to 108 in the first quarter of this year; working days lost from 43,000 to 24,000. Of course, there has been a general decline in stoppages of work throughout industry, from 661 to 576 in the same periods. The number of work-days lost fell, overall, from 485,000 to 451,000. This means that the "improvement" in mining industrial relations accounts for almost all the shrinkage of strike action during those two years. But, of course, it is no “improvement” at all. Even while it was being computed, area after area of the NUM has being going on record to demand significant wage increases for the low-paid workers, and the whole industry is rife with discontent about conditions. The craftsmen feel grossly ill-treated. The day-wage workers exist on pitiful wages, which place many of them below the official poverty-level, and would mean that Frank Cousin's demand for a £15 minimum wage would, if realized, greatly advance their living standards. (How disgraceful that people work underground in excessively hot, damp, dusty conditions, for less than the wage which leading figures in the Trade Union Movement regard as a bare minimum for existence !) In this situation the Ministry of Power has announced the third cut in the coal target for production to 140 odd million tons a year. In fact, this is a higher figure than many experts have calculated will be raised in a very few years' time. Obviously the miners conditions are not responsible for a great growth of contentment, producing this shrinkage of strike action. The contrary is true. The miners are once again being driven into submission: and the parallel which we should make when examining these figures is that at the same time the Rhonndda has become a marginal area for the Labour Party. What can be done about this 7? This is one of the urgent topics for discussion at the Conference on Workers' Control which is being held in Coventry on June 10th and llth. Mineworkers will be discussing not only the relevance of ideas of workers! control to the defence of the industry and the protection of their trade union strength, but also the relevance of the demand for a democratic integrated fuel policy, based on the creation of a National Fuel Board, under public ownership and democratic control.