pepe 13 Challiner (The Week,) raises a cruciel issue when writing about Le threatened closure of Mosley Common; Lancashire's largest Colliery. And it is doubly exasperating to try and.understand the attitude of the N.U.M, leaders in acting as 'Time Beaters' for the N.C.B. In a market that is being deliberatel
: : y run down by a Labour Government on behalf of the oil moguls, it should become self evident to the union that any increases in productivity are bound to mean more pit closures. Oddly enough, the pleas of the union leaders for the men to work harder and achieve greater output targets can only serve to acceler i and will not keep them open. . Bogarerete pit closires,
Dodworth Colliery, another large so-called longlife pit near Barnsley, is now being threatened with closure wiless.....e..? Whose turn next? Dodworth is a fully mechanised Colliery and like other mechanised Collieries, it is extracting its toll by greatly increasing the numbers of men contracting that dreaded disease Pneumoconiosis. What is not generally known however - because the union is not screaming loud enough, is that the numbers (the rate is fantastic in view of manpower reductions) of men contracting Pneumoconiosis and the DEATHS caused by Pneumoconiosis has doubled during the past four or five years, and the numbers are still on the increase. 800 men, yes EIGHT HUNDRED MEN, 800 poor souls died last year, and their deaths were caused by Pneumoconiosis. THEY WERE KILLED by millions of pieces of coal and stone dust infesting their lungs. Now if this 800 had suffered a quick painless death by being clobbered with tone’ big stone, or by their bodies being splattered all over the floor there would be an outery, men would become alarmed, the union would become concerned, semething would have to be done. But yet 800 men, because they crawl away to endure unemployment and poverty for the rest of their miserable unnatural lives, can be SLOWLY AND MISERABLY AND TAINFULLY CICKED TO DEATH and nobody seems to care, least of all the Coal Board and the Union. WHAT THE HELL Is WRONG WITH THESE PROFLE?