[Strikers demonstrate outside White House. Above, auto workers…]

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Strikers demonstrate outside White House. Above, auto workers demonstrate support and Midway Coal Company (P & M) was announced. P & M employs only 800 miners and is not part of the BCOA.

Government mediators engineered the agreement and then pushed it as a model to end the strike.

The BCOA made great show of resisting the government campaign. This was clearly to give the impression that the agreement was good for the miners.

Billion dollar

The governor of Ohio sent a telegram to the UMWA and the coal operators warning of:

"a billion dollar blackout that would force massive unemployment, widespread school closings and cold and darkened homes throughout the state".

He went on to demand acceptance of the P & M contract "to avoid a catastrophe of incalculable proportions"

National contract

On February 24th, Carter announced that a new national contract had been agreed.

The BCOA dropped provisions in the first contract on Sunday work; incentive pay; changes in starting times; probationary period for new employees and fines and suspension or firing of miners who honour a picket line.

Under UMWA rules. contracts agreed to by the bargaining council have to go to a ballot of the membership.

Massive campaign

The members voted, in the face of a massive press campaign and threats from Carter to utilise the union-busting Taft-Hartley legislation, to reject the BCOA offer.

This vote-after 90 days of struggle-was by a massive margin of 2 to 1!

The Taft-Hartley anti-union law had been pushed through in 1947 despite massive opposition from working people.

Under the law, Carter could get a court order telling UMW officials to instruct their members back to work for a cooling-off period of 80 days.

Those who failed to comply would face fines in the courts and strikers who stayed out would lose Federal food stamps thathad helped to sustain them in their struggle.

On three previous occasions, injunctions under Taft-Hartley had failed to force the miners' union back to work. • Carter was, however, in a desperate position. The Miller leadership had failed to control the rank and file.

The strike was a battle which had to be won by the employers if successful attacks were to be launched against other workers.

Not object But when Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley "coolingoff period" he did SO knowing that leading US trade union bureaucrats would endorse his action.

For example, the AFL-CIO (American TUC) President, 85 year old George Meany declared in advance that he would not object if Carter invoked Taft-Hartley injunctions.

Meany announced that his long familiarity with the mine workers had convinced him that the unions internal troubles required strong government measures-and that if he were President he would already have seized the mines!!

No fines:

On March 13th, the first day the injunction was in operation, between 60 and 100 out of 180,000 miners turned up for work.

The miners ignored the injunctions and no one was fined, no one was jailed.

Almost immediately, the employers put forward a new offer.

The attempts to discipline unofficial strikers were abandoned. The attempt to limit the authority of union safety committees was dropped.

Free health

The medical card giving free health care was not restored but the maximum yearly payment by any miner was lowered from $700 to $200.

Pensions were raised, though not equalised.

The defeat of TaftHartley by the miners was vividly illustrated when the Federal Judge who issued the injunction refused to renew it.

The miners, he said, were "not paying attention to what I do anyhow"

In the ballot on this timid offer, the rank and file voted 57% to 43% to accept.

During the 110-day strike the Miller leadership fought unceasingly for the interests of the employers.

Despite solid support from the rank and file for an offensive against the employers, despite massive support from workers in other industries, Miller refused to offer a firm lead to the miners.

During his campaign for the second contract he reportedly spent $40,000 trying to persuade UMWA members to accept the employers offer.

When money poured into the strike fund, he refused to distribute it.

Carter The acceptance of the third offer was the result of a complete lack of leadership at a national level.

Miller was elected President of the UMWA in 1972. As the increasingly corrupt Boyle leadership began to lose control of the rank and file a reform movement was launched by union bureaucrat Joseph Yablonski. Yablonski quickly became a focus for militants within the union.

In 1969, Boyle defeated Yablonski in the election for President.

Shortly after • this, Yablonski and • several members of his family were murdered.

The election was widely was launched out of the reform movement begun by Yabionski.

From the beginning the MFD was drastically weakened by the methods used to fight Boyle The orientation of those who followed Yablonski was towards the capitalist state not towards building the independent power of the indenendent nower of the workers.

Election invalid

Mike Trebovich, head of MFD complained to the Secretary of Labour of irregularities in the 1969 election.

In May 1972, District Judge W.B. Bryant ruled the election invalid and ordered another one to be held-this time under Labor Department supervision.

It was this state-run election which thrust Miller into the UMWA leadership.

• Point dangers Throughout this period it was the duty of revolutionaries to point out the dangers involved in the failure of MFD to guard the independence of the union while recognising the possibilities opened up by the genuine movement in the ranks which produced that movement.

The Spartacist League and the Socialist Workers Party both failed this test.

The sectarianism of the Spartacists led them to see only the negative side of MFD.

In their recent pamphlet "The Great Coal Strike of 1978" they reprint excerpts from Workers Vanguard articles on the strike and its background.

Blind to anything but thè opportunist relationship between MFD, liberal lawyers and the Labor Department, they go as far as the following statements:

"Miller's campaign represented no more of a rank and file movement' than did Yablonski's" Quoting from Fortune (Jan 1971) (a magazine which reflects the thinking of some of the biggest bankers and industrialists in the US") the Spartacists contend that MFD was the result of a huge conspiracy.

ine problem or dealing 6TL- - L1- -e1--1°. with a work force that is no longer under union discipline would be difficult enough for the companies.

"But they are now faced with the prospects of signing a new contract on October 1st with a union President whose mandate to hold office is questionable to say the least"

• Talked militant To see only this side of the MFD and not the side which talked militant and did indeed produce important gains for the rank and file led the Spartacists to refuse to give critical support for Miller and cut themselves off from the opportunities which opened up as the real nature of Miller became clear to his former supporters.

Mirror opposite

A mirror opposite of the Spartacists position was that of the Socialist Workers For the SWP THE UAW electoral support for Miller with capitulation to his In the June 23rd issue of the SWP's weekly Militant, Shelley Kramer takes up the Spartacists and the Healyite Workers League in an article "Socialists and the Miners Strike: where the sectarians go wrong"

Strong point

She is, of course, able to make a strong point against the Spartacists. Writing of the effects of Miller's victory she says:

"Miners won the right to read, discuss and vote on their contracts-which is why they were able to turn down the coal bosses initial "ball and chain" contract offers "They won the right to elect district officials. This increased the pressure of the ranks when those officials then went to the bargaining table.

'And miners came to see that they were the ones with the power and their elected leaders were supposed to represent them, which contributed in no small way to the spirit and determination of the strikers."

She is also able to attack the Spartacists strongly by showing that their assessment of MFD as "simply another manoeuvre in the interests of the capitalist class" fitted in well with Boyle's slander against MFD being "that gang of outsiders with support from rich foundations" out to "weaken and destroy the UMWA"

Defend courts

However, Kramer then goes on to defend the use of the courts and cites as support for this move the contention that the Trotskyists did it in the 1930s.

It is not possible here to refute that claim in detailspecial circumstances existed when Dobbs did use the courts and a discussion of this question could easily fill a further centrespread.

What is important however is the way in which the SWP now seems. to regard this as a natural 'tactic' and one which did not contain dangers for the independence •of the working class movement.

And throughout the recent strike the SWP refused, as we shali see, to make any direct attacks on Miller, The tasks of revolutionaries in the strike was to provide a class struggle programme and develop a way forward for victory. Central to this was the need to tackle the question of leadership within the Next week in Part Two, Keith White looks at a correct revolutionary orientation for US workers during the miners' strike.

The article will develop criticisms of so-called revolutionary groups in America and point to the correct way to raise the demand for a Labor Party in the US.

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rty peace the Granada TV series about JOHN DOCHERTY writes British Communist Party.

OCIALIST PRES: capitalism by presenting of all things, a portrait of Lenin. 5_61

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