LESSUNSUFTHEUS MINERS' STRIKE 197: US 'Trotskyists' political independence

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Finger Patterson (left) and 'militant' Patrick it was necessary to back this up with a vigorous campaign of blacking throughout the US labour movement.

Those trade union leaders who paraded their support for the miners at rallies all over the country should have been put on the spot over this question.

Determination

As we pointed out in Part One of this article the efforts of Miller and co. to sell out the strike were in sharp distinction to the determination of the rank and file miners to fight the bosses.

There should have been a struggle for the running of the strike to be completely in the hands of the rank and file at a local level.

This could have been done by calling local meetings to pass resolutions removing Miller and replacing his control with that of the rank and file Miners Safety Committees for the duration of the strike.

It was important for the many donations from those who supported the miners to be directed to those who were organising at a local level.

Even after the strike ended, miners were still complaining that money sent to the Miller leadership was being witheld.

In fighting for active support for the miners, Socialist Press called for the setting up of Committees of Action to organise blacking and financial support.

The existence of Committees of Action would have laid a firm basis for the demand for a general strike against TaftHartley as Carter began his moves to implement this anti-labour legislation.

Subordination

Throughout the strike we placed at the centre of our demands the fight for a break with the Democratic Party and the construction of a Labour The top leaders of the US labour movement showed their complete subordination to the Carter government and the massive contradiction which opened up between these traitors and the rank and file miners and their supporters offered a great opportunity to push forward this demand.

A fight for a Labour Party would pose sharply the need for class independence and political devalopment out of the strike.

Alongside this it was important to fight for the nationalisation of the mines.

The largest self-styled Trotskyist group in the USA is the Socialist Workers Party.

Throughout the strike the SWP newspaper The Militant gave extensive coverage offering a detailed picture of the strategy and tactics that party pursued.

study of their record in the strike shows that the SWP was totally incapable of posing the real issues and giving the necessary revolutionary line for the UMWA.

"Solidarity"

The tone for the SWP's intervention into the strike was set by the December 16 issue headline "Support Coal Miners Strike' Between then and the end of the dispute the central theme of the SWP was "solidarity"

Despite the fact that many thousands of words were written giving the details of the attack on the UMWA and battles being fought out by the miners, The Militant appeared throughout as a paper giving no more than a commentary from a socialist viewpoint.

To be sure the SWP were not passive in the face of the strike.

It is clear that the membership acted in line with the February 22 Political Committee statement which gave the SWP's top priorities as follows:

*To expose the lies and divisive tactics of the energy corporations.

*To help mobilise the broadest possible support for the miners, and *To draw the lessons of battle for working people.

Independence

Within the strike itself the SWP at least in words stressed the centrality of the gains in union democracy coming from the 1972 victory of Miller's Miners for Democracy and the need to extend these gains, to direct towards class independence, defence of conditions and, from time to time, talked of the need for a Labour Party.

In practice, however, the SWP concentrated on the support element in the strikesetting up support committees, organising rallies and collecting money.

The sharp political edge in the struggle-that between the rank and file miners and the Miller leadership-was reported in general terms.

But in no way did the SWP emphasise the treacherous role of Miller or find ways of developing the struggle against him.

A diligent search of the pages of The Militant during the 110-day strike reveals a consistent avoidence of the question of blacking action by supporters of the strike.

Nowhere did the for this demand.

No call This is shown starkiy in one article, "Why the mine workers need a labor party" (Militant, 3 March, 1978), where the SWP declared:

"Labor Party representatives in Congress and in the state legislatures would • vote against any and all measures to move scab coal"

But in the same issue of the paper, in an article entitled "How not to support a strike" the SWP makes no call to campaign for the blacking demand and gives the impression of opposition.

Attacking the sectarian Spartacist League, the SWP says:

"The Spartacist League, another sectarian outfit with Trotskyist pretensions "supports" the miners by introducing union resolutions calling on workers to "hot cargo" (boycott) scab coal and demand that the steelwořkers immed¡ately go out on strike too"

The author, Shelley Kramer, goes on to attack the idea of sympathy strikes as the central focus for solidarity, putting forward as an alternative "support activities that can make headway."

Not central But conspicuously absent from the SWP's suggested list is any mention of blacking scab coal.

We can only conclude that the SWP did not regard the fight for blacking to be central in the miners strike.

Yet in this strike the production and shipment of scab coal was an important weapon in the hands of the employers.

Further evidence of the SWP's solidarity actions can be seen within the San Francisco "Miners Strike Labor-Community Support Coalition"

Despite the fact that a resolution was passed calling for blacking of coal shipments within the area and the SWP did not oppose this resolution, the publicly issued leaflets of the Coalition did not mention this important demand.

And the SWP voted against resolutions from union locals in the San Francisco area for sympathy strikes in miners.

The bulk of the SWP's support activities was the collection of money.

But the money collected by Support Coalitions did not go to local miners organisations but to Miller!/ He of course did nothing to distribute it to the ranks.

Socialist Press called for the preparation of a General Strike if Carter implemented the anti-union Taft-Hartley legislation against the miners. The SWP however, again restricted its call to further protest rallies by those supporting the miners.

Strike action

Nowhere did the SWP advocate the preparation, of strike action, restricting itself to historical articles about the great struggles against Taft-Hartley in the late 1940's.

In Part One of this article, we drew attention to the article in The Militant (June 23) which attempted to answer the sectarlans or ine spartacist League i=-- -I elaand the Healyite Workers League on the tasks of revolutionaries in the miners strike.

In this article and in the April 28 supplement, "The Meaning of the Miners Strike" those who want to study the real face of the SWP's "turn to the unions" will find the necessary information.

We have already drawn attention to the fact that the essence of the SWP's intervention was to build trade union level solidarity with the miners.

In practice the implementation of this line was carried out in such a way as to avoid head on conflict with Miller.

After the strike was over the major article "The Meaning of the Miners Strike" had this to say about the question of leadersnip:

"The reform leadership was swept into office by the mass upsurge in the coalfields. But +- utt

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Wer lay 30 August, 1978 the new officers-and many of those who elected them-did its own candidates in elections and has not begun the practical age