Shooting war in US miners' strike

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VIEWS STILL, THANK GOODNESS THE MOMENT WE ARE erately ignore this truth.

Like the infamous Socialist Challenge scoop (where one magistrate was moved and ten more took her place) Labour MP Martin Flannery demanded that McKinnon be replaced. Presumably by a judge who will be more careful not to sound off so loudly.

David Lane-head of the impotent Commission for Racial Equality-called for prosecutions to be brought under the stronger 1976 Act where motive does not have to be proved.

Bewigged

Dennis Skinner, 'left' MP for Bolsover declared that the judges should be elected; thus presumably promoting those trade union and Labour magistrates into the bewigged world of the high court where they can impose longer sentences on workers.

'Stronger' Acts will solve nothing. Fascism is the last resort of the bourgeoisie against the working class. Forced to choose between the working class and fascism the courts will choose fascism every time.

It is a breach of principle as grave as that of Scargill who turned to the courts with equal lack of success over the NUM wage claim and, like the Labour lefts, used the courts as a substitute for action.

Defence Those who oppose fascism must oppose by mobilising the working class against itthe only class capable of dealing with it.

Defence squads must replace defence lawyers and full support be given to Asian and black communities who organise defence squads, by drawing in the whole labour movement to join them.

The answer to Read and his little bunch of fascists is not a stronger Race law. When the working class has dealt with him then will be the time to say 'one down, not many to go':

In the fifth week of strike action by 188,000 US coal miners, a 65-year old picket died after being shot five times by a pit security guard in Kentucky.

Mack Lewis was gunned down as pickets manned a level crossing attempting to halt non-union coal trucks. The guard has been charged with murder.

Meanwhile in other areas miners are going onto the offensive in a bid to shut down the non-union pits that at present produce 60% of US coal output.

Dynamite

Teams of flying pickets up to several hundred strong and armed with guns, pick-handles and dynamite have been roving highways in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.

On one day alone last month these teams caused five truck loads of scab coal to be dumped by the roadside.

And last weekend 500 strikers firing guns and throwing dynamite fought a battle with riot police at a wharf in Indiana which handles coal from three scab pits.

Three lorries and two cars were blown to bits and two haulage company offices were firebombed, causing damage estimated at £700,000. 194 strikers were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Railway depots and power stations have also been picketed by miners determined to ensure victory against the employers, whose strategy is to starve out the strikers while relying on non. union coal.

Meanwhile UMW president Arnold Miller has been doing his best to sell out the action in negotiations which are reported to have conceded to the employers a "right to fire"' clausa enabling the automatic sacking of miners who initiate unofficial strikes or participate in flying pickets of non-union pits.

Token support for the UMW was voted at last month's AFL. CIO convention-but so far no official action to back the miners has been called.

Strikers must challenge this and demand that steel, power and transport unions áre mobilised to black scab coal deliveries and ensure the miners win their life and death battle on Dav conditions and union rights.

And in mobilising the independent strength of the trade union movement, miners must also take a lead in the fight for a political party to represent the independent interests of the working class-a labor party based on the unions.

AS WE went to press details were coming in of a tragic building accident in Dartford in which four tunnel miners were killed and five seriously injured when their lift plunged 140 feet down a shaft on Monday afternoon.

Among the dead was Gerry Larkin, a union activist well known to 'Socialist Press' sellers in London during the recent unionisation fight. We extend our sympathy to the relatives and friends of these victims, with the hope that the accident will spur on the fight for unionisation in this sector of industry.