Us Miners Storm Union Hq

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In a dramatic move to head off a concerted bid by union leader Arnold Miller to sell out their ten week strike, hundreds of US miners last Friday invaded the United Mine Workers headquarters in Washington to prevent a meeting of the bargaining The miners were responding to increasing evidence that their strike, coupled with the impact of sub-zero winter temperatures on energy supplies, is beginning to grip the wind pipe of US industry in the Mid West • and Appalachia.

Insidious They have recognised that they now face the most insidious danger of all-the efforts of the Miller leadership to impose an ignominious sell-out.

But their resentment has forced a move at an unofficial meeting of the bargaining council, which voted 33-3 against Miller's proposed settlement terms.

No date has yet been set for reconvening the bargaining council, which must ratify any settlement plan before it is referred to a membership ballot.

Picketing

Meanwhile the strike, which in itself was expected to halve US coal production, has succeeded through tenacious picketing and successful calls for support from other unions, in cutting production to a mere 32% of the output prior to the start of the strike.

Attempts to use non-union coal to run the hard-hit Ohio Miller talks with UMW members Published by Folrose Ltd for the Printed by Prestagate of Reading power industry have abysmally.

"We have told them we will receive any coal they can one official of the Columbus and Southern Ohio Electric Company.

Crisis level

As a result the private monopolies that provide electricity to US industry and consumers are announcing that stocks have reached crisis levels in Ohio, western Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Employers warned last week of the threat of electricity "brown-outs" that could put 500,000 Ohio residents out of work inside a month.

More than 100 State and Federal electric power officials gathered at a crisis meeting convened by the Department of Energy Executive, and the call emerging was for a settlement with the union.

Amenable

The New Jersey representative urged the Carter Administration:

"to call upon the electric utilities to call upon the mine owners to be a little more amenable"

But despite this evidence that the bosses' pre-strike strategy of stock-piling coal for a prolonged union-busting battle has begun to crack in certain areas, UMW leader Miller has been concentrating on watering down the miners' claim and accomodating the employers' demands for no-strike clauses.

Miller has agreed to a plan that would force any miners who took unofficial strike action to reimburse the Workers Socialist League, 31 (TU). Registered at the GPO union's benefit income lost.

This would amount to fining miners up to $22 day for engaging in unofficial strikes-and also includes provisions to sack unofficial strike leaders.

This bid by the employers and officials to break miners' strength on a local level is part of a major attack on working conditions.

It is these stringent anti-strike clauses that have piled the pressure even on the bureaucratised 39-man bargaining council.

One council member declared last week that:

"People in my district would hang me if I ever ratified something like that".

Carrying Signs of impending violence over the sell-out emerged last week when Miller, (who is now reportedly carrying a gun for protection against his members) returned to visit the UMW headquarters in his home town.

A fist fight broke out between his bodyguard and militants opposed to the reported terms of the settlement.

It is not only the no-strike provisions that have riled the miners. It seems clear that the other aspects of their claim-on pay, on health benefits and pensionshave also been abandoned.

Miners who had been consciously saving and preparing for this fight are prepared to hold out for the whole of their demands now the employers are in a corner.

State troopers

As one UMW district dent said:

"If ever we're going to get anything from the operators, it'll be in the next 10 days. Our people are saying back home-if it takes ten more days, take it"

Meanwhile in Oakman, Alabama, 200 state troopers used tear gas to rescue seven scab miners who had been surrounded in a house by hostile pickets, and told they would not be allowed to leave alive.

Police cars and helicopters were riddled with bullets from small arms, and dynamite was thrown by miners at the troopersthough most went wide of the target.

One stick of dynamite was thrown under a patrol car but failed to explode.

, Dartmouth Park Hill, as a newspaper.

Pickets had earlier closed down the non-union Oakman Mining Company only to find the seven scabs working to reopen it. 800-1,000 miners quickly rallied to the scene to stop them.

In Petersburg, Indiana, a striker was shot dead in a gun battle outside a scab pit.

Strength

This militancy indicates the enormous strength of the UMW-and rallies in various parts of the country show the popular working class support for their struggle.

But such militancy alone is not enough. There are signs that anti-Miller bureaucrats within the UMW may be prepared to use the hostility to the settlement in order to make a bid for power in the union on their own behalf.

But what is needed is not merely a change of bureaucrats but a political leadership within the union that will mobilise the full independent strength of the working class to win the full (though inadequate) demands of the strike, and press forward to fight for full unionisation of the scab pits.

Political opening

The fact that large sections of miners have moved into direct confrontation with their bureaucratic leaders offers an opening for such a

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