Miners must throw out 'new' offer

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on March 6.

The Carter administration, the employers grouped in the Bituminous Coal Operators' Assocation, and their own union bureaucracy are using every device to force home acceptance of a vicious contract only slightly reworded from previous offers.

Embodied in the BCOA's latest proposal-which has now been passed on for ballot voting by the union's 39-man bargaining council-are provisions to discipline unofficial strike leaders, an end to free medical treatment for miners, and a continuation of sharp differentials in pensions between those retiring before and after 1974.

The bosses' only, much publicised, "concession" was to tone down their previous insistence on VEH NO NAZIS TAIN:

NSTRATE! tionary strike-breaking coalition, and for the removal of the Callaghan-Healey-Rees No such fight is envisaged by the confused forces of the Anti-Nazi League-whose main forces are provided by the Socialist Workers Party, and whose policies are retailed by ex-Liberal Peter Hain.

These people see fascism as a thing in itself and direct away from the necessity to struggle for a new leadership in the working class in the fight for the mobilisation of the organised strength of the labour movement.

Banned

The fact that the first additional march banned by the police commissioner's decision is a demonstration strikers clearly shows that class issues are involved. a $20 a day fine on unofficial strikers-a provision that had been rejected by the bargaining council amid a huge storm of protest within the union when first advocated by UMW President Arnold Miller.

Discipline

But retained is a clear statement that, according to the UMW's official summary:

"the 1978 Agreement will contain provisions recognising an employer's right to discipline employees who cause or engage in unauthorised work stoppages, including participating in a sympathy strike at the operation of any signatory employer"

The provision of free health The right to demonstrate was achieved only after hundreds of years of struggle -in which demonstrators were often killed by the state.

To ask the state now to ban any marches is to open up the workers' movement to police repression.

Challenge

Already Rees is talking of extending the ban-opening the possibility of May Day marches being declared illegal.

This state crackdown must be challenged by every trade unionist and Labour Party member. The fascists will be crushed only by the workers' movement.

And the organised working class must insist on the freedom needed to destroy the National Front. care for miners under union control-won in 1960 after bitter struggles-is to be replaced by a company-run scheme costing miners anything from $10-$14 a week, paid into private schemes.

This runs directly counter to the conference mandate on UMW negotiators to improve health and retirement benefits.

And the other key UMW conference objective-equalisation and cost-of-living protection of retirement pensions-has also been thrown aside.

But Carter has now taken the initiative in forcing the UMW negotiators to heel, Massive pressure decision ssey s powers of the Taft Hartley union-busting legislation-which would compel miners to return to work for an 80-day "cooling off" period-and to seek to impose a federal seizure of the mines were taken under massive pressure.

Confrontation

Lay-offs as a result of power shortages caused by the strike have begun to take effect, and coal stockpiles built up by bosses in order to fight the miners are now dangerously low.

Even so, Carter had until the weekend hesitated to resort to legal measures, which could well have been defied by miners, provoking a huge confrontation.

His threat of such action was designed to have an impact on UMW bureaucrats rather than rank and file miners.

That the union's bargaining council has been stampeded into recommending this deal under pressure of Carter's threat should come as no surprise.

As Socialist Press has continually pointed out, the militancy of the miners in their marathon strike has not been matched by the development of any independent political leadership within the union, whose leaders remain tied to the coat tails of the capitalist Democratic Party.

These union bureaucrats now prefer to confront the hostility of their own members rather than mobilise the full strength of the UMW and the US labour movement in preparation for a massive collision with the forces of the state and the Democratic apparatus, in which workers could discover their real strength and take steps towards political independence.

For similar reasons UMW officials as much as the private coal bosses have declared their support for disciplinary action against unofficial strikes, which they see as a threat to their bureaucratic hold on the union.

Hostility

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