NATIONAL Union of Mineworkers honorary president Arthur Scargill denounced “treacherous” labour movement leaders on Saturday for failing to support the 1984-5 miners’ strike.
Speaking at the annual memorial meeting for David Jones and Joe Green - the two miners killed during the year-long strike - Mr Scargill heaped scorn on the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock.
Denouncing Mr Kinnock’s “collaboration with British Coal bosses in their attempt to smuggle coal into steelworks in south Wales to break the strike,” Mr Scargill, who was arrested and jailed for his picket-line defiance of police attacks on his union members, also lambasted “those union leaders who refused to back us.
“Their failure to support the miners is the same as crossing a picket line,” he stormed.
“But not crossing a workers’ picket line is the eleventh commandment of our movement - trade unionists do not do it!”
The scene at the NUM’s old council hall in Barnsley, bedecked with bright union banners and packed with hundreds of defiant miners, was in stark contrast to the dour sight of half-demolished steel forges and shuttered metal-cutting workshops that now litter the surrounding south Yorkshire countryside.
Beneath proud banners proclaiming “Not Thyself, But The Cause,” and “Learn from the past,” Mr Scargill regaled the meeting with anecdotes from his encounters with the authorities during the strike.
He related how, with the former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher threatening to seize the NUM’s funds, a barrister acting for the government had failed to grasp the union’s response.
“Why do you request donations to the strike fund in cash? Don’t you know that this makes it more difficult for the courts to sequestrate it?” Mr Scargill quoted him complaining.”‘Blow me, I never thought of that,’ was my reply.”
But Mr Scargill also highlighted the sobering effects of what he called “the treachery of those in the labour movement who did not stand with us during the strike.
“Some 20,000 miners were injured, 13,000 arrested and more than 1,000 lost their jobs. Entire communities were devastated,” he explained.
NUM president Ian Lavery emphasised that, “despite the collaboration with the bosses of some union leaders, most workers know what a union means and backed us.
“We are proud that we fought, because this was not just the miners’ fight, but a fight for our class.”
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/britain/scargill_slams_past_union_leaders_treachery
Speaking at the annual memorial meeting for David Jones and Joe Green - the two miners killed during the year-long strike - Mr Scargill heaped scorn on the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock.
Denouncing Mr Kinnock’s “collaboration with British Coal bosses in their attempt to smuggle coal into steelworks in south Wales to break the strike,” Mr Scargill, who was arrested and jailed for his picket-line defiance of police attacks on his union members, also lambasted “those union leaders who refused to back us.
“Their failure to support the miners is the same as crossing a picket line,” he stormed.
“But not crossing a workers’ picket line is the eleventh commandment of our movement - trade unionists do not do it!”
The scene at the NUM’s old council hall in Barnsley, bedecked with bright union banners and packed with hundreds of defiant miners, was in stark contrast to the dour sight of half-demolished steel forges and shuttered metal-cutting workshops that now litter the surrounding south Yorkshire countryside.
Beneath proud banners proclaiming “Not Thyself, But The Cause,” and “Learn from the past,” Mr Scargill regaled the meeting with anecdotes from his encounters with the authorities during the strike.
He related how, with the former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher threatening to seize the NUM’s funds, a barrister acting for the government had failed to grasp the union’s response.
“Why do you request donations to the strike fund in cash? Don’t you know that this makes it more difficult for the courts to sequestrate it?” Mr Scargill quoted him complaining.”‘Blow me, I never thought of that,’ was my reply.”
But Mr Scargill also highlighted the sobering effects of what he called “the treachery of those in the labour movement who did not stand with us during the strike.
“Some 20,000 miners were injured, 13,000 arrested and more than 1,000 lost their jobs. Entire communities were devastated,” he explained.
NUM president Ian Lavery emphasised that, “despite the collaboration with the bosses of some union leaders, most workers know what a union means and backed us.
“We are proud that we fought, because this was not just the miners’ fight, but a fight for our class.”
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/britain/scargill_slams_past_union_leaders_treachery
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