Up to 70 feared dead in Colombian mine blast
Sixteen killed in what could be one of country's worst mining accidents
Striking Mexican Copper miners
Mexican copper miners embattled in a three year dispute over health and safety issues
Dave Douglass talks about 'Ghost Dancers'
Dave talks about the final part of his trilogy 'Stardust and Coaldust'
Obituary: Peter Heathfield, March 2 1929 - May 4 2010.
David Douglass celebrates his life
Announcement of death of former General Secretary of the NUM .
Peter Heathfield dies after battle with illness
Victor Lindsay
It is with sadness that we report the death of our comrade.
Vic was a long time Delegate of the Rossington Branch and a great friend and comrade of the Hatfield miners
May Day 2010
Report and video from May Day 2010 social event.
Feds Cite Operator Alpha for Mine Inundation
Feds cite operator Alpha for inundation that trapped 7 miners for nearly 24 hours
MALTBY NUM BRANCH, YORKSHIRE AREA
25th ANNIVERSARY of the MINERS STRIKE
A story of coal and conflict -
Vicki Smith
From the Morning Star December 28th 2009
Pat Bennet, Hatfield Main NUM Union stalwart and Doncaster coalfield Character
Ripped Off Miners is a site that aims tohave miners' claims reviewed.
NUM National Executive Committee Elections – Yorkshire Area Aug 2009
Separating the pillock from the politics and the principles.
Worker-intellectual who fell prey to the right
David Douglass looks back at the life of Lawrence Daly: October 20 1924-May 23 2009
Launch of Dave's new book 'The Wheels Still in Spin'
Dave Douglass will be visiting his 'home' turf to mark the launch of the second part of his trilogy
For more news items visit our Other
News pages
Our News, Views & Updates page was getting a little on the
large side, so to aid faster loading times I have moved the older news
items to Other News Pages
Other News5 - Jan 2004- Jan 2005
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News Items
Up to 70 feared dead in Colombian mine blast
Sixteen are killed in what could be one of country's worst mining accidents
AMAGA, Colombia - More than 70 Colombian miners were trapped and feared dead Thursday in an overnight coal mine explosion that killed at least 16 miners in what could be one of the country's worst mining accidents.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37755622/ns/world_news-americas/
Striking Mexican Copper miners
This article, in The Tyee
- an American news paper, tells readers about miners embattled in a three year dispute over health and safety issues:
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/06/10/MexicanMiningStrike/
Dave Douglass launches Ghost Dancers
Following the launch 'Ghost Dancers' the final part of his trilogy, 'Stardust and Coaldust', Dave Douglass has been making appearances at book fairs and events around the country to discuss his work.
Here Dave talks about Ghost Dancers:
http://www.archive.org/details/DaveDouglass
http://www.archive.org/details/DaveDouglass-GhostDancers-Part2
http://www.archive.org/details/DaveDouglass-GhostDancers-Part3.QASession
A review of 'Geordies Wa Mental' the first part of Dave's trilogy:
Geordies wa Menta pdf
A review of 'Wheels still in spin', the second book in Dave's trilogy:
MinersAdvice reviews: The Wheels still in Spin
Weekly Worker 818 Thursday May 20 2010
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/
Friend, comrade, and occasional sparring partner
Obituary: Peter Heathfield, March 2 1929 - May 4 2010. David Douglass celebrates his life
It came as a great shock to many in the coalfields to hear that Peter Heathfield, the former general secretary of our National Union of Mineworkers, had died.
We were all too well aware he was seriously ill. Four years ago, he was present at the Jones-Green memorial lecture, paying tribute to all those miners who had died as fighters for the NUM. He was painfully thin, and explained that he had a wasting condition. His eyes still sparkled and he was as witty as ever, but Peter was a shadow of his former self. Still, we all hoped against hope he would pull through.
Peter was elected general secretary in January 1984 and took up office just days before the start of the miners’ Great Strike of 1984-85. He was one of the triumvirate - Arthur Scargill, Mick McGahey and Peter Heathfield - and never swerved from his solid loyalty to the union, to the action it had undertaken and to Arthur personally.
He was a Derbyshire miner through and through, who had gone down the pit after leaving school, starting underground work at the Williamthorpe colliery. Like me, Peter had the good fortune of studying on the NUM’s three-year day release course under the direction of Sheffield University’s extramural department. It was a hotbed of the new militancy breaking through the living dead the union had become in the mid-60s.
It was the Derbyshire area of the NUM which fired the first shot in the declaration of war against the old leadership in 1969 with an unofficial rally in London and then a nationwide wildcat strike, which put militancy, and an alternative leadership, on the agenda. Without that movement, the crushing victories for the miners in 1972 and 74 would not have been possible.
In 1966, Peter, who was very active in the Labour Party and its re-emerging left wing, was elected to a full-time NUM post for the first time, became vice-president of the Derbyshire NUM in 1970 and Derbyshire area secretary in 1973. Some said he would be the left’s runner for national president in 1981, while others thought this post was predestined to be Mick’s. As it turned out, the ‘left’, and in the particular the CPGB, threw their support behind the younger Scargill.
In January 1984, Peter was elected general secretary of the NUM, taking over the post from the once dynamic Lawrence Daly, who had been in ill health for some time. Without Peter’s steady hand on the tiller through those stormy days the conduct of the strike and its tenacity may have been much weaker. It was a classical case of ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’.
Peter was a most forceful speaker, his body literally bounced on the stage with the power and emotion of his words; his body pulsed, his voice, arms and head like electric, his stomping making many a stage rock. His sweeping gestures flayed alive the scabs and police. I had shared many platforms with Peter over the years - not just for miners’ events, but to mark the anti-apartheid struggle, our opposition to the Vietnam war, our hostility to nuclear weapons. Peter was an old-style guts communist, who saw the workers coming to power through a Labour Party impelled by an independent, militant trade union movement.
He was 100% loyal to the strike, and 100% behind the strategy, which the members imposed on the union, especially over the vexed question of the ballot. Vexed as far as the media and rightwing critics were concerned, that is, not the rank and file. Even now, after his death they still get it wrong, The Guardian commenting in its obituary: “When the Conservative government announced its intention to close 20 pits, Heathfield backed Scargill from the start of the strike in March 1984, and, like his president, rejected a coalfield ballot. Yet everyone who knew Heathfield believed that he harboured inner doubts about Scargill’s strategy” (May 4).
Of course, neither Peter nor Arthur rejected a ballot at all. The national executive made no recommendation on the question, and neither spoke either in support of or against any of the five resolutions on the floor of conference called to debate that very issue. Neither voted for or against any of the propositions (Arthur was in the chair), but why spoil a good folk myth with facts?
Following the strike and the years of confused repositioning and struggles for direction and democracy in the union, he and I often clashed over how to respond to the new situation. How to remain relevant to the rank and file, what we could hold onto and what we had to let go. Peter and Arthur both felt that at pit level we were giving and repositioning too much. I believe they felt we were allowing the National Coal Board strategy of isolating the leadership to work, and we should have shut up shop and thrown away the keys until the NCB was prepared to recognise the union at national level and re-establish nationwide conciliation. On the other hand, we felt they had become remote and unrealistic - making impractical demands of a battle-scarred, exhausted army. Peter and I went toe to toe over the newly installed ‘Doncaster option’ bonus agreement, and later over Hatfield colliery’s own pit payment scheme, which I felt he did not understand and he thought was breaking ranks. Some of this is explored in my current book on the period, Ghost dancers (published by Christie and available through Central Books), I hope sympathetically. Not that any of that broke our friendship or mutual regard and we spent a great deal of time rehashing and reviewing the whole post-strike period afterwards.
The most damning thing in Peter’s life, however, was not the strike, nor even its defeat and the years of declining union power and influence which followed, but the scandalous slander unleashed by the media with their charges of financial irregularity. Worse than that, there were accusations of fiddling and double-dealing for personal gain. Peter, a man of immense pride and self-respect, principled to a fault, was mortally wounded; he never recovered from the insult and injury. The charges were launched by sensational disclosures in the Daily Mirror and by Central Television in 1990.
Actually what they had discovered was an ‘anti-personnel PR bomb’ drawn up by the state’s special ‘counter-insurgency’ forces. It was meant to go ‘boom’ in the final minutes before the expected miners’ victory, rob us of our support among our own ranks and pull the rug on solidarity action across the union movement. As things turned out, it was not needed, since the sellout by the supervisors’ union had tripped our impending victory at the post. But the device, the plot, the scandal was left in the field like an unexploded bomb, for the media to discover by accident. They were too thick to realise what it was they had found - the greatest example of state interference, of state manipulation, in an industrial dispute and the media in the past century - and instead ran it as a ‘fingers in the till’, corrupt union official story.
Most people to this day still do not realise the scale of the state’s set-up of these two men in an effort to break the strike. The NUM appointed an independent inquiry under the chairmanship of Gavin Lightman QC, which cleared both Scargill and Heathfield of all the main accusations. But Heathfield never forgave the NUM NEC for suspending him and Arthur and handing over the enquiry to the QC. He never overcame the impact of that particular kind of scandal. Despite speaking to adoring crowds at many rallies and meetings afterwards, despite being cleared of all charges, despite all the applause and backslapping, the accusation was enough to rob him of something deep and treasured.
He retired from the position of general secretary in 1992, and started a new life with his young partner, Sue Rolstone, having broken up with his first wife, the dynamic Betty, a founder-member of Women against Pit Closures and long-time communist activist, in 1989.
Peter was a thoughtful, intellectual, honest and loyal comrade. He had earned the right to a long and healthy retirement, but sadly he did not see much of that, spending years fighting off the legacy of that fearsome slander. Then to struggle with and finally be struck down by the gradually deteriorating condition he endured was a final and undeserved injustice. Peter was a giant in my book, a leader of the miners who can take his place among the biggest and best in our long history.
Peter’s body in death will be donated to science in the hope of assisting his fellow workers, just as in life it was dedicated to their struggles for justice. As such, there will be no funeral. However, a commemoration will be held at 2pm on June 30 at the Chesterfield Miners’ Welfare, Chester Street, Chesterfield S40 IDL.
Our sympathy goes out to Sue and his children, to Peter’s family, friends and comrades. A great number of leading members of the socialist, communist and trade union movement are expected to give orations or just be present at the commemoration.
It is with great sadness that we've just discovered the death of former General Secretary of the NUM Peter Heathfield.
Peter was of course the formidable leader of the miners in 1984/5 strike together with Arthur Scargill. Peter and Arthur were the subject of a state smear advanced by The Mirror and Central TV . All the charges made in the smear were proved to be totally false, but they had a deep impact on Peter who was deeply wounded by them. The last five or six years he has struggled with a degenerating condition, which he refused to give into.
We have no details of funeral arrangements as yet but will post them as soon as we get them. Our deepest sympathy goes out to Peter and his family.
Victor Lindsay : Obituary
Published in the DoncasterToday.co.uk on 29 April 2010 (Distributed in Doncaster)Victor died peacefully at his home on 26th April 2010, aged 72 years. Leaving devoted wife Val, daughters Carol, Christine, Angela, Elaine and Julie, sons-in-law Kevin, David, Tony, Garry and Mick, grandchildren Craig, Claire, Donna, Arron, Stevie, Lindsay and Ryan, great grandchildren Curtis, Charley, Kai and Callum.
Will be sadly missed.
Funeral service to take place on Wednesday 5th May 2010 at
St. Luke's Church, Rossington at 2.00 p.m. followed by interment at Wadworth Lane Cemetery, Rossington at 2.45 p.m.
Family flowers only please. Donations if desired may be sent to
The Sheffield Institute Foundation for Motor Neurone Disease.
C/o W.E. Pinder & Son, 19 Thorne Road, Bawtry, Doncaster,
DN10 6QL.
Enquiries tel: 01302 710285
May Day 2010
We took part in 3 events this weekend; South Tyneside May Day social on Friday, Tyne & Wear May Day march and rally on Saturday, and DIY Aye Festival on Saturday.
We have sold out of our batch of 'Maggie, Hurry and Die' T-shirts already!) and signed up 2 new members.
On Friday, Dave D spoke about his new book at the South Tyneside May Day social alongside an NESSN/NUT speaker and Unison speaker. We had a stall there.
On Saturday we marched with the Tyne & Wear IWW banner through Newcastle to the rally in Exhibition park, where we had another stall, which was then moved to the DIY Aye Festival in the afternoon.
The meeting we put on at DIY aye was well attended, with 2 good guest speakers from RMT and a Unite/BA worker, as well as Dave D speaking on behalf of IWW. There was an open discussion, which went so well people carried on well after the meeting finished.
Later in the evening we hosted a folk and poetry evening which got the crowd singing along and demanding a few encores
Click the link below to see a You Tube video showing the fun had at the Tyne & Wear May Day social evening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij5Axn6EzBg
From trade union comrades in the USA
Feds Cite Operator Alpha for Mine Inundation
Feds cite operator Alpha for inundation that trapped 7 miners for nearly 24 hours
By TIM HUBER AP Business Writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. January 14, 2010 (AP) The Associated Press
Coal producer Alpha Natural Resources has been cited for safety violations that federal investigators say contributed to a flood that trapped seven men in an underground West Virginia mine last year.
While the men walked out of Alpha's Alma A Mine unharmed after nearly 24 hours, Mine Safety and Health Administration director Joe Main said they were lucky to survive.
"The mine operator's failure to properly maintain underground diversion systems and escapeways could just as easily have ended in tragedy," Main said in a statement. "This accident underscores the need for mine operators to always maintain escapeways so they are available for use by miners when they need them."
Rick Nida, a spokesman for Abingdon, Va.-based Alpha, noted the miners were not injured and that the area was devastated by heavy rain the day of the accident.
"We think the miners and the others followed well-established safety protocols and safety procedures," Nida said. "We haven't yet reviewed fully that MSHA report and so we'll reserve our right to comment later."
Underground coal mines are required to keep primary and secondary escape routes isolated so miners can exit if there is an accident. The danger of compromised escape routes was underscored by a fatal 2006 fire at another West Virginia mine, which prompted sweeping new safety requirements.
Heavy rain inundated southern West Virginia on May 9, which MSHA determined caused the Mingo County mine to flood after debris, mud and rock blocked culverts at its entrances. The agency cited Alpha for failing to maintain underground diversion systems and escape routes at the mine.
It is unclear whether MSHA has decided how much to fine Alpha and a spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MSHA said water levels reached 9 feet in some parts of the mine, forcing the trapped men to seek refuge on high ground until rescue crews pumped out the mine.
Investigators blamed Alpha for not monitoring and maintaining diversion ditches designed to move water from mine entrances and for failing to monitor areas where water entered the mine. According to MSHA's investigation report, Alpha has corrected the problems.
MALTBY NUM BRANCH
YORKSHIRE AREA
25th ANNIVERSARY of the MINERS STRIKE
MALTBY PROGRESSIVE CLUB
SATURDAY 13th FEBRUARY 2010 at 7 PM
SPEAKERS TO INCLUDE : ARTHUR SCARGILL
(NUM HONARARY PRESIDENT), IAN LAVERY (NUM
NATIONAL PRESIDENT), KEN CAPSTICK (ex NUM
YORKSHIRE AREA VICE PRESIDENT)
Entertainment by the GUTTERBAND
FOR TICKETS CONTACT THE MALTBY NUM BRANCH OFFICE ON 01709 810132
Or
STEVE MACE (DELEGATE) ON 07775931523
NICK HARRIS(SECRETARY) ON 07967517136
A story of coal and conflict
Monday 28 December 2009
Vicki Smith
It was a slap heard all round the coalfields. Cordelia Ruth Tucker, wearing the fluorescent striped shirt of a miner, strode past West Virginia state troopers and into a stream of marchers protesting against mountain-top removal mining to deliver an audible smack.
The Rock Creek woman isn't talking as she awaits trial on a battery charge. Her neighbour, environmental activist Judy Bonds, says that she was on the receiving end of the slap.
And Bonds fears that more blows will follow as the fight escalates over mountain-top removal, the uniquely Appalachian form of strip mining that involves blowing tops off mountains and dumping the rubble in valleys.
For nearly a decade, environmentalists and the mining industry battled in courtrooms and the Capitol. Arrests were unheard of.
But this year, as mountain-top removal has drawn more scrutiny from regulators, policy-makers and the public, the activists' strategy changed.
There have been nearly 100 arrests in 20 protests, most involving trespassing. Led by a new group called Climate Ground Zero, the activists have chained themselves to giant dump trucks, scaled 80-foot trees to stop blasting and paddled into a nine-million-gallon sludge pond. They've blocked roads, hung banners and staged sit-ins.
Virginia-based Massey Energy claims that a single three-and-a-half-hour occupation at Progress Coal Co in Twilight cost the company $300,000.
Two environmentalists pleaded no contest to battery after that incident for trying to push past a miner and climb a 20-storey earth-moving crane.
Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/84950
Death of a Hatfield Main NUM
Union stalwart and Doncaster coalfield
Character Pat Bennet
| We are greatly saddened by the death on Friday 20 th November of Pat Bennet. Pat was a dearly treasured Hatfield miner and member of the Dunscroft / Stainforth / Hatfield community. His funeral took place on Wed 25 th November in a packed Hatfield Parish church filled to capacity, by friends and neighbours, comrades and marra's. As the coffin was brought in the stirring strains of the international miners anthem The Miners Lifeguard echoed round the church. |  Pat Bennet, Eggy Palmer, Ann Scargill, Dave Douglass |
Miners life is like a sailors, board a ship to sail the waves
Constant dangers always facing
Yet he ventures, still being brave.
Watch the rocks, there falling daily
Careless miners always fail
Keep your hands upon your wages
Keep your eyes upon the scale
Union Miners!
Stand together
Do not heed the owner's tale
Keep your hands upon your wages
Keep your eyes upon the scale.
The old Hatfield NUM Branch banner was displayed in the heart of the Church, next to where the coffin was laid. Upon the coffin, Pats, beloved flip flops for which he had become famed over recent years as he led a gang of kids to parks, and walks, and shops.
One of Pat's brothers Tony gave a short, deeply moving oration, touching on Pats enormous character and sense of fun and family. Dave Douglass's powerful oration was followed by Pats little Granddaughter Georgina reading a moving little poem, with great heroism and self-control assisted by Pat's daughter Lisa.
In keeping with our mining traditions as Tony struggled to read his statement, Eggy Palmer who has been a rock for the whole family during this terrible period, stood by his side with his arm round his shoulder.
David Douglass, the long running Delegate and Secretary delivered the main oration at Hatfield and strike leader. Pat greatly admired Dave and was a passionate supporter of the branch.
This was Dave's delivery:-
Despite the tragic circumstances that bring us here, it is an honour to be able to come up and say a few words in memory of Pat and everything he meant to us as miners, trade unionists, comrades and mates.
I suspected I'd have difficulty, saying these few words, but then I think what would Pat do, if he were at a funeral of a dear friend.
Pat would have been out there telling the tale, cracking jokes, knocking people about, mindful of the loss, but full of the joy of being alive. And That was Pat,
Ill be brief…though
I can just here Pat saying, Hey-up. Yi were never brief when I was at your meetings.
Pat was and is an inspiration
He took life with two hands, and revelled in it, intervened into life, enjoyed life,
A rock n roller, jack the lad, irrepressible comic and lover of the crack.. though he didn't always get the story right mind. his version was often better than the original.
There are not many diamonds in coalmines, but Pat was one.
I can't think of any situation, nomatter how dangerous, fraught, or charged where Pat didn't take it on with a smile on his face and an optimism which radiated to everyone round him.
In your life, you meet thousands of people maybe hundreds of thousands of people who drift in and out and you scarce remember most of them .But now and again, someone enters your life, who is so full of character and charisma, uniquely themselves. that they leave an indelible mark on your life too, That was Pat,
How many people in Doncaster or the South Yorkshire coalfield as a whole never heard of Pat Bennet or couldn't come up and tell you of some magic moment or memorable event they shared with him?
Like his card game in the middle of the Orgreave riot, with a good hand he refused to yield as the cavalry and riot shields bore down on them, waited until everyone else threw their hands in and took off, before grabbing up the much prised cash and taken off with the horses literally breathing down his neck.
It would be scarcely possible to remember Pat without remembering the great strike of 84/5. a strike in which Pat and Maggie, and many people in this room stood their ground, in the teeth of adversary , fighting not for some intangible idealistic goal, as some have suggested, but the very real and pragmatic values of a living community, brotherhood and sisterhood, comradeship, the right not just to earn a living but to do so with some dignity, with some control on the work and direction of your own skills and initiative. To defend the ability of wa union to intervene into life and challenge the status quo, challenge the rich and powerful and put the stamp of working people on the world we live in. Maggie was one of the original founders of Women Against Pit closures, back in 83 the year before the great strike. That was a fight Pat and many people here threw themselves into body and soul, but Pat was one a handful of men, who were prepared to stake everything on the line, risking life and liberty, in resistance to the armed boys in black who came to make us accept Thatcher's dictates. We can't discuss that here, but I will never forget that unswerving loyalty and heroism. It was worth a fight, look at where we are now, look at the losses we as a class and as a people have faced, the loss of community, of trust, of mutual respect, the cancer of unemployment, hopelessness, anti social crime, and the very fabric the miners generation and generation painfully put together. We were right to fight. And by God from time to time the Police knew they bitten off more than could chew when they came across Pat in full flight…I remember my famous motorway blockade, and them dragging drivers from their cars, and then coming upon Pat, who skittled a whole squadron of them, and them asking “Who the hell is that ?” I don't think he even took the tab out of his mouth. You have just, met the met they used to boast, well they'd just met Pat Bennet.
There is much that could be said about Pats contribution and much will be said but not here..Pat stood with his mates, against police dogs, riot shields, truncheons and cavalry charges, for twelve months hard struggle
ITS TRUE TO SAY Pat wasn't always lucky….at times he was extremely unlucky, Set the perilous task of extracting the face side arch support of the retreat mined roadway to allow the machine to cut by, we had warned the management that this being a retreat face the wieght would have come on and sunk the great iron leg of the arch into the floor. Pat had sought to pull it out by wrapping a chain around it, and connecting it to a hydraulic ram set on pull back. An irresistible force meeting an unmovable object, that's the ram by the way not Pat,
So Pat takes cover round a corner while the metal and chain strain against each other, the pit being the pit, and Pat's luck being Pat's luck, the steel link breaks, and flies down the tunnel and round the corner where it smashes into Pats jaw and buries itself deep into his jawbone smashing it in the process. There are two things I remember most about this, three things if we recall we couldn't give him morphia because it was a head injury, one was that in the middle of the operation the Hatfield Management demanded the link back, because they knew we wanted it for evidence, even accusing us of stealing it. seriously….and the second thing is that being in indescribably agony Pat had swore blue murder and f…n and blinded all an sundry as well you might. We are told on his recovery; he bought all the nurses a box of roses for having sworn at them, Maggie responded that he'd been swearing at her for years and never bought her any boxes of roses.
Pat was a body and soul union man, he believed in the miners union in the way some people hold religion or nationality, his union was his faith….he was following the strike elected to the position of the union committee, although Pat never did get the nuances of Industrial relations and conciliation, Red faced and banging on the undermanagers desk with his huge fist…get up that pit lane and lets sort this out…
He had demanded and the undermanager to his credit, leapt from behind his desk and they marched off the pit lane, intent on some rough negotiations.
There were many such negotiations after the strike as the weight came on against the miners and our union.
In the pits, there is one quality prised above all others,
a mans underground worth which gives value to his surface self….that quality is loyalty. You need to know that your marra is there watching your back, without having to look, your life is in his hands, Pat had the quality in great measure, indeed Pat never did anything by halves, of all the men in that Union branch, in this community, at that pit , during strikes, or on the street Pat was one of the loyalist men I ever knew.
Our movement and this community can ill afford to loose a man like Pat Bennet, there are not enough Pat Bennets in the world, there is a huge gap where this man, wor marra, wa comrade and friend was, he will be greatly missed, never forgotten.
In conclusion someone once said, ask not for whom that bell tolls, it tolls for thee! and the truth is, Pat just caught an earlier draw, we'll all be riding soon, so in the meantime, we should appreciate life in the way that Pat valued it, and intervened into it, and that perhaps is his most lasting inspiration to us all.
Following the service and the burial at Hatfield Woodhouse cemetery, a packed reception was held at the Broadway Hotel with all Pat's family and friends. Many a yarn was told and good joke enjoyed, the whole thing was so touching, deep, and honest, Pat would have hated to miss it, though in a sense of course, he didn't. He will always be in our hearts.
Review your claim
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Have you already claimed for Vibration White Finger (VWF) and/or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)? If you have you can review your claim today. Your solicitor may have under settled your case without you knowing it and you may be owed more money and further compensation You may be able to get the original amount you were entitled to and possible additional compensation if the solicitor who originally represented you was negligent. You pay nothing, not a single penny on a No Win-No Fee basis and you will receive 100% of your claim. Just contact The Greenway Group NOW on 0800 012 6030 and they will process your claim for you. Posthumous claims on behalf of deceased miners will also be reviewed. How and why can you do this now? The work that solicitors have done under the mineworkers' compensation scheme has attracted the attention of press, parliament and the public ever since details of wrong doing began to emerge. The debate has focused on two controversies - Under settled claims and The millions of pounds that some solicitors have earned from the deductions made from miners' compensation.
Telephone 0800 012 6030
www.rippedoffminers.co.uk
NUM National Executive Committee Elections –
Yorkshire Area Aug 2009
Separating the pillock from the politics and the principles.
By David Douglass. NUM
Any full member who received his voting paper and the candidates election statements through the post this week, will be hard pressed to see behind the
venom and the flem what's really going on here.
The principle contestant in this election isnt on the ballot paper, for this election is actually about whether Arthur Scargill continues to exert huge influence in this union and is able to manipulate events, policies and direction or his control and influence should be curtained. It is also, about whether he will continue to have any position in the future or not. You will not find anything about this on the election material but at base, this is what the whole controversy and court cases have been about. This why we are having another NEC election at great financial and social cost to the union. By the way, the case against the union and its rules under which we conducted the last set of elections, and are now ruled unlawful; was taken by Arthur Scargill with the support of Ken Capstick. It was Arthur who drew up these rules. Now, when out of office considers unfair, which he deemed perfectly fair when in office. His defence of this slight of hand movement in the court was that ‘two wrong don't make a right'.
When Arthur reached 65, he should in accordance with rule have retired. Instead, he imposed, with the help of some well-placed Yorkshire Area Officials of the union, a new rulebook, on the whole union. It allowed him to stay on until he was 75. Allowed him to earn consultancy fees, and take on a role in the union as ‘honorary president'.
In order to impose the new rules and make them stick the most extraordinary misuse of power took place involving the swinging of national votes and conferences by use of non-existing branches and even non-existing areas, and the use of limited members votes. This latter included using the votes of dead miners, or their widows, non-members, and in any case members who had no idea that their votes were being cast at the discretion of Arthur in support of rules and policies he himself favoured but the bulk of the union didn't. The union was wracked with internal struggles between Arthur's bureaucratic supporters and the democratic branches and areas.
The election of Chris Kitchen marked the end of this period. The Limited member's votes were no longer to be used in this undemocratic fashion. The non-existent branches were ruled as non-existent. National conferences would no longer be manipulated by hundreds of votes cast by a single national official from a non-existent National Office Branch.
It also means that Arthur whose contract ends in three years time will finally have his hand taken off the levers of power and his voice from the ear holes of those in office. He does not like any of that.
A counter attack has been launched by the Maltby branch, using Steve Mace as effectively Arthur's champion. The intention of Steve's challenge is to move Chris from office as General Secretary of the Union , Yorkshire area secretary and NEC member. This was done by firstly a challenge to the TU commissioner that the rules, which required 30% of the nominations from branches to stand, were unfair, that they stopped him standing for the NEC. This challenge was supported and argued for by the man who actually introduced those rules, Arthur Scargill. He introduced those rules to the effect that they stopped ME standing for the NEC on two occasions, a number of people think that's what they were designed to do. Now Arthur comes to court to argue that his rules are unfair. No problem there they were unfair and are unfair so they have to be changed. This is what has caused the re-election. Incidentally, he also argued that the ‘rotten borough' Area Office Branch that was a pure fiction and bureaucratic device should be recognised as legal. The commissioner chose not to do that, although Arthur is appealing on dubious ‘points of law' on this issue. At the bottom of this manoeuvre is an attempt to create a non-working members branch, which will be bigger than the rest of the union, and be under his political and personal control with card votes to swing and manipulate conference. This is a goal which runs completely against the thrust of Steve's election address and one wonders if he is aware what the master plan is .
It's a fact that the bulk of the union rules we live under are the rules which Arthur introduced and we opposed at the time as unfair, but were over-ruled by him and his supporters.
He brought in bi-annual conferences, which meant we could now only have a conference every two years, and limited the number of rules we could change every two years. So the legacy Chris has inherited is one he was left by Arthur and his comrades. Now Arthur and his supporters in the shape of Ken Capstick and Steve Mace run for the NEC in support of Arthur, on the basis that Arthur's own rules are unfair! Well we can agree on that, but the fault isnt and never has been Chris Kitchen's. It's the fault of the man they are running in support of! It's a conundrum only Arthur could create.
Let us be right, the arguments which Steve Mace (nominee from the Maltby Branch) puts forward in his election address are sound as a pound. In principle, there is nothing wrong with the demands he makes and we should all take steps to change the rules to ensure they are put right. This has nothing to do with being elected to the NEC though and everything to do with submitting rule changes which will set things right. What is illegitimate is the suggestion that electing Steve or anyone else for that matter to the NEC can change some of the ongoing injustices in the industry. The MPS (Mineworkers Pension Scheme) government rip off billions of pounds from the fund surpluses cannot be resolved by a change on the NEC of the NUM. The NUM doesn't have and never has had a majority on the MPS Pension Fund committee, it is also not allowed by law to mandate its members who ARE representatives on that body. The union's campaign against the government rip off is high profile and on record there is nothing we haven't done on this matter that we could have done and neither Steve nor none of the other candidates can suggest what action we could take to win justice. I personally favour kidnapping and shooting the government spokespersons responsible for the robbery of the miner's money, but you couldn't really run as an MPS trustee on that basis. Likewise the election of Steve to the NEC will not ensure that Hatfield Main Colliery, adopt the same principle on sick leave as that enjoyed by Maltby and Kellingley collieries which are owned by separate companies and were transferred under TUPE and protected agreements, whereas Hatfield closed, and broke the protection. Unless Steve will campaign for Area Wide Strike Action across the coalfield to win parity at Hatfield. A demand we would of course support him on, but he has no mandate to offer.
In fact, it is my opinion that a defeat for Chris Kitchen will lead directly to the rules staying as they are with the complained of impediments and going back to the even worse position we were in before Chris got elected. The fact is Arthur's team see Chris and his supporters as a block to their control of the union, that's why they want him out. Steve's complaints are quite legitimate, Arthurs use of them and him are not.
Lets be clear, we have nothing whatever against Steve Mace who seems a genuine hard working union miner. He may be impervious of the politics which sit beneath the surface of inter union battles. His demands are in many cases sound enough, lets exam them, and suggest some solutions.
Firstly, Steve declares that he is the only working miner in the election, but then is running in tandem with Ken Capstick who is likewise not a working miner. Ken has a long and proud record of accomplishment in this union and he is a close comrade and friend of mine and has been for most of my life in the union. I admire and respect Ken. This fact alone (no not that I happen to like Ken , but his role and commitment) and the fact that he is editor of The Miner surely give him the right to run for the NEC even though he isnt a working miner at this time ? If you support Steve's argument, you cant vote for his running mate Ken can you ? Yorkshire has a full time Area Secretary, Chris Kitchen, if you're a full time area union official obviously you can't be down the pit at the same time. It would be slightly mad not to allow your Area General Secretary to run for one of the two positions on the NEC, so Chris too must surely be entitled to run for this committee. Yes, Steve is right, it is utterly wrong that not a single working miner sits on the NEC and that situation ought to be resolved by rule change to ensure working miners do have positions on the NEC. Areas, which have working miners and mines, must ensure that half of the available seats are taken by working miners from the coalfield they work in. That can only be done by rule change, Steve and Maltby can do that now, regardless of the NEC elections I'm sure every working branch would vote for it.
The problem is, we only have five or six mines spread over four areas. At the same time, we have areas, which have no mines but an army of retired and limited members and their dependants who need the services of the union. Either you stop these areas having representatives on the NEC or you greatly restrict their numbers against areas with working miners. This too can only be resolved by conference and rule change. Electing Steve would of course put one working miner on the NEC but it wouldn't resolve the principle. Only rule change can do that and again, Steve's branch or any other can put that forward.
Finally, Steve turns to the question of official's salaries. This is something we at Hatfield fought hard for thirty plus years. The principle should not be making salaries equivalent to senior directors of the NCB, as it was in Arthur's day, nor should it be equivalent to MPs salaries as it is now. Officials should be paid no more than the average earnings in the area they represent, or equivalent to working areas in the case of areas without working miners. This can only be resolved by rule change and national conference decisions. It cannot be resolved by simply electing someone onto the NEC. If the issue is a principle, and it is, it must be resolved through the decision making bodies of the union as a whole, it cannot be resolved by electing someone to NEC, the NEC does not make these rules, conference does, although the NEC can propose them too. It is far more likely the rule change required will come from Branches, through Areas to Conference.
These issues are issues we would campaign alongside Steve on, through area and national conference. At this time, because of the underlying political agenda we could not however call for a vote for him. Hatfield Main Branch nominated Chris Kitchen and Dave Hatfield the current branch secretary at Hatfield to the NEC and has called for all our members to vote for them. We consider Steve to be a sincere and loyal member of this union and worthy of respect, as we do all the candidates in this election. Let us debate these issues up front and out in the open and also talk about the history and agenda's which underpin them. That is the way of a democratic union something which we at Hatfield have fought for since our inception as a branch way back in 1918.
David Douglass full NUM member these last 42 years and former, EC member and Branch Official for 26 years at Hatfield.
Worker-intellectual who fell prey to the right
David Douglass looks back at the life of Lawrence Daly:
October 20 1924-May 23 2009
Weekly Worker Jul 3rd 2009
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/776/workerint.php
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New from ChristieBooks First Launch of The Wheels Still In Spin, Thursday 7th May, |