NJMC annual meeting: Still wanted: justice for the miners
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The National Justice for Mineworkers Campaign held a successful AGM in Sheffield on April 5th, attended by over 200 supporters and delegates, about a third of whom were miners and Women Against Pit Closures.
The meeting was adressed by the President of Sheffield Trades Council and by victimised miner Terry French, Tony Benn, Mick Gosling (recently sacked by Ford) and Jason Groombridge from the striking seafarers at Dover.
Four years after the end of the miners' strike, the size of the meeting was a measure of the respect in which the miners' struggle is held and in particular the role of victimised miners as a symbol of that struggle.
Terry French, speaking on behalf of victimised miners, pointed out the various problems which have beset the campaign:
"At the end of the miners' strike, a strike which was sold out for political ends, there were approximately 1,000 miners sacked and 150 in Thatcher's jails.
"There are now 167 still victimised and two still in prison, Russell Shankland and Dean Hancock.
"And let's remember that whilst we are celebrating the 5th anniversary of the strike they are sitting in a cell… In 1987 we were told that when Labour won the election we would all be reinstated.
"Well, we lost that election and was it any wonder?
"If the NUM would recognise its responsibility to sustain these men (and I am not talking of the national officials) the NJMC could devote its considerable energies and talents not in running jumble sales and benefits but in securing the reinstatement for these victims of Thatcher's war against the miners.
"It was to that end that I submitted a resolution to my branch last year calling on the national conferenc of the NUM to hold a ballot for a 50p levy to sustain us.
"That resolution became policy but to this date has not been implemented. We are told that it is 'on the back burner' and that 'there are more important issues at stake'.
"In the meantime the victimised miners continue to live in their twilight world of insecurity…
"Well, I'm fed up with being 'on the back burner'. The strike has been over for four years and each and every one of us remaining victimised is an ugly stain on the NUM and the trade union movement.
"It's high time that this stain is erased and to that end I demand that the ballot for the levy be implemented as soon as possible.
"Then the Justice Campaign can concentrate on gaining justice — which means reinstatement for sacked miners."
Tony Benn said that the miners' strike had been seen everywhere as a crucial struggle. He spelled out the arguments against nuclear power.
All the important issues of the day, he said, could be traced back to the miners' strike.
He said that what people wanted today was a political lead. He strongly supported a strike in the docks industry in defence of the National Dock Labour Scheme and called for solidarity groups to be formed to support the strike.
He said that if the lessons of the miners' strike were to be learned and the docks received the support they needed, a national docks strike could see the demise of the Tories.
Mick Gosling paid tribute to the work of the Justice Campaign. He said that people were being picked off one by one and that solidarity was vital in today's struggles.
He said he had been victimised "because we had had the Ford Motor Company closed down and could have won everything we wanted".
He reminded people of the struggle in the North of Ireland and said that that was where the methods used against the miners were perfected.
Jason Groombridge spoke of the fourteen months of the seafarers' strike. It was a strike, he said, which could have been won. "Twice we had every port in the country at a standstill and twice it was let go."