Seemingly revolutionary demands for workers self-management in the mining industry have won the unanimous support of the National Union of Mineworkers Executive.
inel orooosais include me scrabone of the present joint consultative committees which operate at every pit, and their replacement by colliery management teams with the miners electing 12 representatives at each pit. Not only would the teams have responsibility for aboomune colnery manasers and mino experts, but control over planning, pro Inanca tareets ana markenne ane a nos or omer manacement Tuncions wole ben met Banes but lust now revoluionary tese demands are is revealed when simultaneously the NUM calls for the strengthening of present national consultation arrangements and an extra full-time member on Derek Ezra's National Coal Board to be nominated by the miners.
The NUM proposals may be more radical man most worker parcipanon schemes - but in essence mey are exact ly the same. So long as the power to determine how, where, when and for what purpose coal shall be mined remains in the hands of the NCB and the Government. nationalisation and any number of participatory committees will them.
No wonder Joe Gormley said that the plans were not intended as a union grab'. As was argued by Nottingham's notorious right-wing president, Len Clarke, to involve miners at pit level in running the mines will be more conducive ....to good relations and improvements The reaction of the Communist Party eaders m une ous nas oeen ust as bad Bemoaning the out-of-date character of the present consultative committees, Jimmy Miller, CP member and secretary of Kellingly Colliery, Yorkshire's newest pit, proclaims that the proposed manage ment committees are the answer.
Some of the blame for this unholy alliance, stretching from the extreme right of the NUM to the CP. must rest with Arthur Scargill and his supporters. wnen rony benn, men mousty minis ter, told the NUM to work out these plans at last year's annual conference, Scargill's reaction was simply to raise the cry of a return to 'free collective bar gaining' At last week's annual conference of the Yorkshire Area NUM he restated the Area's aims as higher wages....and the overthrow of capitalism! The troub le is what goes in the middle, what provides the transition.
Veto So long as the left fails to develop schemes for workers control that provide the bridge between the two, the right will step in with radical-sounding schemes which simply tie miners' futures to une procucuvity arves of the NCb The first step to workers control is the right of the miners alone to veto manage ment decisions - not collaborate in Union militants should reject the latest schemes and begin a fight inside the NUM to commit it to a struggle fo workers control. Members of the CommuNSt Cart in Darucuar should insis mar ter leaders break trom inis class collaborationist alliance with Clarke, Gormley and the NCB.