Earlier this year the United States experienced its longest ever strike in the coal industry. For over four months 166,000 workers in the United Mine Workers Union struggled against the mine owners and the government, bringing President Carter to the verge of proclaiming an "energy emergency". The strike was marked by violent battles between strikers (including 800 women workers) and mine security guards and police.

Anti-Strike Clause

It began when the mine bosses failed to get the union to agree to the terms of a new contract. This would have included financial penalties against miners who went on "unofficial" strikes in local areas. The local union branches were determined not to give up the right to strike over conditions in particular mines.

The coal bosses also aimed to replace the previous industry-wide health and retirement funds with separate schemes for each company - with the result that lower benefits would be paid.

Up-Hill Battle

The strikers had to fight an up-hill battle because only about half of American miners are organised in the union. In the key state of Kentucky, only about one-third are organised.

An important part of the struggle during the strike was to stop coal from non-union mines.

Against the strikers the mine owners called in hired thugs and gun-men to break the pickets. In January, violence erupted at Prestonburg, Kentucky, when a 65-year-old striker was shot dead by a pit security guard as he was taking coffee to four pickets.

Flying Pickets

Then the strikers organised flying pickets to tour areas where the union is weak. They travelled in groups several hundred strong, armed with guns, pick-axe handles and explosives. The workers saw this strike as a life-or-death struggle for their union.

At Rochdale Wharf, Indiana, where nonunion coal was being handled, 500 strikers firing guns and setting off dynamite charges stormed the loading pier and clashed with riot police. In West Virginia, FBI agents arrested senior union officials, including a branch president, on charges of dynamiting a railway line which brought coal from nonunion mines.

No Strike-Pay

The workers received no strike-pay from the union, and had to survive on their savings and government food stamps (which were eventually cut off). Relief committees were set up to give aid to desperate cases.

The strike took place in the middle of a bitter winter freeze-up and snow storms. The mine bosses withdrew the card entitling the miners to free medical care - a serious threat to workers in a country where medical treatment has to be paid for and costs enormous sums.

Pension Payments Stopped

On 1st February the pension fund, which had been making payments to 82,000 retired miners, "ran out of funds". This only angered the workers further, as some of their statements (quoted in the Detroit News) show.

"If they don't take care of the retired miners, the river will run red again," said one. "I put in 37 years in the coal mines. I've got silicosis and I've had two heart attacks, I don't have that much to lose. I can still shoot, and I'm willing to give my life if I have to."

The workers began organising the pensioners and disabled miners. "We figure two-thirds of that 82,000 are still able to picket the mines and fight if they have to. Hell, some of them have told me they'll be out there on crutches or in wheelchairs."

"Nobody Going Back"

"There ain't nobody going back to work if we get cut out. We'll be at the drift mouth. We'll have our guns with us and there ain't nobody going to get in that mine. My wife can shoot too, and she'll be out there with me."

In the face of such defiance, the bosses and the government looked about frantically for some means of ending the strike without capitulating to the workers. In February, they tried to bribe the workers with an offer of a one-third wage increase - in return for a limit to the right to strike. The union's negotiating team, under firm pressure from the rank and file, rejected this.

Backed Down

Eventually, under anxious pressure from President Carter, the mine bosses partially backed down and offered the miners a new contract without any penalty clauses against "unofficial" strikes.

While this in itself was an important victory, the miners decided to reject the offer and press on with other demands.

Class Struggle

The London Times said: "The miners are among the last groups of American workers to view labour relations in the classic terms of class struggle." This newspaper has got it completely the wrong way round!

These miners are among the first groups of American workers to once again move into decisive action in the new period of the world capitalist economic crisis. They will be followed by more and more workers mobilising to defend their living standards and to build their fighting organisations against mounting attacks by the employers and the governments.

These are early signs of the strong winds of mass struggle that are beginning to blow through the capitalist countries, rich and poor alike.