Miners set to fight to prevent pit shut-downs

Press, 13 February 1981, Page 7

Miners set to fight to prevent pit shut-downs

NZPA London Britain’s miners are threatening an all-out confrontation With the Government over wide-ranging pit shut-downs which could cost tens of thousands of jobs. The miners — moderates and militants alike — are said to be angry over the shut-down plan, outlined to their union this week by_the State-owned National Coal Board.. , Both sid-s are to ask the Government for financial aid and a ban on imported coal in an attempt to avoid what could be ah explosive row. • But the British Prime Minister (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) had dismissed such an approach fore it has been formally made, telling the House of Commons: .5 It would be quite wrong for the Government to attempt to manage each separate nationalised industry.” 1 Only the broadest details of the planned retrenchment have so far been given by the Coal Board/. But the board said it could include the shut-down of up to 50 pits over the next two years, with the loss of 30,000 jobs.’

The miners’ leader, Joe Gormley, a moderate, in the last year of his presidency, vowed in an emotional television appearance that he would not stand by and "see the industry raped.” ■' “Pit closures are a more emotive issue than pay,” Mr Gormley said. Already, militant mining areas in Yorkshire, Scotland, South Wales, and North-East England have voted for industrial action. And the Yorkshire miners’ leader, Arthur Scargill, one of the leading militants in the unon, said: “Mrs Thatcher has been out to get the miners since 1972 and 1974. If she throws down the gauntlet I can-assure her of one thing . . . we will pick it up.” . ■ The two years cited by Mr Scargill were the last occasions on which the miners have mounted a national strike. On both occasions they led to widespread dislocation of power supplies as coal-fired electricity generating stations ran out of fuel, causing lengthy power black-outs throughout the country. ' , The Coal Board’s plan is

to cut production by 10 million tonnes, bringing rising s(reduction5 (reduction into line with ailing consumption. But Britain imports eight million tonnes of the fuel each year, mostly from European mines whose production is heavily subsidised. The Coal Board’s chairman, Sir Derek Ezra, has emphasised that the pits earmarked for shut-down, whose locations have not yet been revealed, were coming to the end of their working life anyway, because they were worked out, or because geological problems would prevent further mining. The number of. redundancies would be kept down by. "natural wastage* volun-tary-early retirement, and the transfer of miners to "long-life” pits, he said.

The Cardiff-based “Western /Mail” . reflected fears that Wales, where unemployment is already high, could face, further job losses. Under the banner headline, “Axe hangs over ; South Wales pits,” the paper said that the local mining industry'could face? its severest cut-back in two decades.