Strike talks collapse

Press, 25 May 1984, Page 6

Strike talks collapse

NZPA-Reuter London The first real effort to end a 10-week-old strike in Britain’s State-run coal industry has ended in failure. Miners’ leaders and management have blamed each other for the breakdown.

The Left-wing president of the National Union of Mineworkers, Mr Arthur Scargill, called yesterday’s talks “a fiasco,” and pledged to, "do everything in our power to step up strike action.” He accused lan MacGregor, chairman of the National Coal Board of a “contemptuous” attitude to the union.

Mr MacGregor said that Mr Scargill had been aggressive, contentious, and unwilling to discuss the situation intelligently. “It leaves me feeling depressed for this industry and all the poor people in it who are being sacrificed by one man’s ambition to execute some kind of political manoeuvre,” he said. The board insists that its programme of pit-closures and production cuts must stay, but that it is always ready to discuss the industry’s future. The union says that it will talk about anything once the programme of closures is withdrawn.

A Coal Board official said that 20 to 25 pits might not be able to reopen if the strike continued for three more months, because of maintenance problems. The Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, whose Conservative Government has refused to intervene in the dispute, said, “No Government in history has ever given a better deal the mining industry.” ’