Steelmen remain aloof

Press, 22 June 1984, Page 6

Steelmen remain aloof

NZPA-Reuter London Striking British miners seemed set on a collision course with steelworkers today as they stepped up a blockade of fuel supplies to big steel plants. The strikers, campaigning against management plans to close some mines, have persuaded railway workers to stop coal and coke deliveries to some of the plants. But steelmen at the big Ravenscraig works in Scotland immediately countered by welcoming deliveries by convoys of lorries. A Scots miners’ leader, Mick McGahey, accused the steelmen’s union of undermining the strike. Rail deliveries have also been halted to steelworks at Llanwern, in south Wales, and Scunthorpe, in northern England.

News that a crack had opened up in a furnace at the fuel-starved Scunthorpe works heightened steelmen’s concern about the risk to their own jobs. “Will the miners halt steel imports if all our plants are closed?” said a steelworkers’ leader, Bill Sirs, referring to the crack.

“We warned the mineworkers’ union that this might happen but they did not or would not believe it,” Mr Sirs told a steel union conference in the northern resort of Scarborough. “The last thing we want to see is any question of the miners’ having to go back in ignominy because of lack of support from other unions.” The rift between the two groups of workers brought a plea for compromise from Roy Hattersley, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

He told steelmen at their annual conference yesterday that the two unions must agree over the amount of fuel supplies necessary to protect steel-making in Britain.

The former Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, suggested the appointment of a mediator with experience in the coal industry as a way to end the strike. But a new book by a television reporter, Robert Harris, upset any role the Labour Leader, Mr Neil Kinnock, might have had as peace-maker. It quoted him as accusing Arthur Scargill, the miners’ fiery leader, of “destroying the coal industry