Foremen urged not to strike

Press, 23 October 1984, Page 6

Foremen urged not to strike

in the miners’ strike, which has entered its thirty-third week. “I don’t think there is anything more we can do,” Mr Eaton said in a 8.8. C. radio interview. “My advice to them (mine foremen) would be to have another ballot to see if in fact people are satisfied ... and I would think most of them are.” Mr Eaton said that the board’s chairman, Mr lan MacGregor, had asked him to take over as public spokesman for the State-

owned industry, a new position aimed at improving the board’s image and its communications with the striking National Union of Mineworkers. Foremen in Leicestershire mines voted at the week-end to start picketing on Thursday, joining their Nottinghamshire colleagues, who announced after a special meeting on Saturday that they would strike “solid to a man”. The 17,000 foremen, who do mandatory safety checks in mines, voted overwhelm-

ingly to strike after the State-owned Coal Board threatened, to stop paying those who refused to cross picket lines. The board agreed to resume payments but the foremen then demanded concessions over the closure of unprofitable mines — the issue that sparked the nation-wide stoppage by the miners’ union. A strike by foremen could halt production at the remaining onefourth of Britain’s 175 state-owned mines ' still open.