8000 Miners Still Idle

Northern Advocate, 2 September 1947, Page 5

8000 Miners Still Idle

The TUC Council, in a special report to Congress, supported the National Union of Mineworkers in its dispute with the Clerical and Administrative Workers’ Union.

Congress, by 6,359,000 votes to 923,000, rejected the clerical workers’ motion to refer back the report. A clerical workers’ delegate said the dispute was a case of a big union trying to push out of existence a smaller organisation. The Mineworkers’ Union secretary (Mr Horner) said the union was not intimidated by the clerical workers’ threat to strike.

It is estimated that 8000 miners arc still on sti’ike in the Sout-h Yorkshire pits. Despite their leaders’ appeals, 5000 miners of the Grimethorpe, Ferrymore and Thorne pits are still out. The Frickley and Mitchell main pits, employing 4000 men, have partly re-

sumed. Seventeen thousand miners at the remaining 11 pits have all returned to work. Grimethorpe colliery miners voted against returning to work. About 6(LO attended the meeting but only 454 voted, 139 favouring resumption and 294 opposing. Twenty-one papers were spoilt. One-third of the miners due on afternoon shift at Hatfield main colliery decided, after a pithead meeting, against returning to work. Four hundred of 500 afternoon-shift miners at Frickley, also 120 men at the nearby South Kirkby colliery, refused to work. Later, work at Dearne Valley colliery stopped again when the afternoon shift of 250 men, assembled at the pithead, refused to go down. Only half of the afternoon shift was working at Mitchell main.