26 Groups attend Conference
Groups: the fight is stepped up!
A SUCCESSFUL conference of Miners' Suport Groups was held in Sheffield last Saturday October 12. It had been originally motivated by the Oxford Miners' Support Group and was than organised by 7 Support Groups who met twice in London to plan the Conference.
It was a working conference designed to emphasise the continuing importance of the Support Groups and of the issue of the victimised and imprisoned miners to the labour movement as a whole. It was felt by the organising groups that many Support Groups were winding up or running down their activities because there was no national focus to which they could relate and through lack of knowledge about what was going on in the other areas.
Twenty-one Support Groups, including Women's Support Groups, send delegates to the Conference and 5 more groups sent observers. The Kent miners sent a delegation as did the National Rank and File Movement. The Supporting Groups were: Leicester, Birmingham, Oxford. Richmond & Twickendim Coven- Hillingdon, Islington (London), try, Brent, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hackney. Reading, and Durham MSGs; South Yorks Defence Campaign; Leeds Miners Defence Campaign; Waltham Forest Miners' Support Committee; Hatfield, Coventry, and Oxford Women's Support
Groups; Camden Trades Council & Labour Party MSG; Sheffield Women
Against Pit Closures: Hull Trades
Council Disputes Committee; Scottish Central Region Federation Trades Councils MSG; National Rank and File Movement/Hatfield; NUM;
Dirty Thirty; Coventry Colliery: Kent
NUM; and NUM Yorkshire.
The Conference was opened by
Sammy Thompson, who is vice pres!dent of the Yorkshire NUM. He stressed the importance of the Support
Groups, both during the strike and now, gave a detailed update on the victimised and imprisoned miners in
Yorkshire and about the very difficult conditions the Yorkshire NUM now faces over pit closures. He was followed by Iris Knight from WAPC and Carole Trelawney from SACTU.
An important part of the Conference was the reports given on their activities by each Group present. For the first time it was possible to get something of a national picture of the state of the Groups. Many of the reports showed a similar picture. Attendance had failed to varying degrees since the strike, the groups had consolidated into a hard core of supporters, yet when they took initiatives, they found that the wider support was still there and could be mobilised.
The reports showed that there is still a viable support movement that can play a significant role in support of the NUM and in support of the victimised and imprisoned miners.
The Conference decided to continue its work by establishing a national co-ordinating committee Support Groups to be comprised of one representative from each Group. Its first meeting would be in Birmincham on November 9. An information sheet would be produced and a winter fund-raising campaign would be launched for the victimised miners. The purpose the National coordination will be to work with the
NUM and support the case for coal; to campaign for the reinstatement of the victimised and for amnesty for those in prison; to campaign against pit closures and to raise cash for the victimised miners and their families.
At the same time the Conference voted to support the important in itiative which was taken at a fringe Socialist Viewpoint, No 8, November 1986. Page 12
By ALAN THORNETT meeting at the Labour Party Conference, organised jointly by Trade Union Briefing and the Campaign Group of Labour MPs to organise a Miners Amnesty Campaign aimed at supporting the victimised and imprisoned miners and publicising the Amnesty Bill. There is clearly great political support for the two group ings to work closely together.
The Conference voted to be present on Monday 21 October when the appeals open in London of Dean Hancock and Russell Shankland and to go into the court in solidarity.
It also adopted a motion from the London Support Groups (which are now well organised) calling tor a "day of action" to mark the second anniversary of the start of the miners strike, aimed at drawing attention to the continued support for the miners and the campaign against pit closures.
The conference voted to give sup port to the National Rank and File movement, but rejected a controversial resolution supported by Rank and File. This called upon the Conference to "call a delegate conference, open to all trade union and labour movement bodies, including the broad left organisations, prepared to build a militant minority movement in order to start the work of building that movement and discussing its programme and strategy.
Finally the Conference discussed the uprisings in the inner cities. A resolution was adopted which drew the comparison between police action in the inner cities and in the miners' strike, condemned the racism of the police, called for a labour novement inquiry into their activities and called upon SERTUC to call a national demonstration through Brixton in opposition to the extension of police powers.
The Conference provided a much needed get-together Support
Groups and should provide the basis for a development in Support Group work and a boost for the campaign on behalf of the victimised and imprisoned miners.