LIEGE MINERS
STRIKE AGAINST PIT CLOSURE
BRUSSELS, March 26.-- Yesterday marked the eleventh day of a militant sit-in strike at a Liége coal mine. The miners aré protesting the projected closing of the Batterie pit by the government Coal- Mining Directorate.
The strike is unofficial, not being recognized by either the Socialist" or Catholic trade unions. It is receiving strong support, however, from the newly founded Walloon Workers party. A strikesolidarity committee has been set up, which is collecting money, blankets, food and other necessities for the men down in the mine.
Sympathy for the strikers is widespread throughout the Liége area. Collections amounting to 120,000 francs [$2,400] were reported three days ago. Under the pressure, the Catholic unions took up the question of a 24-hour sympathy strike. Whether they will go through with this remains to be seen,
A similar sit-in strike broke out at the Tamines mine in the Namur region, The Walloon Workers party organized a strike-solidarity committee there, too. However this help proved insufficient to keep the miners going for more than a few days. In the majority they were Italian miners, vulnerable to the heavy pressure mounted against them by the Italian consulate and the Belgian authorities,
A number of other mines are due to be closed in coming months in the Liége area, but the government has deferred action until after the general elections scheduled for May 23. The Batterie strikers are appealing to their fellow workers in these pits to go on strike now against the projected closures in order to put heavier pressure on the government during the election period.
The wives of the Batterie strikers have shown remarkable fighting spirit, giving their men the fullest support since the beginning of the strike. To stop the bosses from selling coal stocked near the. pit heads, they set up picket lines. In one instance they threw themselves on the road to block: the trucks loaded with coal from getting out the gates,
Since the 1958 recession, the Belgian coal-mining industry has suffered from a severe structural crisis. Total output has been reduced from 50,000,000 to 21,000,000 tons a year, and the government expects to reduce it still further to 17,000,000 tons a year, The reduction is due to increasing competition from imported coal (West German, British, and especially American) | and from other fuels such as gas and fuel oil.
Legally the government cannot close pits, as the industry is privately owned in Belgium. In practice, however, it works out otherwise. Most of the mining companies are heavily dependent on
big government subsidies, A decision to cut the subsidies is tantamount to a decision to close the pits. ©
For many years all the left-wing organizations in Belgium have campaigned for nationalization of the coal-mining industry. It is an official plank of the Socialist party, which is part of the government coalition. The Socialist trade unions also support the. slogan, But when the present government was formed in 1961, the reformist leaders abandoned the demand. The reason for this wag that their bourgeois coalition partners didn't agree with it. And so, instead of nationalizing the industry, they set up the "Coalmining Directorate," a government body entrusted, allegedly, to. co-ordinate and plan the administration of this private industry.-
The miners are deeply opposed to closing the pits inasmuch as it is most often done without any compensating measures for indus~ trial reconversion of the area involved. If they are lucky enough » to find employment, they must travel to distant jobs or move their homes.
‘They find it exasperating, too, that many of the pits involved still have rich coal deposits, sometimes of high-quality anthracite, which could be profitably worked if it were not for the debt-ridden financial structure of the companies.
A particularly striking fact in. the case of the Batterie. pit is that the main debt owed by the company is to the miners! pension funds. Thus, in a way, the miners consider that they are entitled to take over the pit even from a capitalist point of view,
Since 1958, periodic revolts have broken out among the miners in different parts of Wallony against the successive closures of pits. A new feature in the current situation is that at the same time the Batterie miners started their strike, the miners at. Houthalen, a coal mine in the Flemish province of Limburg, decided on a march to the provincial capital of Hasselt in protest against the threat to close their mine.
. This is the first time a coal mine in the Flemish part of the country has been threatened with closure, It is heartening to see the Flemish miners reacting to the threat in the same militant way as their Walloon brothers.