18.04.1996

All together for the fight!

From 'The Workers’ Weekly', paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, April 23 1926

The Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain declares that the great industrial struggle which it predicted last August, and for which it has urged the workers to prepare, is now at hand, and only the utmost unity and determination on the part of the whole of the labour movement can avert defeat.

The employing class has utilised the period which has elapsed since last July to perfect its preparations for the struggle. Through the coal commission report, it hopes to divide the workers both inside and outside the mining industry and secure an easy victory.

The Communist Party declares that the proposals for reorganising the mining industry contained in the report are inadequate and cannot solve its problems. Only by the nationalisation of the industry ... with compensation, with workers control, can the problems of the industry be solved.

... In the meantime, the Communist Party urges the miners to stand by their declaration of April 10, and repulse any settlement which involves any decrease in wages, any increase in hours, or any modification of the principle of a national agreement ...

A defeat of the miners means the defeat of this movement for better conditions and the imposition of wage cuts upon the whole working class, as the experience of 1921 proved.

We therefore urge the General Council of the TUC to call a meeting of all trade union executives with a view to replying to any attempt to reduce miners’ wages by a general strike if necessary ...

All trade councils should immediately,in the various districts, convene conferences, including all sections of the working class movement, political, industrial, cooperatives and unemployed, with a view to setting up local councils of action, in order to mobilise support for the miners and make the leaders act.

The miners’ fight is the workers’ fight!

Break the capitalist attack on wages!

Now for a united working class advance!