NOW living in Cardiff, Joe Phillips is 69 and an ex-miner, who started down the pits in 1925 at the age remembers the militancy of the early '20s, such as the. which achieved a big wage increase.
When 1 started colliery Maesteg it was a 7-hour working day — shorter hours than today. We were out for nine months in the General Strike.
Baldwin had said: 'Lock them out. We can get cheaper coal from India.' But the sell-out by the TUC isolated the miners. After we'd gone back at the end of '26 things got worse and worse. The wage cuts and longer hours started being brought in in 1927.
the South Wales Miners' Federation, so there was great lack although my own lodge mititaet. It was a closed shop.
asenployment began to get bad you could go colliery and there'd be 20 men waiting Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page 8 poverty was terrible of 14. He the 3d bus fare. Means test 1921 miners' strike Cogmant any jobs to go to.
Letchworth deliberate of unity, The down wages. to the loD or any Carter unemo oyment te see the manager for a job. The — I had to walk three miles there and back to the pit each day because we couldn't afford The Board of Guardians means tested everyone who was unemployed and vou never got more than shillings a week in vouchers. Food was cheap, but no one could afford clothes.
I was made redundant, and then sent to a government training centre in Letchworth, Herts, in January '3z, and trained as a plasterer, but there weren't now, I think that the thousands of us who were sent to Dudley, Leominster, victims of government policy of dispersal to prevent unity among the unemployed in South Wales. I couldn't return to Wales until 1949.
Tories today want a huge surplus of unemployed, to defeat the -rade union movement and to driv trying to abolish benefits after wants to slash benefits 1929-30, when benefits were cut from 17s to 15s 3d. Single women only got 12s and dependent women received 8s. CallaghaM rather will fight back. Len Murray They say: "Think of the just like in the General Strike. We can't let the Tories win.
I hope the South Wales miners come out on strike and do everything and anything to get a full stop in all the pits in Britain.
Afraid The Tories are afraid of the miners' strength that's one of the reasons why they want & vast nuclear power. the lead in the fight against closures in Wales.
But the rest of the trade union movement - the steelworkers, the dockers, railwayworkers -everybody must support them.
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Lack of unity There were many thousands not in