coal
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in the energy sector around the world.
A year of our lives - 20 years since the great coal strike of 1984-1985
Dave Douglass looks back on the great miners strike, twenty years on. Recalling information about the strike, the reasons behind it, the Tories' and Labour's attacks on the working class and finally how the strike was lost.
A year of our lives - 20 years since the great coal strike of 1984-1985
Notes on the miners strike, 1984-1985
Notes on the strike of UK mine workers against closures and to save their union, the NUM. The article contains interesting information about the strike, its background, the aftermath and its importance to all workers in Britain.
Come and wet this truncheon
Classic pamphlet by miner and anarcho-syndicalist Dave Douglass on political policing during the British Miners’ Strike of 1984/5 - when the state acted like an occupying army in working class areas. First published in 1986.
There have been a number of small pamphlets on various aspects of the police in the 1984-85 miners strike. Some by Civil Liberties and Civil Rights organisations have exclusively dealt with the wider implications for 'civil rights' in Britain. Others have been written by lawyers, outraged at the extension of police powers without any legislative authority.
Israel: electricity workers take action against privatisation
Workers at the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) have been taking strike and sabotage action against electricity market reform.
Workers halted the unloading of coal from IEC ships and prevented the removal of ash from power stations, likely to paraylze coal fired stations within 3-4 days. They also cut management off from computer, telephone and electricity services and blocked offices in what has been a series of activities designed to disrupt the company's activities using "all legal means".
1891: Miners against prison labour
Howard Zinn's account of American miners' struggles against the use of slave prison labour.
There were eruptions against the convict labour system in the South, in which prisoners were leased in slave labour to corporations, used thus to depress the general level of wages and also to break strikes.
1914: The Ludlow Massacre
The history of the Ludlow Massacre of striking coal miners, which was one of the most brutal attacks on organised labour in North American history.
Issues concerning labour had dogged the United States for many years preceding World War I and had resulted in widespread strike
1926: British general strike
A short history of Britain’s only ever general strike which lasted 10 days and was called in support of locked-out coal miners.
Britain’s only ever General Strike shook the British ruling class out of their thrones and showed brilliantly how collective working class action can change society.
It also showed how willing the ruling class and how unwilling labour leaders are to fight. Without wanting to sound too light-hearted: We could’ve done it if it wasn’t for those pesky Trade Union bureaucrats!
News from Bangladesh
Unrest continues across Bangladesh, with widespread strikes and the mass revolt against an attempt by a British company to begin destructive open cast mining in Phulbari.
Picture - Monday, Phulbari in Dinajpur: protesters set fire to furniture of the British company Asia Energy in protest at the killing of demonstrators by security forces.
News from Bangladesh
- garment unrest continues and British company is attacked in mass regional revolt over opencast mine
The Great "Bootleg" Coal Industry (Louis Adamic)
A fascinating look at an alternative 'economic strategy' in US mining communities during the 1930s Depression.
Sbardellotto, Angelo Pellegrino, 1907-1932
A short biography of Angelo Pellegrino Sbardellotto, Italian anarchist and coal miner who attempted to assassinate fascist leader Benito Mussolini but was arrested and executed.
Angelo Pellegrino Sbardellotto
Born 1 August 1907 - Mel, Italy, died 17 June 1932 - Rome, Italy
