HUNDREDS of workers from across Scotland descended on the Fife pit town of Ballingry on Saturday to mark the 40th anniversary of the great miners’ strike.
With a pipe band leading the way, more than a dozen trade union and colliery banners were proudly marched through the town to a rally in Lochore Meadows Country Park above the workings of the Mary colliery, which once sustained local jobs and industry.
Before returning to the Miners’ Welfare Institute for food, music and an opportunity to share recollections, the crowd heard from speakers who had been there, some who had since fought for justice for mining communities and others who followed in their trade unionist footsteps.
Former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard told the rally: “It was a strike founded on solidarity, based on the simple socialist principle that no generation is entitled to rob future generations of their inheritance, and so it was about an old miner, fighting for the job of a young miner he had never met in a coalfield he had never seen.
“And it was about that old trade union principle that you do not cross a picket line,” added the Central Scotland MSP.
Strike veteran and Labour candidate for Blyth and Ashington Ian Lavery told the crowd: “[Margaret] Thatcher tried to destroy our communities and destroy the National Union of Mineworkers, thinking that at the time the rest of the trade union movement would fall like a pack of dominoes.
“Thatcher’s been gone for years, but thank goodness we’re still here, comrades. That’s the difference!
Referring to oil workers at Grangemouth who face an uncertain future, STUC general secretary Roz Foyer told the rally it was vital that no more communities were “thrown on the scrapheap.”
She said: “Yes, they’ve tried to strip us of our rights. They’ve tried to take away our very right to protest, the right to strike, to take us all onto zero-hours contracts. They’ve hit us with a cost-of-living crisis, given tax breaks to their rich friends. They’ve stood complicit while genocide is taking place in Gaza.
“They have used every tool at their disposal to bring us down, but we are still here.
“In a few weeks’ time, we will have the opportunity to rid ourselves of the dirty, thieving, corrupt Tory government that has been trying to attack our class.
“Make sure we unite as a class and make sure we vote to get rid of every single Tory from every single constituency in Scotland!”
