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Coal From South Africa<br />
Apartheid in !Alabama Miners Say ggNo9g<br />
The Mines<br />
The foUoww mick & taken from a memomndum<br />
witten by Tom Bethell of the United Mine Worker: 01<br />
Amm'a. It hreribea the new development of ma1<br />
impont @m South AM, the threat th& ir to the job<br />
rarity of US. mlner:, ud the added rmnglh 1 will<br />
@vt to the mpnuive .patheid policier of the South<br />
Aj?lmn pvernmmt.<br />
Arrangements ue currently being made lo<br />
bring substantial quantities of lowsulfur steam<br />
mal into the United States from the Republic of<br />
South Africa This move on the parI of the coal<br />
and utilities industries requires a strong response<br />
on the part of the UMWA, because it takes jobs<br />
away from American miners and because coal is<br />
produced in South Africa under conditions very<br />
. ..<br />
close to slave labor. (Continued on ~c 7)<br />
Above: south e n mhen<br />
BIRMINGHAM, Ah.-Almost 1,000 people took part in a rplly'and picket line here on May 22.<br />
They were letting the stockholders of the Southern Company know that they were opposed to coal<br />
being imported from South Africa<br />
The occasion was the annual stocltholders' meeting of the Southern Compmy, r holding company<br />
which owns Georgia Power Company, Alabama Power Company, Mirdgippi Power Company, and<br />
Gulf Power Company.<br />
At issue was a contract signed by the Southern Company to import 2 million tons ($50 million<br />
worth) of coal from South African coal produan over the next 3 y w The fmt shipment will be<br />
brought into the Port of Mobile in mid-July and burned at generating stations in Florida.<br />
Rank and fde members, particularly from Dishict 20 of the UMWA and other unions, as well as<br />
people from various community organizations made the rally the largest and most militant gathering<br />
in Alabama in wer a decade.<br />
1<br />
The wd complnicr empbyiq Diatrict 20 membm<br />
reported abmntesirm at around 90%. The hem lid<br />
wtddc B- YR Muchant t&sd &out the<br />
IyncbinA lockouts, md "yellow dog' (mtiunion)<br />
they were not on atrike but that they were "Wrinl time' oontractc the w m w lud wed q*M the minen in<br />
off to t8ke care of burinera"<br />
the twenties md about bow her own brother lud bean<br />
Approximately 100 mincn went to the state apitol killed in a mof f.ll in the thhtiar She wid it wu profit<br />
m Mon@omcry to rce ekcted pwrnmcnt officirl tbt they had to fight then md it qu profit they lud to<br />
Gowrnor W&cc w s out of town md the wliticiuu a-.-- t now. .<br />
told the h e n that they couldn't do mi- to Don Stow of the Black Workers Con#ma cpokc<br />
prevent Ameriun mrpontions from imp- Mil about tbc conditions in the South Af&m wd fislds md<br />
At the Bimia@um picket line the men wmc . q~. M the impoNnm of futhu in both pLsos -st<br />
md they manifested then attitude both in their wmor- tihe rmc enemy, the momply capital& oorpontionr<br />
vtion md in the do#ans on their w: "Pull the nit& Andy Hima wound up with a statement about<br />
on Southcrn Co.", "Stop Southern Compmy Imp&<br />
ism" md "No Shve Cod".<br />
bow the Compmy wu not only ehireling the hem of<br />
Akb.rm out of jobs but thu the ekctric ntepayur of<br />
After two houn of picketin& the &en held a dly<br />
tbs rnrs b.jq expeded to pick up the tab.<br />
, On8 mrna0fthebotelLotAQal~coardlutmru r'L.r ry tLt Buy'=, wammd about Ubama<br />
~ndy ot the hhu hqcd. M ubuu poritiai b t b Y Yn h too. wCll.thIt'sad.mn &.Look<br />
action pup which worked in the Iut United Miw at tha top tan Itockhokbn Db the Southern Compmny.<br />
Worken eleNon to klp thmw out the mnupt Tony They're rll New York City banks and .U they cur about<br />
Boyk nube.<br />
i mare profir"<br />
Among the rpeakers wu Iln John Yucht, the (Informelfon *om Andy Him: and the Georgia<br />
wife of a retired miner from Brookwood, a cod town Powr Roiea).<br />
urhn tha 80.tbh Cowmy.<br />
Bebw: Food h huth A f h minig amp. rned with a lhwel nd mhm h Bimim&am darotutn-<br />
Third-World comrades involved in those radical "multinational"<br />
organizations couldn't unmask it? They thought<br />
they were "Communists," but in practice their political<br />
framework of settleristic revisionism left them politically<br />
simple-minded, unable to prevent themselves from being<br />
pawns in the most vulgar white-supremacist maneuvers.<br />
Exposed and defeated, this fiasco was dug up out<br />
of its grave four years later. This time by a new crew - the<br />
Chinese-Amerikan-led Workers Viewpoint Organization<br />
(now called Communist Workers Party). In their campaign<br />
to recruit Afrikans, this grouping had organized an<br />
"African Liberation Support Commmittee" under its<br />
leadership to stage a large Afrikan Liberation Day 1978<br />
rally in Washington, D.C.*<br />
They dug up and reprinted the old, staged UMW<br />
photograph of the Euro-Amerikan and Afrikan miners<br />
kneeling together, even going so far as to say that the 1974<br />
white-supremacist UMW boycott gives "lessons for future<br />
struggles" by its "examples of international solidarity between<br />
all working people by supporting A frikan miners. "<br />
That old lie of four years earlier was revived as evidence to<br />
justify another round of integrationism. This organization<br />
certainly shows that even an entire group of radical<br />
Chinese-Amerikans can be indoctrinated into settler<br />
ideology. (9) While proletarian ideology has a clear relationship<br />
to the oppressed, it is not transmitted genetically.<br />
*We place "African Liberation Support Committee" in<br />
quotation marks to distinguish it from the earlier, genuine<br />
162 A.L.S.C.