AT THE conference of the National nesday the election result for anion's announced. NUM president and the leader of the right wing in the union, Joe Gormley, polled 58 votes. John Weaver, the newly-elected Yorkshire member received 129 vot John household name. He does not, like Gormiey, write for the Daily Express.
So it is fair to speculate that the miners at the conference voted, not so much in favour of Weaver but against Gormley and the repeated calls for moderation he has made since the Tory election victory.
Other elections conference went the same way.
Yorkshire Scargill topped the poll for a place on the General Council, Scottish area president McGahey came a narrow third. But McGahey increased the share of his vote in the vice-presidential stakes, Success tor left reflected in the conference tions. The right did not even put up a wages resolution, and in the end the vote for f80 basic for surface workers and f140 for face workers was carried unanimously.
Moving the resolution, insisted that the claim was not just a demand but an "instruction' the executive had to pursue in full.
Significantly, the conference also Wedthe executive, hardly at the NUM Arthur Mick was also resoluScargill which the Sheriff section of this legislation.
others to do so.' and Jim Paton.
2 August. THE CAMPAIGN to keep Piers Corbyn, housing militant and member of the International Marxist Group, out of jail is gathering Leading rank and file members of the labour movement are being asked to put their name to the call for Piers' prison sentence to be dropped. He was convicted of breaking the trespass law at the Huntley Street eviction last summer.
Latest signatories include Arthur Latham, chairperson of the London Labour Party, and Richard Balfe, member of the European Piers was sentenced on 13 June to 28 days in prison for 'resisting at the mass eviction of Huntley Street squatters last August. He is now on bail pending appeal.
Meanwhile the trial of Jim Paton, the last of the 14 arrested for *resistance' at Huntley St., reaches its final stages on 2 August. Jim was not even present at the eviction, so his case — like the prison sentence for Piers Corbyn — has grave implications for trade unionists, students, or community groups involved in occupations.
The cases are the first in which the 'Criminal Trespass Law' (Part 2, Criminal Law Act 1977) has been used on a mass occupation, and the first in which the offence of 'resisting eviction' has been contested in court. Never before has & prison sentence been imposed under any Even before receiving reports on Corbyn, Marylebone magistrate Roderick Romain had declared: 'I consider there is only one correct sentence for someone who not ouly breaks the law but encourages But the reality of the struggle of the Huntley St. squatters was explained by Piers in court. 'The intention of myself and my friends was to seek housing for all the occupants,' he said. malicious intent, nor did we set out to break the law.' Despite this, and despite character references Latham and a former employer, Piers was jailed. It seems obvious there was more to the sentence than the eccentricities of a particular magistrate, and that what was being established at the court was a precedent for similar cases in the future.
This explains the importance of the defence campaigns for Piers September, but mobilisations are requested for Paton's trial at Marylebone magistrates court, Marylebone Road, London NWI, on Further details from the Huntley St Defence Campaign, c/o 55 Innis House, East St, London SE17 2JN. Tel. 01-701 5691.
'We had no from Arthur Corbyn's appeal will be heard some time in
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polling 160 votes against the 87 for the right's candidate, Sid Vincent.
iers conterence speak for now?