Statement of solidarity to the members of the United Mine Workers of America with their strike against Warrior Met Coal in Alabama

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Published: Wednesday, 30 November -0001 01:00

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I have learned of your strike and the repression by the Tuscaloosa County Supervisor, and on behalf of the International Mine Workers Coordination, I want to express my heartfelt solidarity with you. You have our fullest support for your strike. My name is Andreas Tadysiak and I spent 40 years in the German coal mining industry, about 35 of them as an electrician underground. I am a member of the German miners' union IG BCE (Industriegewerkschaft Bergbau, Chemie, Energie) and was a shop steward for many years.

In 2013 in Arequiepa/Peru and in 2017 in Ramagundam/India I was elected to the International Miners Coordination Group by delegations of grassroots miners and by the members of the International Miners Coordination Group to be the main coordinator. I can understand your situation very well, because we had or have similar disputes about the right to strike in Germany. In Germany there is no all-round and complete legal right to strike for the workers. Strikes are only tolerated in collective bargaining. In many countries, the trade union rights of miners are under attack. Increasingly, trade unionists are also being physically threatened in their existence and in some cases murdered on the orders of industrial and financial capital. This is a dangerous development, which the international miners' movement and the trade unions must oppose together. Our program of struggle states: "We demand from all governments of this world to protect the right of assembly and the right to bargain. We organize strikes and demand that corporations respect these rights. For free trade union and political activity! For a full and universal legal right to strike! For unions as fighting organizations to defend and improve our living, wage and working conditions! We are against any form of class collaboration politics on the backs of workers and their families! We fight for the preservation and expansion of bourgeois democratic rights and freedoms!" Struggle Program of the International Miners' Coordination - adopted in 2017 in Ramagundam, India. The Struggle Program of the International Miners' Coordination states, "today, a few international corporations control the world's extraction, processing and trade of raw materials. The corporations exploit the miners and nature" Against these international mining monopolies and their governments, we can only become a superior force if we, together with our families, cooperate internationally and coordinate our struggles. That is why we have joined together in the International Miners' Coordination. We have been promoting the common international struggle of the miners for several years. To this end, we are holding our 3rd International Miners Conference from Aug. 31, 2023 to Sept. 3, 2023. It will take place in Germany/Thuringia and we would be very happy about your participation. . We will report about your struggle on our homepage www.minersconference.org and call for solidarity with you and your unions. We would be glad about more reports and also photos, so that we can publish them to inform the miners of the world about your struggle. If we can support you in your struggle, we will be happy to do so. We wish you much strength and success in your struggle and stand side by side with you! Andreas Tadysiak Main coordinator of the International Miners Coordination Group