STRIKE
BRUSSELS -- The miners of the Batterie pit brought their sitdown strike to an end March 27 after almost two weeks underground. Their dramatic strike action won wide attention and publicity for their protest over the projected closure of their mine.
They had hoped that their example might be picked up by miners in other pits. But the official miners union, which refused to have anything to do with the Batterie strike, succeeded in blocking a chain reaction. The Batterie miners launched their action spontaneously.
The new left socialist party, the PWT-UGS [Parti Wallon de Travailleurs-Union de Gauche Socialiste], sought to rally maximum aid for the Batterie strikers. Money, food and other supplies were collected. Efforts to spread the strike, however, did not succeed. The new party is still too young to be able to bring out the big formations of the workers in the mining industry and in the strongholds of the labor movement in Belgium.
While the main responsibility for the failure to spread the
~1l4-
action lies with the reformist leadership of the miners union and. the Socialist party, the centrist leaders of the Lidge trade-union federation and of the Walloon Popular Movement were also discre~ dited,.
Only Jacques Yerna, the secretary of the Lidge trade-union
federation, went down into the mine to visit the strikers and offer his solidarity. He addressed public meetings in their behalf against the will of the centrist majority in his federation and did his utmost to mobilize mass support.
APPEAL OF ALEXANDER ELEVEN REJECTED
On March 22 the appeal of Dr, Neville