National Union of Mineworkers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also the National Union of Mineworkers (South Africa).
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| National Union of Mineworkers | |
| Founded | 1888 |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Affiliation | TUC |
| Key people | Steve Kemp, secretary Ian Lavery, president |
| Office location | Barnsley, UK |
| Website | www.num.org.uk |
The National Union of Mineworkers is a trade union for coal miners in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1945 as a reorganisation of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). From 1981 to 2000 it was led by Arthur Scargill.
The MFGB was involved in many serious trade disputes, including the National Miners' Strike of 1912 and the General Strike in 1926. The NUM is best known for its role in the 1984-85 Miners' Strike, and for a number of other major disputes in which it participated in the 1970s. On the political front, miners' unions were pioneers of independent working class representation in Parliament. For much of the 20th century the NUM was a powerful force not only in the British union movement, but in British politics. Its influence was shattered by the failure of the 1984-85 strike, and it is now a small union with no particular political power.
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[edit] Origins of the NUM
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain was established in 1888. As its title suggests, it was not a unified, centralised trade union. It represented and co-ordinated the affairs of the various existing local and regional miners' unions, but those associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation was not founded until 1898, while the Northumberland Miners' Federation joined only in 1907, followed by the Durham Miners' Federation in 1908. Its membership in the latter year was 600,000.
In January 1945 the MFGB was superseded by the National Union of Mineworkers. Within that organisation, each coalfield continued to exercise a degree of autonomy, having its own District Association and its own President, General Secretary, and headquarters. Originally, a national strike required a two-thirds majority in a ballot of members. This proved near impossible to achieve and the majority was reduced to 55% in 1970 and then to 50% in 1984. In addition, regions of the union could call their own strikes. Different areas of the country varied greatly in how militant they were and it was not uncommon for animosity to exist between areas.
The miners' unions were the largest and most powerful industrial combinations of their day, and exercised a great influence on the rest of the British labour movement. The first working class Members of Parliament, Thomas Burt and Alexander Macdonald, elected in 1874, represented mining constituencies and were funded by miners' associations. Miners' unions continued to enlarge labour representation in the House of Commons in the years which followed, although they took little part in the founding of the Labour Party. Many miners' MPs sat with the Liberals and the MFGB did not affiliate to the Labour Party until 1909.
[edit] Landmark events in NUM history
- National Miners' Strike, 1912
- Formation of the Triple Alliance, 1914
- Strikes in South Wales, 1915
- Black Friday, 1921
- The General Strike, 1926
- The Miners' strike, 1984-85
[edit] The Miners' Strike, 1984-85
In 1984, under the leadership of Arthur Scargill, a Marxist, the NUM went on strike in response to the decision by the National Coal Board to close twenty allegedly uneconomic pits. The strike lasted a full year, during which there were violent clashes between police and miners, before workers were forced back to work without a deal and was an era-defining moment in British politics. The British coal-mining industry never recovered. Today there are very few mines still left and it is alleged by some that it is only a matter of time before they too are closed.
The effectiveness of the strike was reduced because of its legal position and the difficulty of measuring miners' support for the action. The membership of the NUM were not formally balloted on strike action. The union had a history of voting by public meeting and an open show of hands, and the leadership presented the law requiring a private ballot as an attack on its right to conduct internal affairs. Critics claimed that a ballot was not taken because the union could not be certain of support for the strike and that the action was illegitimate. The lack of a ballot also had implications for the government's powers to counter the strike.
It was alleged at the time that it was foolish to run down the coal industry, and rely increasingly on North Sea oil and gas, as these reserves would soon run down. Now, as indeed North Sea oil and gas reserves shrink rapidly, this has proven to be a very true prophecy. The United Kingdom will soon have no major exploitable fossil fuel resources, and will be forced to rely on imports, with all the political and economic dangers involved.
[edit] Presidents
- 1889: Ben Pickard
- 1904: Enoch Edwards
- 1912: Robert Smillie
- 1922: Herbert Smith
- 1929:
- 1931: Ebby Edwards
- 1932:
- 1938: Joseph Jones
- 1939: Will Lawther
- 1954: Ernest Jones
- 1960: Sidney Ford
- 1971: Joe Gormley
- 1982: Arthur Scargill (Honorary President from 2002)
- 2002: Ian Lavery
[edit] Vice Presidents
- 1889: Sam Woods
- 1909: Robert Smillie
- 1912:
- 1917: Herbert Smith
- 1922: Stephen Walsh
- 1924:
- 1929: Ebby Edwards
- 1930:
- 1933: S. O. Davies
- 1934: Will Lawther
- 1939: Jim Bowman
- 1950: Ernest Jones?
- 1972: Mick McGahey
- 1987: Sammy Thompson
- 1989: Vacant
- 1992: Frank Cave
- 2002: Keith Stanley
[edit] General Secretaries
- 1889: Thomas Ashton
- 1919: Frank Hodges
- 1924: A. J. Cook
- 1932: Ebby Edwards
- 1946: Arthur Horner
- 1959: Will Paynter
- 1968: Lawrence Daly
- 1984: Peter Heathfield
- 1992:
- 2002: Steve Kemp
[edit] External links
- NUM official site.
