| Full name | National Union of Mineworkers |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1945 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Affiliation | TUC, Labour Party[1] |
| Key people | Chris Kitchen, 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). For much of the 20th century the NUM was a powerful force not only in the British union movement, but also in British politics. The NUM took part in three national miners' strikes in 1972, 1974 and 1984-85. Its influence was destroyed by the failure of the 1984-85 strike and by the closing of most of Britain's coal mines, and it is now a small union with little political power.
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The Miners' Federation of Great Britain was established in Newport, Monmouthshire in 1888 but did not function as a unified, centralised trade union. Instead the federation represented and co-ordinated the affairs of the existing local and regional miners' unions whose associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation was founded in 1898, joining the MFGB in 1899, while the Northumberland Miners' Federation joined in 1907, followed by the Durham Miners' Federation in 1908. Th federation's total membership in 1908 was 600,000.
The MFGB was involved in many trade disputes, including the National Miners' Strike of 1912 and the General Strike in 1926.
In January 1945 the MFGB was superseded by the National Union of Mineworkers.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, 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. Additionally, regions of the union could call their own strikes. Different areas varied greatly as to 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 in Britain for decades, 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.
In the 1980s some coal mines were unprofitable and the Conservative government headed by Margaret Thatcher sought to close them and privatise the rest. In some areas of the country, the NUM was considered militant and threatened strikes in 1981 when the government raised the issue but confrontation was avoided. In what the NUM considered a confrontational move, Ian MacGregor, who had overseen cutbacks and closures at British Steel, was appointed head of the National Coal Board by Thatcher in 1983. The following year, after secretly stockpiling coal at the power stations, the NCB announced the closure of 20 pits. Local regions organised strikes but Arthur Scargill, without a national ballot of the union's membership, declared a national strike in March 1984, though its legality was questioned making striking miners ineligible for benefits. Support for the strike was not universal among the miners, in some areas the support was small, such as North Wales or great as in South Wales.[2]
Margaret Thatcher described the strikers as the "enemy within" and Scargill was equally confrontational. Picket lines were stationed outside the pits and other industrial sites requiring coal, and violent clashes with police were not uncommon. Strikers had no source of income, some were forced by circumstances to cross the picket lines as "scabs". The strike ended on 3 March 1985 and the miners returned to work without agreement with the NCB. The strike was unsuccessful and its failure was an era-defining moment in British politics. After the strike large numbers of mines were closed.[2]
The effectiveness of the strike was reduced because the miner's leaders refused to ballot members on strike action. This was illegal under a new law, designed to outlaw decisions based on a show of hands, and replace them by secret ballot. The leadership presented this as an attack on its right to conduct its own internal affairs. This reduced public support for the strike and made it possible for the government to use legal and police powers against the union without political consequences.
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