National Union of Mineworkers (UK)
전국광부노조 (영국)
The trade union of British coal workers. It was founded in 1945 in place of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. It won the national strikes of 1972 and 1974, played a major part in the fall of Heath's Conservative government in 1974 and was counted among the strongest unions of post-war Britain. After defeat under its president Arthur Scargill in the strike against pit closures of 1984–85, it shrank through a split and the closure of the pits. About 170,000 members had fallen to an active membership of 196 by 2023. Its abbreviation is NUM; the South African union with the same abbreviation is a separate body.
In depth
Where did it come from?
Its predecessor was the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), formed at a conference in Newport, Wales, in 1889. A federation of local unions, it demanded an eight-hour day and at its peak represented nearly one million workers. In 1926 the Federation answered wage cuts and longer hours with "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day", and a general strike in its support ran from 4 to 12 May. After that, the miners held out under lockout and were finally beaten.
In January 1945 the MFGB became the National Union of Mineworkers. Two years later the Labour government nationalised 958 pits. From then on the employer was the state's National Coal Board, so a wage dispute in the mines was also a dispute with the government. Hiring non-union labour in the pits would have led to a mass walkout, so, though not official policy, the industry was in effect a "closed shop", employing union members only.
How did it work?
Under the national body each coalfield kept a regional association with its own president and headquarters and a good deal of autonomy. Regional temper differed greatly: Scotland, South Wales and Kent were militant and had communist officials, while the Midlands were much less militant. The Scottish leader Mick McGahey, a Communist, became national vice-president in 1972. These regional differences would later split the strike of 1984–85.
A national strike originally needed a two-thirds majority in a ballot, which proved near impossible. When hundreds of pits closed under Wilson's Labour government in the 1960s the leadership put up little resistance; after a widespread unofficial strike over surface workers' pay in 1969 the threshold was lowered to 55 percent, and more militant candidates were elected to the leadership.
Why was it called the strongest union of the 1970s?
Miners' pay fell behind that of other industries in the 1960s. The national strike that began on 9 January 1972 was the first official one since 1926. Miners blocked not only the pits but also the places fuel moved through. In February at the Saltley coke depot in Birmingham more than 15,000 pickets and protesters, including workers from other Birmingham industries, gathered, and the chief constable ordered the gates closed "in the interests of public safety". This "Battle of Saltley Gate" secured victory, and the strike ended on 28 February when the miners accepted an improved pay offer.
When the union again banned overtime amid rising prices at the end of 1973, the Heath government limited commercial electricity to three days a week from 1 January 1974. After the union voted for a national strike Heath called a general election and lost, and Wilson's new Labour government accepted the pay demand. The union had shown its power, but also drew resentment at its demand to be treated as a special case, and the Conservatives prepared their answer.
Why did it collapse after 1984?
When Scargill became leader in 1981 the union had about 170,000 members. The 1984–85 UK miners' strike went ahead without a national ballot, split the union and ended in a return to work without a deal. Members in Nottinghamshire and South Derbyshire broke away in 1985 to form the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM). Scargill's supporters regarded it as a scab union, and its officials advised ministers on how to cut miners' power. The Coal Board dropped union membership as a condition of employment, ending the closed shop.
The union still had strength into the early 1990s. When the government announced large closures in 1992, it passed a strike ballot and won an emergency High Court injunction, but from mid-1993 the mines started closing. The fifteen remaining state mines were privatised in 1994, and the last deep mine went in 2015. Membership of 1,855 in 2011 fell to an active 196 in 2023. In court in 2012 it emerged that a substantial share of members' subscriptions was being spent on Scargill's expenses, including rent on a flat in London's Barbican Estate.
What did it leave in labour history?
The union's history runs alongside the rise and fall of the post-war British labour movement. It showed that organised workers could directly shake a government that was also their employer, and that very power made it a target of Thatcherism.
It also left a mark on politics. The union strongly supported the Labour Party and sponsored MPs in coalfields, but it voted unanimously in 1971 against joining the European Economic Community and clashed in the 1975 referendum with sponsored MPs campaigning for membership. The solidarity of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners in 1984–85 carried on: the union's Welsh chapters joined London's 1985 Lesbian and Gay Pride parade, and at that year's Labour conference the union's block vote helped pass a resolution committing the party to LGBT rights.