miners - ballot for action over pay
WORKERS, JULY 2003 ISSUE
The national Union of Mineworkers is balloting for industrial action over pay in the few remaining deep mines operated by UK Coal. The NUM is looking for a 25% wage increase over three years. The employers are offering an inflation-linked cost of living award.
This offer has been accepted by the UDM (set up to oppose the NUM) and is being paid to all miners irrespective of their union loyalties. In other words, the divisions at the point of production between miners are as deep as ever and are being successfully exploited by the employer.
The pit closure programme threatens the very existence of the handful of pits left working. UK Coal will willingly push this option as the industry teeters between life and death. Every year since the 1984-85 miners' strike there has been posturing over industrial action and pay, but no vote to act.
Survival of the pits will depend upon a strategy based on realistic, deliverable tactics and a strong unified organisation. This may be anathema to some. But a closed pit is a dead pit and a dead Miners' Lodge. Survival of the industry to fight another day is critical.