25.05.1995

First union conflict with the coal owners in 40 years

THE MASSIVE ‘Yes’ vote of NUM members in the newly privatised coal industry has surprised many, including RJ Budge, the principal owner.

It shows a remarkable social courage, given the fact that the miners have had so much stuffing kicked out of them over the last ten years. It marks a determination to start a fightback. As one of the lads, commenting on live radio, said: “We’ve got to stop taking shit some time. We’ve had enough.”

Budge, who started off from his background of a cosy family business and ‘man to man’ speaking, has ended up as the boss of a multi-million pound operation. He appears to have drafted in some high-flying advisors who are urging him to get tough. Mr Budge, if he wants some sound advice, should sack whoever it is that is whispering over his shoulder and follow his first instinct, which was to sit down and talk to the union.

This is not British Coal or the NCB with bottomless coffers to fall back on. This is a greatly over-stretched business on a knife’s edge. Charging into combat with the NUM is what the British Coal directors with nothing to lose got off on. Budge will find it painfully less exciting. The cost to his business for a one-day strike action could be between 10 and 15 million pounds. The cost of a 23% pay increase (the same size as the one he gave himself) would be about five million per year.

Budge and his backers are relying on the many non-unionists now working in the industry to break the strike. The union must launch a simultaneous campaign to win these workers back into the union. The signs are that the first stirrings of action are bringing back people who had left it because they thought the union had hung its guns up.

A victory is urgently needed to restore the union’s credibility and rewin its 100% membership throughout the industry.

The Yorkshire Miners’ Gala this year is at Wakefield on June 17, leaving Margaret Street (at the back of the Town Hall) at 10.30am. The Hatfield Main branch of the NUM has made an open invitation to all members of the revolutionary and progressive movement to march with our band and banner on that day. March around the village, beginning at 7.30am from the Pit Club, Stanforth, Doncaster. There is a miners’ folk music evening that night and it looks to be a great day.

Dave Douglass

vice chair of South Yorkshire NUM panel