DERBYSHIRE MINERS PUBLISH "A PLAN FOR MINERS" from Derbyshire Area N.U.M.
Britain's mineworkers are voting with their feet and will continue leaving the industry at a faster rate than the Coal Board requires unless drastic steps are taken soon to improve miners! wages and conditions. This is the central theme of a pamphlet published by the Derbyshire Minersof the National Union of Mineworkers. (Price 6d. from the N.U.M. Derbyshire Area Offices, Saltergate, Chesterfield.)
In a foreword signed jointly by Mr. Bert Wynn, Sectetary of the Derbyshire Area, and Mr. Will Whitehead, President of the South Wales Area, it is stated that the pamphlet was drafted by a group of persons, permanent officials of the N.U.M. and university teachers - with a long connection with the mining industry - only after much discussion inside the industry.
The situation inside the coal industry is described as the result of the concentration into a few years of changes that might be expected to take place over a whole generation, The £500 millions invested in the industry in the 1950s in major pit reconstruction and new pits raised the proportion of outp e"iSaded from 23% in 1957 to 67% in 1963, and at the same time reduced the manpower requirements by nearly a quarter. On top of this a 10% decline in the demand for coal in the same period, as oil has replaced eval in many industries and as fuel effiency has improved, has led to man-power requirements being reduced still further,
Thus over the 6 years from 1957 manpower has fallen from just over 700,000 to just over 500,000. At the same time. there has been a geographical shift; the 245 pits closed in this period have mainly been in Scotland and the North East, ‘while output in the Midlands and Yorkshire has been expanded. The rum down of manpower has largely been met by natural wastage, but the Coal Board now faces a manpower problem. The older men are staying on until retirement, but it is the yoymger men who are leaving. Threequarters of the decline in numbers has been from among the under 40s. Moreover, an ageing labour force and a rapid turnover of younger men has combined with the introduction of machinery underground to raise the death and serious accident rate by 35% in the last 6 years. The Coal Board seems likely to have to recruit about 30,000 workers a year over and next 6 years, if young men leave at the present rate, and to find among them an increasing proportion of craftsmen, who are steadily more in demand as machines are introduced.
In this situation of pit closures the miners have been unable to raise their wages. A fifth of the men employed - mainly surface workers - earn less than £12 per week. Although productivity has risen in the 6 years by about 30% (nearly 40% at the face), face workers! real earnings have barely risen, and surface workers! earnings have fallen, while earnings in other industries have risen by about 15%. Miners are. especially conscious of the fact that, while mechanisation has not raised their wages, it has rasied the surplus of the Coal Board available for meeting compensation to the old mine owners, interest on money borrowed for modernisation, depreciation charges (including those for pits closed before their time) and now for debt repayment from £68 million to £127 million over the 6 years,
The pamphlet concludes with a four-point programme of action to meet this situation, including many demands to improve the wages and conditions of the miners. The pamphlet is supported by an eight-page statistical supplement.
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