National Union of Mineworkers Nottinghamshire Area

IAN LAVERY SENDS OPEN LETTER TO THE BNP

23rd November 2009
The National Union of Mineworkers makes it absolutely clear that when we circulated a letter to all Members of the European Parliament seeking support for Columbian trade unionists who are often murdered for their activities the British National Party (BNP) received the correspondence totally inadvertently.

We apologise unreservedly to all our supporters for this administrative error.

The BNP's assertion on its website that they are working in anyway with the NUM is totally false and is an attempt to attach themselves to the good name of the NUM.

The NUM abhors the politics of the BNP and has a long and proud history of fighting fascism that goes back to the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s in which many miners gave their lives, and many others lost their lives in the fight against Hitler.

The BNP are not the friends of trade unionists and any suggested link between the NUM and the BNP is totally and utterly false and the NUM dissociates itself entirely from any such suggestion.

In the meantime I shall be writing to those individuals who are attempting to mislead people for their own political ends. The NUM never has and never will be associated with the kind of politics that the BNP represents and to complain forcefully about this blatant political stunt.

Ian Lavery

National Union of Mineworkers

Image: NUM Logo

National Journal

28 September 2008

Since I last wrote an article for this web page the progress made by the NUM in the field of internationalism has been tremendous. The Union was at the forefront of the International Miners Conference held in Calcutta, helping our comrades in India in their fight against privatisation of the Indian Coal Industry. Trade Union’s from all over the world joined together in December 2007 to agree a declaration for global trade unionism.
The NUM were also invited to attend the Mining & Maritime Conference in Sydney April 2008, where Ian Lavery NUM National President addressed the Conference and received a standing ovation for his contribution. Again the link for the Unions across the world was strengthened. Imagine the power that an International TUC would have.
Back at home the Union has been successful in agreeing a new modernised rule-book that protects the Union and its members. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of work to be done as the British Government still openly boasts that they still employ the most draconian employment laws in Europe. The NUM are of course fully supportive of the Trade Union Freedom Bill seeking the removal of the anti trade union laws imposed in the Thatcher years.
We held the Unions National Conference in July of this year and the resolutions from that Conference has given the National Officials and the Executive Committee plenty of work to be carried out on behalf of the membership. New pay talks begin in October November 2008 and the Union will be looking to improve the working standards terms and conditions including a sick pay scheme that does not leave our member’s way behind others in the Industry when off sick.
My Area in Nottinghamshire was successful in moving the three proposed motions to Conference on the Mineworkers Pension Scheme surplus split, Industry Wide Mineworkers Pension Scheme Trustee ratios and Safety Representative meeting regularly with the National Safety Committee.
At the TUC Conference 2008 the NUM moved a Composite motion seconded by the pit managers Union BACM seeking a commitment from the Government for coal and funding for clean coal technology, carbon capture and storage. The Composite also included the concerns on the security of supply with the UK relying on countries such as Russia in providing 40% of its coal imports.
The UK imported 53 million tonnes of coal last year whilst our own deep mines along with the opencast provided 18 million. It is sheer madness to be reliant on volatile countries such as Russia when we have plenty of coal beneath our feet.
The Motion at Conference was supported unanimously.
The NUM are continually pressing the Secretary of State for Energy to commit to indigenous coal as a means to self security of supply at the Coal Forum. The Forum was set up as a result of the Energy Review. At the Labour Party Conference the National Officials were able to corner Malcolm Wicks and get him to agree to a meeting exclusively with the NUM to discuss our own coal industry and security of supply. As that was done on September 22 2008 you will note that I have brought you right up to date with the Union’s affairs. The fight continues with the Union forging the Case for Coal
KEITH STANLEY – GENERAL SECRETARY

TRADE UNION LAWS
September 16 th 2007

Over the last couple of months the NUM has been involved in the internal affairs of the union. We are at the moment going through a transitional period as the NUM realises that the rulebook that governs the business of the Union is out of date with the size of the coal industry we now have.

There is no doubt that the rules revision conference set for November 2007 will see a revised constitution allowing the Union to progress in its fight to retain what we have left of a coal mining industry.

During the transitional period another change has occurred because of the anti- trade union employment laws imposed by the Tory Government in the 1980’s. Part of the control measures the Tories put in place was to enforce trade union official’s to stand for elections every 5 years.

This tactic was simply to cause the unions more work and in some cases to remove officials that would follow a line of opposing the anti trade union laws.

Sadly the NUM has been a victim of this legislation as we have just gone through a period of elections that has resulted in the National Secretary Steve Kemp having served a 5 year term doing an excellent job being removed from office.

For whatever reason that Steve was challenged for his Yorkshire Area post and then the National position it could never really be justified when the lad has worked tirelessly throughout the last 5 years in promoting the Union and its continuous fight for the retention of the coal industry.

Our out of date rulebook gives no cover for removed Officials, other than severance pay to compensate for his forced removal from the union.

It is the Tory anti trade union laws working at their worst and even though the Labour Party has been in Government now for 10 long years we still see many of the Tory laws still in existance.

I have just returned from the 2007 TUC Conference and again trade union recognition and opposition to the anti trade union laws was high on the agenda. Unanimous support was given to the resolution moved by the RMT leader Bob Crowe and supported by the NUM’S Steve Kemp to remove the imposed laws. Now we have the Conference decision, we need to work with it immediately seeking meetings with the Labour Government. The Union’s donate large amounts of monies to the Labour Party, we should insist on something in return. We should be demanding cash for fairness.

We cannot continue to pussyfoot along not wanting to rock the boat for a Labour Government who continues to hide behind the Tory laws. The TUC should be demanding urgent talks with the Prime Minister seeking change
LET US HAVE FAIRNESS.

Keith Stanley
General Secretary

The NUM at Work

14 May 2007

Since I last contributed to the Notts NUM Ex & Retired Miners website, the Union has been working with our Government contacts and the TUC attempting to gain compensation for surface workers who are effected by coal dust.

Unfortunately the Department of Trade & Industry have refused to recognise these workers in the coal health scheme for Chronic Bronchitis & Emphysema. The NUM have continued to argue that surface workers particularly in the coal washery/screens employment would be subjected to working in very dusty climates.

During the existence of the scheme for Chronic Bronchitis & Emphysema attempts have been made to add these surface workers into the system. Following the DTI denial the Unions solicitors went back to the law courts seeking fairness.

The presiding judge asked the Unions solicitors to provide evidence of exposure for surface workers and that request became the stumbling block for the unions. Dust sampling in surface work areas appeared to be non-existent in many cases. If samples were taken there was a lack of them not being recorded or saved. In fact to meet the legal requirements under COSHH regulations it was only necessary for the NCB/British Coal to sample work areas on the surface once a year. If the employer took samples at favourable times once a year, then exposure to heavy dust for surface workers would not be highlighted.

In our many meetings with the Mining Members of Parliament the NUM has raised these anomalies. The NUM have argued that our claimant’s data shows that we are not talking about a lot of claims numbers wise. The Mining MP’s have been in correspondence with the Secretary of State dealing with coal health claims raising these points all to no avail. The decision at this moment in time stands that surface workers cannot claim under the existing scheme for Bronchitis & Emphysema.

There appears however to be progress in another avenue for compensation as the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC) have agreed to investigate surface workers dust disablement as a probable prescribed disease.

There is another disablement also being considered by the Council that appears to effect miners more than any other industrial workers namely osteoarthritis of the knee.

The NUM have been in discussions with the Mining MP’s and the TUC to assist with information to compliment the progress of the proposed prescribed diseases.

Hopefully miners will be able to claim compensation for these disablements in the very near future.

Social Evening in Ollerton
On behalf of the NUM, I attended a social evening arranged by the Notts NUM ex & Retired Miners Association on Friday 11th May 2007 at the Boughton Social Club in Ollerton. It was a very successful event and part of the proposed facilities set up by the Association for its members.

It is gratifying to see the ex & retired miners how they should be, enjoying themselves and participating in the camaraderie that the miners are renowned for.

I am sure there will be many more of these events in the future and the growth day by day of the membership will inevitably see the association as a valuable asset to the communities, especially where the pit villages no longer have a coalmine.

A great night and a great advertisement to encourage more to join in

Keith Stanley

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THE COAL INDUSTRY

4 January 2007

The future of the deep mining coal industry in Great Britain is well and truly in the balance and I believe that 2007 will be a critical year for us all.
If the energy policy of this country continues to be determined by private owners like UK Coal then we could see the end of the British coal industry by the end of this year

In my capacity as National Vice President I have been in meetings with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and various Secretary’s of State for Energy and the NUM has never faltered in its arguing a case for coal.

The NUM was encouraged by the Prime Minister in our meeting with him to contribute to the Energy Review 2006. The Union took this on board and produced an excellent document detailing the case for coal and how it could be burnt cleanly and at a lesser cost than other energy sources.

The energy review conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry produced a 216-page document on the future energy policy required, but alas there was only a page and a half dealing with British Deep Mined Coal. The review agreed that a coal forum should be set up that involved coal owners, trade unions, clean coal technology experts, TUC officials etc to discuss the advantages of a coal industry.

It is alarming however that the largest coal owner in Britain contributed to the review by suggesting that if further cash aid was not available from the Government to the coal industry then further pit closures would be inevitable. This is from a cash rich Company that has just had a land value estimation of £800 million

The forum has a massive task in my view convincing a reluctant Government that coal is an energy source for the future and cheaper than most. Nuclear is the Governments preference over other sources. Ironically in October 2006 practically all of the nuclear power stations were out of action through breakdown or maintenance. I can see in the very near future this country being in crisis for security of supply simply through its short-term vision for coal.

UK Coal Ltd continue to close down collieries isolating millions of tonnes of coal reserves and I believe that 2007 will see the industry decline further if they are allowed to operate as they have in the past. The coal industry future looks as gloomy as Britain will do when this Government realises its energy policy is wrong.

The NUM will continue to express its views wherever possible. We would dearly appreciate the general public coming on board and supporting the Unions call to retain what we have left and furthermore seeking the expansion of British Deep Mined Coal. The best way for this to happen is to re-nationalise the coal industry

Get a message to your local Member of Parliament that coal is for the future and lobby them to support the NUM.

Keith Stanley
National Vice President
Nottinghamshire NUM General Secretary

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Oct 2006
I have been a proud member of the NUM since 1965 when I began my employment in the coal mining industry, initially at Bentinck Colliery in South Nottinghamshire on a sixteen-week training course and then onto Newstead Colliery where my mining career really began.

In those days when you began working at a colliery you automatically became a member of the trade union there.

I suppose I was like most young men when they begin employment and didn’t understand the real meaning of the Union or indeed its activities. I was aware however from an early experience when my wages were not right, that it was the Union you went to, simply to get it sorted. The education was immediate, you knew if you had a problem at the pit then more than not the union sorted it

As a young man I was involved in the pay disputes in 1972 and 1974 and from there began to realise the strength of the union, especially as we won both disputes and went to the very top of the industrial pay league.

My father was on the NUM Committee at Newstead Colliery around this period and he encouraged me to attend the Union meetings expressing the very importance of trade union education. Reluctantly I attended one or two meetings on a Sunday morning and I used to dread the delegates report as I found this to be the most boring part of the procedures. How wrong I was, as after attending more meetings I then understood the importance of that report as it highlighted events from all of the pits around the Area. Ironically later on in my mining career, I became the delegate at Newstead Colliery. I certainly attempted to spice up my reports to the branch however leading up to the 1980’s there was enough going on for the reports to be interesting anyway

I began listening intently to warnings from the National and Area Officials around the beginning of the 1980’s that a pit closure programme was looming. We had a new National President that looked entirely different from the fatherly figure we were used to in Joe Gormley. My first interpretation of Arthur Scargill was that the man (the new kid on the block) had balls and would lead the resistance of our Union in any pit closure programme.

Then in 1984 when the National President called for the miners to fight the Tory pit closure programme he immediately had my support. From that damaging dispute I realised that the Union as I knew it in Nottinghamshire would never be the same again.

Without me going into the whole of the history of the dispute in Nottinghamshire the end result was the forming of a breakaway union the UDM. We know now, although it was pretty obvious then that the set up of this new organisation was all part of the Tory plan to smash the biggest and best trade union and then to move onto the others within the movement.

The Majority/Minority concept employed by British Coal at the Nottinghamshire mines was again designed to wreck the Nottinghamshire NUM branches. I am absolutely delighted to have been and still part of a brotherhood that stood together to resist the attacks on the Union. From 1984 onwards members of the NUM Nottinghamshire Area have been subjected to the most vicious tactics used against them by appalling employers using the full force of the Tory anti trade union laws. Attacked but never broken the proud members of the NUM in Nottinghamshire stood together

Long after the Iron Maiden Margaret Thatcher, her Tory cronies, Ian McGregor and the rest of the NCB/British Coal management have gone; the National Union of Mineworkers Nottinghamshire Area still remains.

After 22 years of survival without branch offices, telephone facilities, notice boards at the collieries and obstacles laid down by the employers to obstruct the NUM functioning as a union, the establishment have failed.

I regard the members of the NUM in Nottingham the very best in the name of trade unionists; I herald and support each and every one of them.

The brotherhood has long continued and now that the ex and retired members of this great union in Nottinghamshire have formed an association. The strength, resilience and the downright political attitude of the National Union of Mineworkers in Nottinghamshire is still here to be seen and long may it continue.

Keith Stanley
General Secretary