Industrial Relations in the Privatised Coal Industry

Continuity, Change and Contradictions

Emma Wallis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138718562
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351764995
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This title was first published in 2000:  This book describes and accounts for the patterns of industrial relations which have emerged in the UK coal industry since privatization in 1994. In so doing, it also addresses wider issues relating to industrial relations and ownership. Labour relations practices currently evident within the industry are compared with those which prevailed during the final years of nationalization, and a series of case studies demonstrates that both continuity and change are visible. Whilst continuity with the patterns of labour relations established during the final decade of public ownership is shown to have had negative implications for organized labour within the industry however, the changes associated with privatization are demonstrated to have been a more ambivalent force. This book concludes that privatization has had a significant influence upon industrial relations within the industry, and that organized labour has in general been detrimentally affected by these developments.

1    Introduction

Because coal is the most abundant indigenous energy source in the UK, and was the engine of the first industrial revolution, the mining industry has been of tremendous strategic and symbolic importance. Numerous literary works have drawn upon the powerful imagery associated with coal mining (e.g. Lawrence, 1994, Zola, 1954), and as mining has always involved arduous physical work in dangerous conditions, the coal miner has been viewed as the ‘archetypal proletarian’ (Harrison, 1978). Because of this, the industry, which has been characterised by periodic crises and conflicts (Raynes, 1928), has often been regarded as a ‘special case’ (Samuel, 1925; Hughes and Moore, 1972).

When the coal industry was taken into public ownership in 1947, the National Coal Board (NCB) became the focus of study as the epitome of the post war nationalisation programme (Haynes, 1953; Baldwin, 1955). Industrial relations within the industry prior to nationalisation had been characterised by bitter conflict, and because of this, much of the academic interest in the public sector coal industry was concerned with the labour relations implications of public ownership.

The end of the nationalised era is of equal significance however, this being illustrated by the description of the proposed de-nationalisation of coal as the ‘ultimate privatisation’. Resistance to the restructuring programme which preceded privatisation led to the 1984–85 strike. This was the last major industrial dispute to take place in the industry before it was returned to the private sector, which generated a vast literature, comprising analyses of the dispute (e.g. Beynon, 1985; Winterton and Winterton, 1989), explorations of the role of coalfield women in the strike (e.g. Miller, 1986; Seddon, 1986; Stead, 1987), and examinations of the civil liberties issues arising from the policing of the dispute (e.g. Fine and Millar, 1985). Journalistic accounts of the dispute were also produced (e.g. Wilsher, Macintyre and Jones, 1985; Adeney and Lloyd, 1986), as were personal accounts of the strike by key participants (e.g. Ottey, 1985; Macgregor, 1986; Smith, 1997). Literature of equal importance also emerged from within the mining communities themselves (e.g. Barnsley Women Against Pit Closures, 1984; 1985; Worsborough Community Group, 1985; People of Thurcroft, 1986; Douglass, 1986; Dolby, 1987; Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures, 1987), which encompassed poetry (e.g. Gittins, 1986), and photographic art (e.g. Pattison and Beynon, 1984).

Following the defeat of the 1984–85 strike, this attention was redirected towards the transition of the coal industry from public corporation to private enterprise (Gibbon and Bromley, 1990; Pendleton and Winterton, 1993), the social consequences of the associated restructuring (e.g. Wright, 1985; Wade, 1985; Beynon, Hudson and Sadler, 1986; Edwards, 1993), and the implications for the coal industry of privatising the electricity supply industry (e.g. Gladstone and Dewhirst, 1988; Fothergill and Guy, 1993; Green, 1994). More recently, however, academics have begun to explore the changes apparent within the coal industry since privatisation, and as was the case when the industry was nationalised, attention has focused on the industrial relations implications of ownership change (Croney, 1996; Parry, Waddington and Critcher, 1997).

This study can be viewed as a contribution to the debate on the patterns of industrial relations which have emerged in the coal industry since privatisation, and therefore to the wider questions concerning the relationship between ownership and labour relations. As such, it is likely to be of interest to management, who may have anticipated the opportunities presented by the new commercial environment engendered by privatisation; to the trade unions, which were concerned that privatisation might undermine their bargaining position; and to individual workers, many of whom feared that privatisation might have a detrimental impact upon their terms and conditions of employment.

This study is concerned with the extent to which the emergent patterns of industrial relations in the privatised industry represent continuity or change with the past. Because the years of public ownership were characterised by having two distinct phases of labour relations, however, it also has a significant comparative dimension, since labour relations developments following privatisation are compared with both the earlier periods which are identified.

In Chapter Two, the patterns of industrial relations which have prevailed within the coal industry since nationalisation in 1947 are considered, and the 1984–85 strike is identified as a watershed. This chapter then explains how the restructuring of industrial relations which followed the 1984–85 strike was inextricably linked to the restructuring of both operations and ownership.

Chapter Three places the restructuring of the coal industry within the context of global capitalist restructuring. The privatisation programme instituted by the Conservatives during the 1980s and early 1990s is regarded as a manifestation of economic restructuring within the UK, and following an examination of the theoretical debate concerning the likely influence of privatisation upon industrial relations, labour relations developments in a number of privatised industries are considered. Two alternative hypotheses are then outlined which relate to the possible influence of privatisation upon industrial relations in the coal industry, and the implications of this for organised labour. A model is also presented which illustrates how patterns of labour relations in the privatised industry might be characterised by continuity or change, as a result of the interaction of management industrial relations strategies, and the responses of the mining unions to those strategies.

In Chapter Four, consideration is given to the methodology to be employed in order to test the hypotheses presented within Chapter Three. The merits of a case study approach are considered, after which the research design is outlined, and the operationalisation of the research is explained. This chapter also details how problems relating to access necessitated a review of methodology, which led to the adoption of a somewhat unorthodox case study approach, in which three of the four cases selected for study are holistic, whilst the final case is characterised by an embedded design.

Chapters Five, Six, and Seven are concerned with the empirical findings from three holistic case studies conducted at Cwmpridd colliery, Abergoed colliery and Workham colliery respectively. The structure of these chapters is identical, and reflects the analytical framework which was utilised when the case reports were being prepared. Each of these chapters therefore begins with an introduction to the case which is being considered, before developments in management industrial relations strategies are examined. The role of the trade unions is then analysed, followed by a consideration of the institutions of collective bargaining. Developments within the labour process are then assessed, and finally, some conclusions are offered as to whether the emergent patterns of labour relations are characterised by continuity or change.

The structure of Chapter Eight is slightly different from that of chapters Five, Six and Seven, since it is concerned with empirical evidence drawn from the final case study which has an embedded, rather than holistic design. This chapter therefore begins with an introduction to Coal UK, the company which forms the initial unit of analysis. Following this, the four subsections are each concerned with a different colliery owned by the company. The structure of these subsections is identical to that of chapters Five, Six and Seven, in that developments in management industrial relations strategies, the role of the trade unions, the institutions of collective bargaining and the labour process are analysed. The conclusions presented at the end of this chapter consider whether the patterns of industrial relations which are evident at both corporate and colliery level represent continuity or change.

In Chapter Nine the empirical findings detailed in the previous four chapters are compared, and some explanations are given for the emergent patterns of labour relations within the privatised coal industry. Finally, in Chapter Ten, the hypotheses and model presented at the end of chapter three are reconsidered, and their validity is assessed.

2 Background to Contemporary Change in Coal Mining

On 1 January 1947, the UK coal industry was taken into public ownership by the Labour government returned by the first post war election. Collective bargaining had been in evidence within the industry long before the advent of public ownership, with negotiations being largely conducted on a district basis, since the miners’ union was then comprised of a number of autonomous local organisations, loosely combined within the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (Ashworth, 1986). However, industrial relations took on a more formal and institutionalised character in the era of nationalisation.

The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain was replaced by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), on 1 January 1945, although the federal structure was retained, and local areas continued to exercise considerable autonomy (Page Arnot, 1979). Furthermore, local traditions remained pertinent and indeed, divisions between the politically militant coalfields of Scotland, South Wales, Kent, and later Yorkshire and the more moderate districts of Nottinghamshire and the Midlands were to have a significant impact on industrial relations in the industry in later years. Collective bargaining nevertheless gradually became the prerogative of the national union under nationalisation.

The terms and conditions of nationalisation reflected the corporatism of the post war consensus. The Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 (section 46) obliged the newly created National Coal Board (NCB) to negotiate and consult with trade unions representing large sections of the workforce in order to establish joint structures for the negotiation of employment terms and conditions (Winterton and Winterton, 1993a: 71), and following nationalisation, joint consultative machinery was introduced at national, district, area and colliery levels in accordance with the Act (McCormick, 1979: 58).

Formal conciliation machinery had already been established under wartime control. This had resulted in the creation of a National Board which consisted of a Joint National Negotiating Committee (JNNC), which provided for union representation, and a National Reference Tribunal which was composed of independent people, and which made binding awards when the JNNC failed to reach agreement. After nationalisation, conciliation machinery was also introduced at colliery level (McCormick, ibid).

Industrial relations then, were both highly regulated and pluralistic (Goodman, 1984: 65–68) in character during the early decades of nationalisation. The institutional framework which was developed to support collective bargaining was based on an acceptance that capital and labour within the industry had competing interests that required accommodation, and indeed, the conciliation procedures were highly effective in relation to the resolution of disputes throughout the period of nationalisation (Winterton, 1981: 16). Furthermore, the existence of tripartite arrangements for strategic planning within the industry, involving the government, NCB management and the mining unions, arguably enabled the contraction of the industry during the 1960s to be managed more sensitively than were the closures of the 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1985, the defeat of the year long strike by NUM members opposed to pit closures facilitated sweeping changes in patterns of industrial relations within the industry, and the reassertion of managerial power. The 1984–85 strike was a watershed in terms of industrial relations in coal, although the origins of the changes which occurred can be traced back to the early 1970s.

Following the first oil shock of 1973, when oil prices trebled, global demand for coal began to rise, and throughout the 1970s global supply was increased in order to meet this, with new reserves in Colombia, South Africa and Australia being exploited (Rutledge and Wright, 1985: 307).

In the UK the implementation of the 1974 Plan for Coal, a tripartite agreement negotiated by the Labour government, the NCB and the NUM, following the union’s victory in the 1974 wage dispute, resulted in the development of new capacity to replace collieries lost through exhaustion. Plan for Coal also committed the industry to ‘operate at optimum efficiency’ (NCB, 1974), and as a result new technologies and operational techniques were adopted at both new and existing collieries, which served to increase both output and productivity (Winterton and Winterton, 1995), although the ambitious projected output targets outlined in Plan for Coal were not met in full, and were revised downwards by the 1977 tripartite agreement Coal for the Future (Edwards and Heery, 1989: 199). As a result of the long development times inherent to coal extraction, many of the expansionist projects designed to increase coal production in both the UK and the world were only just beginning to come on stream when the recession of 1981 depressed global demand for coal.

By the beginning of the 1980s demand and supply side changes had resulted in international coal markets facing a crisis of over supply, which necessitated major restructuring in the global coal industry. In the UK industry this entailed the closure of uneconomic, i.e. surplus, capacity, which implied the closure of collieries on grounds other than exhaustion (Winterton and Winterton, 1989). This was not a situation envisaged by Plan for Coal, and was diametrically opposed to NUM policy which committed the union to resisting closures on grounds other than exhaustion.

By the early 1980s however, there were also a number of political factors which pointed towards major restructuring in the UK coal industry, some of which, like their economic counterparts, had their origins in events which transpired a decade earlier.

During the early decades of the nationalised era, the coal industry was noted for being relatively strike prone, with various theories being advanced in order to explain this (Clegg, 1979; Lynch, 1978; Winterton, 1981). Somewhat paradoxically however, the industrial relations strategies adopted by the NUM at national level following nationalisation, focused on co-operation rather than confrontation with NCB management. In part this was because the NUM saw co-operation with the NCB as the most appropriate strategy for ensuring the success of coal nationalisation, although it was also a consequence of the miners being divided, because pay was determined at area rather than national level (Allen, 1981), until the implementation of a series of wage structure agreements, comprising the 1955 Revision of Wages Structure Agreement, the 1966 National Power Loading Agreement (NPLA) and the 1971 Third Day Wage Structure Agreement, which created centralised pay bargaining in the industry (Winterton, 1981: 13–14).

The increased demand for coal generated by the 1973 oil shock however, served greatly to increase the bargaining power of the NUM at a time when there was a resurgence of militancy within the coalfields. This had been demonstrated in 1969, when unofficial strike action took place in several coalfields following a claim for a reduction in the hours worked by surface employees (McCormick, 1979). Moreover in 1971, the NUM national conference supported a rule change which reduced the majority necessary for strike action to be called from 66 per cent to 55 per cent, which paved the way for the first national stoppage for over forty years in 1972 in support of a pay claim.

The increasing militancy of the miners during the late 1960s and early 1970s, was in part a consequence of the establishment of centralised pay bargaining which enabled the NUM to unite over this issue. It was also a reflection of the rising power of the political left within the NUM, most crucially within the Yorkshire Area.

In 1967, the Barnsley Miners’ Forum had been established to campaign for the election of left wing candidates to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Background to Contemporary Change in Coal Mining
• 3 Towards a Theory of Restructuring and Industrial Relations
• 4 Methodology
• 5 Cwmpridd Colliery
• 6 Abergoed Colliery
• 7 Workham Colliery
• 8 Coal UK
• 9 Explaining Continuity and Change
• 10 Conclusions
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index