Abstract
In this chapter we shall make an attempt to survey the course of conflict in the coal-mining industry after nationalisation. We shall adopt the following treatment. The disputes in each year would be discussed in a general manner. Thus, the number of disputes, the average loss incurred through the smaller disputes, the relative positions of the Divisions in the over-all picture of conflict in Britain and the extent to which the conciliation machinery was utilized before a dispute deteriorated into a stoppage or a restriction — all these will be discussed from year to year. Statistics concerning these problems will be presented in tabular forms2. The treatment of such a vast subject will have to be in rather general terms, since, under the searching eye of an analyst, each dispute may have something new to reveal. The frequency of small stoppages and “go-slows”, which take place every day in the widely scattered pits of Britain, makes their discussion in a manner approaching completeness an almost impossible task. Part of this task we will try to accomplish in Chapter V. The chapter will end with a summary of the important points which arise from our discussion.
Part of the material presented in this chapter was collected from the offices of the N.C.B. and the N.U.M. The N.C.B.’s Annual Reports, otherwise excellent documents, give very sketchy information about disputes. The author is, therefore, doubly grateful to the Industrial Relations Department of the Board and the London Office of the N.U.M. for giving him access to the relevant facts and figures.
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References
It may be pointed out here that the statistics issued by the N.C.B. and the Ministry of Labour sometimes differ. The large number of small lightning strikes is probably responsible for this. We have drawn upon both the sources.
The total number of strikes in 1946 was 1,329, vide N.C.B. Report and Accounts for 1947, p. 17.
The text of the Agreement can be found in: N.C.B. Memorandum of Agreements etc., Part I, March 20, 1940 to July 31, 1946, pp. 80-98.
The Five-day Week Agreement came into force on May 5, 1947. It provided that the normal working week for underground workers should consist of five consecutive shifts of 7½ hours each plus one winding time. Towards the end of 1947 the increased demand for coal necessitated an extension in working hours. Decisions were to be taken on the local level whether the extension in working hours should be secured by working on Saturdays or by working an extra half-hour from Mondays to Fridays, or both.
ibid., para. 11.
ibid,, para. 13.
Ministry of Labour Gazette, June 1947, p. 207.
N.C.B., Annual Report and Accounts for 1947, p. 17.
Referring to this, The Economist supported the idea of prosecuting the strikers. In its issue of July 12, 1947 (p. 56), it wrote; “In an industry where relations between labour and management have such a bad tradition, the Goal Board has hitherto wisely avoided prosecution in the interests of building up good relations. But it is quite clear that some miners are utterly uninterested in good relations or anything else except how to obtain as much money as possible for as little work as possible. In the interests of the majority of miners, let alone the interests of the country, these wreckers should be prosecuted”.
Ministry of Labour Gazette, January 1949, p. 6.
The figure has been arrived at as under: Excess of tonnage lost through smaller disputes in 1948 over 1947 = 96,661 t.
N.C.B., Report and Accounts for 1948, p. 35.
N.C.B., Report and Accounts for 1948, p. 36.
For some of the problems of reorganisation of the industry vis-a-vis industrial conflict, see the discussion of the two disputes, viz., the Grimethorpe Dispute of 1947 and the Protest strike against the closure of Wern Tarw Colliery of June 1951, Chapter V.
The four disputes referred to were as follows: i) Oncost workers protest stoppage in Scotland (September); ii) Winding Enginemen’s claim for higher wage rate in North-Eastern Division (August); iii) Concessionary Goal Claim for Lancashire (May); and iv) Winding Enginemen’s Claim for higher wage rate in North-Western Division (August).
See Chapter V.
Ministry of Labour Gazette, May 1950, p. 158.
ibid., and N.C.B. Annual Report, 1949, p. 83.
In the South-Western Division, a number of stoppages took place because of the alleged failure to carry out adequate dust suppression by infusion methods.
N.C.B., Report and Accounts for 1949, p. 82.
Ministry of Labour Gazette, May 1951, p. 188.
See Chapter V.
Also, Ministry of Labour Gazette, May 1951, p. 166.
See Chapter V.
This factor was also responsible, in the case of South-Western Division, for a loss of 34,090 tons in output in 1953.
N.C.B. Annual Report and Accounts for 1952, p. 53.
Ministry of Labour Gazette, May 1953, p. 152.
The Goal Board’s Annual Reports for 1952 and 1953, unlike the previous Reports, do not give the analysis of disputes according to causes. Our analysis is based on the information collected from the N.C.B.’s office, London.
N.C.B., Annual Report and Accounts for 1953, p. 14.
Ministry of Labour Gazette, May 1954, p. 151.
For a detailed discussion of this problem, see: K. G. J. C. Knowles, Strikes, A Study in Industrial Conflict, Basil Blackwell, 1952, Chapter IV. Also Knowles’ classification into (a) Immediate Causes, (b) Conditioning Causes, and (c) Underlying Causes in “’ strike-Proneness’ and its Determi-nants” (mimeographed), International Sociological Association, Liege Congress, 24 August–1 September, 1953.
The Social System of the Modern Factory, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947, p. 131. Also see, T. T. Paterson and F. J. Willett, “Unofficial Strike”, Sociological Review, Vol. XLIII, Sec. 4, 1951.
Knowles, Strikes, op. cit., p. 219.
A. M. Ross, Trade Union Wage Policy, University of California Press, 1950, p. 100.
On this aspect, see: Allan Flanders, Trade Unions, H.U.L. 1952, Chap.VII; N. Barou, British Trade Unions, Victor Gollancz, 1947, Chap. X; G. D. H. Cole, An Introduction to Trade Unionism, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1953, Chap. VIII.
Ross, op. cit., also see: Peter F. Drucker, The New Society — The Anatomy of the Industrial Order, Harper & Brothers, 1950, Chaps. 7 and 12. For an opposite view, see John T. Dunlop, Wage Determination Under Trade Unions, Basil Blackwell, 1950, pp. iii-vi.
G. D. H. Cole, Labour in the Coal-Mining Industry (1914–1921), Publications of the Carnegie Endowment for International House, 1923, p. 42.
See, Dunlop and Healy, Collective Bargaining, Principles and Cases, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., Illinois, 1953, pp. 86–99.
Organized Labour, Vol. III, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1945, p. 699.
Theory and Problems of Social Psychology, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1948, p. 542.
Lord Askwith, Industrial Problems and Disputes, London, John Murray, 1920, p. 350. Also: Knowles, Strikes, op. cit., pp. 236-37. While even today the recognition of trade unions is not universal outside nationalised industries, “strikes on ‘Trade Union principle’ are changing their character, and are no longer strikes for the right to organize or for recognition so much as strikes concerned with the closed shop”.
Lord Askwith, Industrial Problems and Disputes, London, John Murray, 1920, p. 351.
On Industrial Unionism, its growth and future prospects, see: N. Barou, op. cit., pp. 23-26; J. D. M. Bell, Industrial Unionism: A Critical Analysis, University of Glasgow, 1949; G. D. H. Cole, An Introduction to Trade Unionism, Allen & Unwin, 1953, pp. 81-85. A discussion of inter-union problems in nationalised industries of Britain can be found in the Action Society Trust Pamphlet, The Future of Unions, 1951.
Krech and Crutchfield, op. cit., p. 537.
R. K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, The Free Press of Glencoe, Illinois, 1951, p. 318.
J. F. Scott and R. P. Lynton, The Community Factor in Modern Technology ߞ An International Study of the “Sense of Belonging” in Industry, U.N.E.S.C.O., Tensions and Technology Series, 1950, p. 113.
Prof. Knowles places the “industrial strike-proneness ratio” in mining and quarrying (i.e., percentage of strikers — percentage of industrial population) for the period January 1911–June 1945 at 6.7; for textiles, 4.3; for metal, engineering and shipbuilding, 1.3; for transport, 1.1; for building, 0.4; for clothing, 0.4; for other industries and services, 0.1. (Paper at International Sociological Association, op. cit., Table VI).
The Australian Economy in War and Reconstruction, New York, Oxford University Press, 1947, p. 311.
W. H. B. Court, op. cit., p. 221.
For a full text of the Agreement, see N.C.B. Memorandum of Agreements, etc., Part I, Period 20th March, 1940 to 31st July, 1946, pp. 8-9.
Report of the Board of Investigation into the Immediate Wage Issue in the Coalmining Industry, para. 9.
ibid., para. 10.
Coal-Mining Industry — Output Bonus, Supplemental Report by the Board of Investigation, para. 1.
See, the Fourth “Porter” Award in the N.C.B. Memorandum of Agreements, etc., Part I, 20th March, 1940 to 31st July, 1946, p. 56.
For a fuller discussion, see, W. H. B. Court, op. cit., p. 253 ff.
Clause 2 (i) of the Agreement says: “The existing ascertainment agreements shall be suspended for the duration of this agreement, such percentage additions as are at present payable thereunder being merged in the day-wages or piece-rates payable as provided herein”.
In this connection, see our discussion of the Concessionary Coal Dispute of 1949 and the Wage-dispute of 1952, Chapter V.
Volume I, Report, Cmd. 2600, 1926, p. 108.
“A community”, writes Elton Mayo “which has been accustomed to a certain manner of living offers resistance to change in proportion as it has held its integrate character”. The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1946, pp. 131-132.
Cole, Labour in the Coal-Mining Industry, op. cit., 1923, p. 7.
In the 1927 Report of the Executive Committee of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, under the title “The Economic Position of the Industry, and the Policy of the Federation in Relation Thereto”, we come across the following: “The fundamental trouble of the industry is the same in every coal-producing country of the world; it can be stated in five words: “EXCESS OF SUPPLY OVER DEMAND”. The causes of this trouble, which the Report described as “natural causes of a permanent nature”, were: (i) Increased use of coal substitutes and the increasing efficacy of methods of coal conservation; and (ii) Expansion of coal production in other countries and their desire to make themselves independent of foreign coal supplies.
Scott and Lynton, Three Studies in Management, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1952, p. 30.
Lord Askwith, op, cit., p. 201.
The Cadman Memorial Lecture, Improving Coal Production, (Mimeographed), p. 7, (obtainable from the N.C.B.)
See: (i) E. L. Trist and K. W. Bamforth, Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-getting, Human Relations, Vol. IV, No. 1, February 1951. Writing about the change from the Hand-got to the Longwall Method of coal-getting, the authors point out: “The associated characteristics of mechanized complexity, and of largeness as regards the scale of the primary production unit, created a situation in which it was impossible for the method to develop as a technological system without bringing into existence a work relationship structure radically different from that associated with hand-got procedures”. (ii) A. T. M. Wilson, Some Aspects of Social Process, Journal of Social Issues, No. 5,1951. (iii) Einar Thorsrud, The Social Consequences of Technical Change from the Psychological Standpoint, U.N.E.S.C.O. International Social Science Bulletin, Vol. IV, No. 2, Summer 1952, pp. 305-306.
W. W. Haynes, Nationalization in Practice: The British Coal Industry, Bailey Bros. & Swinfen Ltd., 1953, p. 167.
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© 1955 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Saxena, S.K. (1955). Conflict in Coal-Mining: A General Survey. In: Nationalisation and Industrial Conflict. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9331-3_3
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