History of coal miners

[10] In British Columbia, Canada, the coal miners were "independent, tough, and proud" and became "among the most radical and militant laborers in an extremely polarized province."

By 1830 this had risen to over 30 million tons[14] The miners, less menaced by imported labor or machines than were the textile workers, had begun to form trade unions and fight their battle for control against the coal owners and royalty-lessees.

There was a high degree of equality in lifestyle; combined with an evangelical religious style based on Methodism this led to an ideology of equalitarianism.

Much of the 'old Left' of British politics can trace its origins to coal-mining areas, with the main trade union being the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), founded in 1888.

After a million men had walked out for 37 days, the UK Government intervened and ended the strike by passing a minimum wage law.

The Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin decided to intervene, declaring that they would provide a nine-month subsidy to maintain the miners' wages and that a royal commission under the chairmanship of Sir Herbert Samuel would look into the problems of the mining industry.

[22] After the Samuel Commission's report, the mine owners declared that, on penalty of a lockout from 1 May, miners would have to accept new terms of employment that included lengthening the work day and reducing wages between 10% and 25%, depending on various factors.

It was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 800,000 locked-out coal miners.

Many pits were considered uneconomic[25] to work at then current wage rates compared to cheap North Sea oil and gas, and in comparison to subsidy levels in Europe.

The NCB employed over 700,000 people in 1950 and 634,000 in 1960, but successive governments reduced the size of the industry by closing geographically impaired or low productivity pits.

The miners' strike of 1984–1985 ended in victory for the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher and is still bitterly resented in some parts of Britain that suffered from the aftermath of pit closures.

[28] Belgium took the lead in the industrial revolution on the continent, and began large scale coal mining operations by the 1820s using British made methods.

Numerous works comprising coke blast furnaces as well as puddling and rolling mills were built in the coal mining areas around Liège and Charleroi.

Starting in 1965 coal mines were dismantled, initiated by social democrat minister Joop den Uyl and with active support of the catholic trade union leader Frans Dohmen.

Zeldin says, "The miners were clearly backward looking, yearning nostalgically for the days of the small un-mechanized mines, run not by distant engineers but by gang leaders chosen of the men themselves.

Although there were company towns that raised the prices of all goods and made eviction a constant threat, these conditions were not the norm for all coal towns—some owners were paternalistic and others were exploitative.

Before mechanization began about 1910 the miners relied on brute force, pick-axe, hand drills and dynamite to smash lumps of coal out of the wall, and shovel them into mule-drawn carts that hauled it to the weighing station, and the railroad cars.

It offered adequate housing and promoted upward mobility through its sponsorship of a YMCA Center, elementary school, and some small businesses, as well as a company store.

The store typically accepts "scrip" or non-cash vouchers issued by the company in advance of weekly cash paychecks, and gives credit to employees before payday.

"[42]The stores served numerous functions, such as a locus for the government post office, and as the cultural, and community center where people could freely gather.

[44] The United Mine Workers (UMWA) had won a sweeping victory in an 1897 strike by the soft-coal (bituminous coal) miners in the Midwest, winning significant wage increases and growing from 10,000 to 115,000 members.

The strike never resumed, as the miners received more pay for fewer hours; the owners got a higher price for coal, and did not recognize the union as a bargaining agent.

Nash notes that the coal operators saw that it was to the advantage to support the union policy of uniform wage rates, for it prevented cutthroat competition and falling prices.

The coal operators played the radical card, saying Lenin and Trotsky had ordered the strike and were financing it, and some of the press echoed that language.

[49] As the strike dragged on into its third week, supplies of the nation's main fuel were running low and the public called for ever stronger government action.

The rank and file miners, however, were primarily interested in regaining lost income, and began slow-downs to force the company to pay higher wages.

[53] The political unity and radicalism of coal miners has traditionally been explained in terms of the isolation of a homogeneous mass of workers in conditions of economic and cultural deprivation.

However local studies in Nova Scotia show that mechanizing the mines gave miners significant control over underground operations.

[54] Women played an important, though quiet, role in support of the union movement in coal towns in Nova Scotia, Canada during the troubled 1920s and 1930s.

The Aberfan disaster which destroyed a school in South Wales can be directly attributed to the collapse of spoil heaps from the town's colliery past.