Miners' Federation of Great Britain

The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales in 1888.

The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' unions in England, Scotland and Wales whose associations remained largely autonomous.

In 1888 after colliery owners rejected a call for a pay rise from the Yorkshire Miners' Association, several conferences were organised to discuss the possibility of forming a national union.

At the conference held in the Temperance Hall in Newport, South Wales in November 1889, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was formed.

[3] At the inaugural meeting it was agreed to raise funds to carry on the federation's business, to protect miners by taking an interest in trade and wages, secure legislation and call conferences to discuss matters.

[5] Their unions were opposed to payment of miners on a "sliding scale" based on the selling price of coal, a practice which was standard in South Wales, Northumberland and Durham.

In 1918, a majority of the MFGB decided instead to campaign for a single National Wages Board and this led to the break-up of the Federated District.

[9] The organisation was renamed the Mineworkers Federation of Great Britain in 1932, reflecting the creation of groups for enginemen, firemen, electricians and other workers in the industry.

A lockout in 1910 by Cambrian Collieries in South Wales in a dispute about wage cuts led to a ten-month-long strike by 12,000 men.

Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, sent troops to Tonypandy where they charged a group of striking miners with fixed bayonets on 21 November.

South Wales miners struck in 1915 and increased pay was demanded in 1916 resulting in the coalfields being put into state control.

[17] In 1921 a decision by the NUR and NTWF not to strike in sympathy with the miners is remembered as Black Friday and signalled the end of the alliance.

The MFGB rejected the report's proposals and its general secretary A. J. Cook coined the slogan, "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day!".

[21] Following the strike, the federation had lost public sympathy and the economic slump that followed affected miners' wages and working conditions.

[26] It pressured the Labour Party into readmitting Aneurin Bevan, who had been expelled for advocating a "popular front" with the far-left against the National Government.

After the Labour government was elected in the 1945 general election, the passing of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 meant all the industry's assets, rights and liabilities passed to the National Coal Board and the MFGB was reorganised into a single union, the National Union of Mineworkers.

[26] The miners' unions were the largest and most powerful industrial combinations in Britain for decades and exercised a great influence on the rest of the British labour movement.

After the close vote, the transformation of the LRC into the Labour Party and newly affiliated unions from Durham and Northumberland to the MFGB, a second ballot was held in 1908.