[1] At meetings of the association and district boards, each member in good standing had votes weighted depending on their mines' assured tonnage.

The association was strongly opposed to safety legislation, working hours reductions and recognition of trade unions, and this resulted in a series of labour disputes.

[6] The driving force behind the creation of the Association was William Thomas Lewis (1837–1914), one of the largest colliery owners, who also owned most of the Cardiff Docks and many other enterprises.

Thomas campaigned for a cooperative organization that would treat the South Wales coalfield as a single enterprise and would regulate production and prices.

[13] After the strike, the South Wales Miners' Federation (SWMF) was founded in October 1898, with William Abraham (Mabon) as the first president.

In 1889 the SWFM joined the newly formed Miners' Federation of Great Britain based in Newport, Wales.

[9] In 1907 the Association represented 80% of the output of the South Wales Coal Field, which then had 588 mines in operation and employed about 174,000 workmen.

[18] During labour negotiations in 1916, the owners found themselves forced to retreat from selling prices as the key factor in setting wages towards one in which profit became the main consideration.

That committee sat for several meetings and found that they had different opinions, and they appointed a sub-committee who did draw up a scheme both on the productive and on the distributive side.

"[21] In 1921 there was a three-month lockout in the UK coal industry in response to wage reductions that were as high as 49% for labourers in South Wales.

[22] Hugh Clegg wrote in 1985, "The lockout ... became a fight to the finish, to be settled, if not by actual starvation, by the expenditure of all personal resources, the exhaustion of every source of credit, and the hunger of wives and children."

The strong community spirit in South Wales meant that miners there held out longer than elsewhere in the United Kingdom since it was "social suicide" to return to work.

On 19 November 1926 the Miners' Federation of Great Britain accepted defeat and allowed the opening of district negotiations.

On 30 November 1926, the South Wales Miners' Federation executive council met the Coal Owners Association and agreed to order an immediate return to work.

In 1927 the Coal Owners Association accepted that wages could not be further lowered and other approaches must be tried such as production quotas to manage prices.

[25] Until the mid-1930s the somewhat isolated anthracite mining district in rural West Glamorgan, Brecon and Carmarthen were not covered by the MSWCOA policies, but the pits in this region had many strikes.

The owners here were criticized by other coalowners for failing to apply tougher policies such as reprisal, extended lay-offs, and prosecution of unofficial strikers.

[26] Compensation for growing numbers of certified silicosis cases was causing severe financial problems at some coal companies by the late 1930s.

Two volumes of surveys by Alexander Dalziel, an early secretary of the association, include reports and personal observations on many aspects of mining including underground workings, lamp lighting, ventilation, wages payment, colliery management, miners' housing and stable arrangements at pits.