This is the first official all-out strike in the mining industry here since the yearlong nationwide battle by the NUM in 1984–85. It follows a six-day unofficial walkout in June over the same issue.

Miners have organized two mass pickets of up to 100 workers since the start of the dispute, but picket lines are usually small since everyone, including a few nonunion miners, is on strike. Only pit deputies, who are members of the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies, and Shot Firers, are responsible for pre-shift safety checks, are going to work, with union agreement.

Production-related bonuses have historically made up a substantial part of miners' pay packets. For example, at mines bought by UK Coal when they were privatized by the government, workers take home £40 per shift plus a £20 guaranteed minimum bonus per shift (£1 = US$1.45). At the Rossington Colliery, which is run on a lease-and-license agreement by UK Coal, there is no guaranteed bonus. The bosses have set a minimum threshold of 21,500 tons per week of saleable coal before the bonus scheme kicks in.

John Gibson, NUM branch secretary, told the media in June that the conditions "we are working in are making it impossible to reach the targets and we have asked for them to be lowered to make them more achievable." The union is proposing 17,400 tons as a target. So far bosses have refused to change their position.

According to one worker on the picket line, part of the problem is that a new coal face was opened at Rossington last year, and the longwall equipment brought in to work it is antiquated, secondhand machinery. Geological conditions are also bad.

Strikers reported that miners at Gascoigne Wood Coal Preparation Plant, in North Yorkshire, are also currently balloting for an overtime ban on the issue of bonuses. The plant processes and dispatches coal produced at the three mines in the Selby complex, also owned by UK Coal. Strike action at the preparation plant would affect all three mines.

While the strike action concerns the bonus payments, it is only one of the issues facing miners at Rossington and other mines. As part of the process of privatizing the coal industry over the last nine years, the bosses have introduced different terms and work conditions at different mines. At Rossington, for example, workers do not get a shift allowance, extra payments for working in very hot conditions, and only regained sick pay a couple of years ago. Without the bonus, face workers earn £40 per shift total. Wages have been reduced to such an extent that some miners are forced to rely on Family Credit, a welfare payment for low-wage workers with children.

At nearby Hatfield Main colliery, miners organized a demonstration August 13 in defense of their jobs, after the mine was closed down suddenly August 9 by the owners, a management consortium. Workers on the morning shift were told to stop work because the mine was closing. The government has provided money to keep the mine on a "care and maintenance" basis for four weeks, to see if a buyer can be found. Meanwhile many miners there are owed three weeks wages, outstanding holiday pay, and have been told they may only get the three weeks wages as their redundancy payment.

In response to the growing problems facing miners, the National Union of Mineworkers is pursuing a claim that would place all miners, regardless of which company owns the mine, on the same rate of pay. If the coal companies do not agree, union members will be balloted for industrial action.

Paul Galloway is a member of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union and Anne Howie is a member of the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union, both in London. Jim Spaul contributed to the article.  
 
 
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