Background – The 1960s
The 1960s proved an especially challenging decade for miners in south Wales. Not only was it marked by the tragic disasters at Six Bells colliery and Aberfan, it also brought a significant contraction of the coal industry with the closure of numerous collieries. In 1959, 141 collieries in south Wales employed around 93,000 workers. By 1969, the number had fallen to 55 collieries employing around 40,000. Wage growth also began to lag behind jobs in other industries, with net income falling below the average for manufacturing workers by the end of the decade, leading many to seek employment elsewhere.
Within the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), there was a broad sense of pessimism over the prospect of resisting the National Coal Board's (NCB) closure policy, and a general reluctance among the leadership to pursue official industrial action during the decade; particularly with the Labour Party in office. But rank-and-file resentment grew against this backdrop of declining relative wage levels and colliery closures, with some lodges staging localised campaigns of resistance and the emergence of an ‘unofficial movement’ of lodge activists that pushed for a more radical stance within the union.
“I think the pride of the miner has been deeply offended over the years because the miner does a very difficult and dangerous job, you know. It’s elementary to say that, but it’s not always appreciated…"
One of the NUM’s significant achievements of the decade was the establishment of the National Power Loading Agreement (NPLA) in 1966. The NPLA meant that, for the first time, faceworkers were to be paid daywages at a fixed national rate. By substantially eliminating piecework and fostering a principle of equal pay for equal work, the NPLA provided an important foundation for greater unity between the various NUM Areas nationwide, which would be a key feature in the strikes of 1972 and 1974. By the end of the 1960s, a more militant strategy was gaining currency in the South Wales Area of the NUM as well as in other Areas such as Yorkshire and Scotland. An unofficial ‘surfacemen’s strike’, involving 140 pits across Britain, took place in October 1969, which presaged a further resurgence of militancy in the industry in the years to come.