Introduction: Scottish Coal Miners and Economic Security

Abstract

Changes in coalfield employment and coal industry ownership illustrate the ways in which economic security was strengthened from the 1920s to the 1960s. Private ownership was an obstacle to communal security, with employers protecting their profits at the expense of employment and wage stability. Nationalisation in 1947 was an important victory. Progress was not straightforward, however, disturbed by pit closures and job losses from the late 1950s onwards. Policy-makers moved human and capital resources out of basic industry, including coal, and into higher value-added manufacturing. The new employer, the National Coal Board (NCB), was initially clumsy in its approach to restructuring. Nationalisation involved limited innovation in the sense of enhanced industrial democracy. But miners and their union representatives made the changes work in their favour. Policy-makers were persuaded to accommodate the needs of the coalfields as miners defined them. New factories were established in the coalfields through UK government regional policy, mainly in mechanical engineering and then electrical engineering, with jobs for women as well as men. A reconfigured pattern of social relations emerged gradually, with more opportunities for women and less gender inequality.