Miners and the Scottish Nation: from the 1950s to the 1970s

Economic security in the coalfields was strengthened after the closure of Scotland’s largest colliery, Michael in East Fife, in 1967. The moral economy was enforced vigorously by the New Mine generation. Mobilisation averted a significant erosion of employment. Increased coal burn at new power stations was secured. As the creation of jobs in new industries slowed, so did the rate of employment loss in coal. Pits closed only where the interests of mining localities were carefully protected. Security was also pursued through industrial action for improved wages. The New Mine generation in Scotland was instrumental in shifting union politics to the left, and Scottish miners were prominent in major unofficial strikes in 1969 and 1970. Miners across Britain won significant pay increases in 1972 and 1974. These struggles reflected ambitions for more trenchant resistance to deindustrialisation, but the trend to unity across the coalfields was countered by the NCB’s introduction of area incentive schemes. The prominence of territorial divisions reinforced the Scottish labour movement’s argument that deindustrialisation and economic security were phenomena with distinct national features in Scotland.