National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers | |
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| Founded | 1910 |
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| Headquarters | Barnsley, England |
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Members | 402 (2014) [1] |
Key people | Rowland Soar, general secretary |
| Website | www.nacods.org.uk |
The National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers (NACODS) is an organisation representing former colliery deputies and under-officials in the coal industry.
NACODS was established as a national trade union in 1910. Prior to that date, the union existed as a federation of autonomous areas which were collectively known as the General Federation of Firemen's, Examiners' and Deputies Associations of Great Britain. The present title of NACODS was adopted in 1947 when the coal industry was nationalised.
In 2016, the final three coal mines in the United Kingdom were closed. Following this, the union no longer had any working members, and it therefore decided to deregister as a trade union, and disaffiliate from the TUC, STUC and GFTU. It continued in existence as an unincorporated association with former workers in the industry holding honorary memberships. [2]
NACODS was much less willing to take industrial action than the NUM although many had voted for strike action when NUM members, which sometimes led to tension amongst workers in the mines. Militants in the NUM nicknamed NACODS the "National Association of Can-carriers, Obedient Dopes and Suckers". [3] There were some confrontations during the 1972 strike, but nothing compared to what came in the 1984-85 strike. [4]
In April 1984, a small majority of NACODS voted to strike in support of the NUM, but this fell short of the two-thirds majority that their constitution required for a national strike. [3] The National Coal Board had decided in the 1972 strike that a NACODS member was entitled to stay off work without any loss of pay if he faced violence or aggressive intimidation from NUM pickets. [4] When the number of NUM strikebreakers increased in August, Merrick Spanton, the NCB personnel director, stated that he expected NACODS members to cross the picket lines to supervise their work. [4] As this would have meant crossing aggressive (and sometimes violent) lines, it brought another ballot for a national strike from NACODS. [4] For the first time in their history, NACODS voted to strike in September 1984 by a vote of 81%. [5] However, a deal negotiated by North Yorkshire NCB Director Michael Eaton persuaded NACODS leaders to call off the strike action in return to changes to the review procedures for threatened collieries. [6] Ian MacGregor later admitted that if NACODS had gone ahead with a strike, a compromise would probably have been forced on the Coal Board. Files later made public showed that the Government had an informant inside the TUC, passing information about negotiations. [7]
The 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners' strike was a major industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.
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The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is a trade union for coal miners in Great Britain, formed in 1945 from the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The NUM took part in three national miners' strikes, in 1972, 1974 and 1984–85. Following the 1984–85 strike, and the subsequent closure of most of Britain's coal mines, it became a much smaller union. It had around 170,000 members when Arthur Scargill became leader in 1981, a figure which had fallen in 2023 to an active membership of 82.
Manton is a former pit village and suburb of south-east Worksop in north Nottinghamshire, England.
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The 1972 United Kingdom miners' strike was a major dispute over pay between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Conservative Edward Heath government of the United Kingdom. Miners' wages had not kept pace with those of other industrial workers since 1960. The strike began on 9 January 1972 and ended on 28 February 1972, when the miners returned to work. The strike was called by the National Executive Committee of the NUM and ended when the miners accepted an improved pay offer in a ballot. It was the first time since 1926 that British miners had been on official strike, but there had been a widespread unofficial strike in 1969.
Arthur Scargill is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (1984–85), a major event in the history of the British labour movement.
The 1969 United Kingdom miners' strike was an unofficial strike that involved 140 of the 307 collieries owned by the National Coal Board, including all collieries in the Yorkshire area. The strike began on 13 October 1969 and lasted for roughly two weeks, with some pits returning to work before others. The NCB lost £15 million and 2.5 million tonnes of coal as a result of the strike.
Bartholomew Walsh was a Welsh trade unionist.
Joseph Crawford, was a British trade unionist.
The National Federation of Colliery Officials was a trade union representing colliery workers in the United Kingdom who were not involved in manual labour.
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