The Splits within the Num: The Productivity Deal its Origins and Consequences
| Date | 01 April 1985 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1985.tb00100.x |
| Published date | 01 April 1985 |
| Author | George Taylor |
| Subject Matter | Article |
10.
George
l'ay
lor
TIIE
SPLITS N1TWIF.I
THE
NUI:
TIE
P~~licTIVIpI
PEAL,
ITS ORIGINS
ANn
CONSEQCBKES
GEORGE
TAYLOR
We are now almost one year into a miners' strike in which the National
Union
of
Mineworkers are still split over the issue of
pit
closures.
At
the
centre of this split has been the Nottinghamshire Area
NUM.
It
has become
commonplace amongst commentators of both the Media and the Left to see the
cause of this split in the Area Productivity Deals that were negotiated in
the late 1970s. The argument has been couched in simple economic terms. The
Notts and North Derbyshire coalfields are amongst the most productive in the
country. They are highly mechanised and have good geological structures.
The pits in these areas have no fear of closure, their jobs are secure and
their productivity bonuses ensure that their wages are high. The argument,
then, is that the solidarity founded upon the day wage system and witnessed
so
dramatically in the early 1970s has been eroded by the Area Productivity
Deals that were initiated by the Notts/South Derbyshire areas of the
NUM
and
the National Executive Committee.
This article
will
attempt to examine critically this view.
It
is
above
all an attempt
to
refute the notion that the Productivity Deals are at the
root of the problems facing the
NUM
over the question of solidarity, both
solidarity generally and solidarity specifically in the context
of
the current
strike.
I
will
also argue that
it
is essential
to
understand the complex
structural and political dynamics which surrounded the formation of these
Deals before we can appreciate their role in the present dispute.
The Productivity Deals resulted not from pressure
from
Nottingham or
other productive regions but rather
from
the needs
of
the
1974-79
Labour
Government in termsofthe corporatist strategy
it
was then pursuing. The
Productivity Deals gave the Labour Government and the Leadership of the
NUM
under Gormley
a
useful compromise between free collective bargaining and an
incomes policy.
mainly from the less productive areas but rather
from
those on the Left, like
Arthur Scargill, who believed that incorporation by the Labour Government would
lead to emasculation. The Left in the
NUM
distrusted the Government and the
NCB
while the Right argued the need to co-operate to increase wages and
supposedly save jobs. This ideological split
is
still apparent in the current
dispute and certainly does not in any simple way reflect the division between
the highly productive and less productive areas.
The opposition to the Deals at that time came not solely or
The main aim of this article then
is
to put the role of the Productivity
Deals
in
perspective. However, in the final section
I
shall consider briefly
a number
of
additional political factors which would need to be taken into
account for any full understanding of the current splits.
The Productivity Thesis
In his article published in The Guardian (4 May 1984) Patrick Wintour
provides
a
classic example of what
I
have termed the 'Productivity Thesis'.
What
is
surprising is the ease with which many on the Left, for example Ben
Fine, have taken up this view that a collapse of solidarity would be an
inevitable consequence of the introduction of the Productivity Oeal. Wintour
argued that:
Nottingharnshire holds the key position in the industry;
wages are high, conditions and other things are good and
yet they are one
of
the weakest links in the industry
.
,
.
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