BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY

Evening Star, Issue 25425, 5 March 1945, Page 8

BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY

QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP NATIONAL UNION'S ATTITUDE Press Association-By Telegraph-Copyright LONDON, March 2. Nationalisation of the coal industry is'the main counter-proposal of the National Union of Mine Workers, replying to a plan advanced by Mr illobert Foot, chairman of the Mining Association, for the reorganisation of the industry. The union states: " 'Mr Foot's :plan will not solve the crisis within the industry, but will only lead to a further intensification of the crisis, great restriction of output, and the protection of vested interests. The situation can'only be met if the mines are taken over by the State for the nation.

" The provision of such a large sum of money can only come from Government sources. Such expenditure of the taxpayers' money cannot be left to private enterprise to utilise. Only national ownership can enable new pits to be sunk on the required scale, because many of these must be sunk to depths unprecedented in our mining experience." The union adds that modernisation would result in increased output, provided the workers were guaranteed the following:—First, good working conditions and wages, including the provision of safe conveyance to and from their work; secondly, a guaranteed weekly wage; thirdly, compensation for loss of wages, due to injury or death, on a far more adequate scale; fourthly, improvement of health and safety measures; fifthly, decent housing and social amenities; sixthly, completion of the Welfare Commission's pithead bath programme and the carrying out of the Welfare Commission's proposals for the future; and, seventhly, supplementary pensions.