People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but the profession became increasingly important during the Industrial Revolution when coal was burned on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and to heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic role as a primary fuel, coal miners have figured strongly in labor and political movements since that time.
After the late-19th century, coal miners in many countries were a frequent presence in industrial disputes with both the management and government. Coal miners' politics, while complex, has occasionally been radical, with a frequent leaning towards far-left political views. A number of far-left political movements have had the support of both coal miners themselves and their trade unions, particularly in Great Britain. In France, on the other hand, coal miners have been much more conservative. In India, Coal Miners Day is celebrated on May 4.
The industry has shifted into developing economies over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As of 2024, there are 2.7 million coal miners in the world, according to data from Global Energy Monitor, primarily in China and India.Ryan Driskell Tate, Dorothy Lan Mei, Tiffany Means, Scraping By: Global Coal Miners and the Urgency of a Just Transition, October 2023
Radicalism From the mid-19th century onward, coal miners have often built strong connections with the organized labor movement, and sometimes as well with radical political movements. Coal miners were among the first groups of industrial workers to collectively organize to the protection of both working and social conditions in their communities. Beginning in the 19th century, and continuing through the 20th, coal miners unions became powerful in many countries, the miners becoming leaders of left or socialist movements (as in Britain, Poland, Japan, Canada, Chile and (in the 1930s) in the U.S.)Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (2002)Frederic Meyers, European Coal Mining Unions: structure and function (1961) p. 86Kazuo Nimura, The Ashio Riot of 1907: A Social History of Mining in Japan (1997) p 48Hajo Holborn, History of Modern Germany (1959) p. 521David Frank, J. B. McLachlan: A Biography: The Story of a Legendary Labour Leader and the Cape Breton Coal Miners, (1999) p, 69David Montgomery, The fall of the house of labor: the workplace, the state, and American labor activism, 1865–1925 (1991) p 343. Historians report that, "From the 1880s through the end of the twentieth century, coal miners across the world became one of the most militant segments of the working class in the industrialized world."
The statistics show that from 1889 to 1921 British miners struck between 2 and 3 times more frequently than any other group of workers.K. G. J. C. Knowles, Strikes (Oxford UP, 1952) Some isolated coal fields had long traditions of militancy and violence; those in Scotland were especially strike-prone. Coal miners formed the core of the political left wing of the Labour Party and the British Communist party.
In Germany, the coal miners demonstrated their militancy through large-scale strikes in 1889, 1905, and 1912. However, in political terms, the German miners were middle-of-the-road and not especially radical. One reason was the formation of different unions—Socialist, liberal, radical, and Polish—that seldom cooperated.
In British Columbia, Canada, the coal miners were "independent, tough, and proud" and became "among the most radical and militant laborers in an extremely polarized province." They were the core of the socialist movement; their strikes were frequent, long, and bitter.
In Chile in the 1930s and 1940s, the miners supported the Communist Party as part of a cross-class alliance that won the presidency in 1938, 1942, and 1946. The long-run political gains were illusory, as a major strike in 1947 was repressed by the military on orders of the president the miners had elected.
In Eastern Europe the coal miners were the most politicized element in society after 1945. They were the primary support group for the Communist governments and were heavily subsidized. Poland's miners were also critical supporters of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement of the 1980s.
Great Britain
Pre 1900 Although some deep mining took place as early as the late Tudor period in North East England, and roughly the same time in the Stuart period along the Firth of Forth coast of Scotland, deep shaft mining in Britain began to develop extensively in the late 18th century, with rapid expansion throughout the 19th century and early 20th century when the industry peaked. The location of the coalfields helped to make the prosperity of Lancashire, of Yorkshire, and of South Wales; the Yorkshire pits which supplied Sheffield were only about 300 feet deep. Northumberland and Durham were the leading coal producers and they were the sites of the first deep pits. In much of Britain coal was worked from drift mines, or scraped off when it outcropped on the surface. Small groups of part-time miners used shovels and primitive equipment.
After 1790 output soared, reaching 16 million long tons by 1815. By 1830 this had risen to over 30 million tons The miners, less menaced by imported labor or machines than were the textile workers, had begun to form trade unions and fight their battle for control against the coal owners and royalty-lessees. In South Wales, the miners showed a high degree of solidarity. They lived in isolated villages where the miners comprised the great majority of workers. There was a high degree of equality in lifestyle; combined with an evangelical religious style based on Methodism this led to an ideology of equalitarianism. They forged a "community of solidarity" – under the leadership of the Miners Federation. The union supported first the Liberal Party, then after 1918 Labour, with some Communist Party activism at the fringes.Stefan Llafur Berger, "Working-Class Culture and the Labour Movement in South Wales and the Ruhr Coalfields, 1850–2000: A Comparison," Journal of Welsh Labour History/Cylchgrawn Hanes Llafur Cymru (2001) 8#2 pp 5–40.
20th century As well as energy supply, coal became a very political issue, due to the conditions under which colliers worked. Their dominance in remote villages heightened political and industrial solidarily, colliery owners. Much of the 'old Left' of British politics can trace its origins to coal-mining areas, with the main trade union being the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), founded in 1888. The MFGB claimed 600,000 members in 1908. (The MFGB later became the more centralised National Union of Mineworkers).
The national coal strike of 1912 was the first national strike by coal miners in Britain. Its main goal of securing a minimum wage. After a million men had walked out for 37 days, the UK Government intervened and ended the strike by passing a minimum wage law. This caused many problems with ships due to the shortage of fuel. As a result, many transatlantic crossings were cancelled and in some cases, passengers were transferred to the Titanic.Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912
1920–45 Total coal output in Britain had been falling since 1914. The fall in coal prices resulted from the re-entry in 1925 of Germany to the international coal market by exporting "free coal" to France and Italy as part of their reparations for the First World War. The reintroduction of the gold standard in 1925 made the British pound too strong for effective exporting to take place from Britain, and also (because of the economic processes involved in maintaining a strong currency) raised interest rates, hurting all businesses. Mine owners wanted to normalize profits even during times of economic instability, which often took the form of wage reductions for miners in their employ. Coupled with the prospect of longer working hours, the industry was thrown into disarray. The miners' pay had gone down from £6.00 to £3.90 in the space of seven years.
Mine owners announced their intention to reduce miners' wages. The MFGB rejected the terms: "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day." The TUC responded to this news by promising to support the miners in their dispute. The Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin decided to intervene, declaring that they would provide a nine-month subsidy to maintain the miners' wages and that a royal commission under the chairmanship of Sir Herbert Samuel would look into the problems of the mining industry.
This decision became known as "Red Friday" because it was seen as a victory for working-class solidarity and Socialism. In practice, the subsidy gave the mine owners and the government time to prepare for a major labor dispute. Herbert Smith (a leader of the Miners' Federation) said of this event: "We have no need to glorify about victory. It is only an armistice."
The Samuel Commission published a report on 10 March 1926 recommending that in the future, national agreements, the nationalization of royalties, and sweeping reorganization and improvement should be considered for the mining industry.Robertson, D. H. 'A Narrative of the General Strike of 1926' The Economic Journal Vol. 36, no. 143 (September 1926) p.376 It also recommended a reduction of 13.5% of miners' wages along with the withdrawal of the government subsidy.Griffiths, D. A History of the NPA 1906–2006 (London: Newspaper Publishers Association, 2006) pg. 67 Two weeks later, the prime minister announced that the government would accept the report provided other parties also did.Robertson, D. H. p.377 A previous royal commission, the Sankey Commission in 1919, had failed to reach an agreement, producing four different reports with proposals ranging from complete restoration of private ownership and control, to complete nationalization. David Lloyd George, the then prime minister, offered reorganization, which was rejected by the miners.
After the Samuel Commission's report, the mine owners declared that, on penalty of a lockout from 1 May, miners would have to accept new terms of employment that included lengthening the work day and reducing wages between 10% and 25%, depending on various factors. The MFGB refused the wage reduction and regional negotiation.
The 1926 United Kingdom general strike was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 May 1926 to 13 May 1926. It was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 800,000 locked-out coal miners. Some 1.7 million workers went out, especially in transport and heavy industry. The government was prepared and enlisted middle-class volunteers to maintain essential services. There was little violence and the TUC gave up in defeat. The miners gained nothing. In the long run, there was little impact on trade-union activity or industrial relations.Alastair Reid, and Steven Tolliday, "The General Strike, 1926", Historical Journal (1977) 20#4 pp. 1001–1012 in JSTOR, on historiography
The miners maintained resistance for a few months before being forced by their own economic needs to return to the mines. By the end of November most miners were back at work. However, many remained unemployed for many years. Those that were employed were forced to accept longer hours, lower wages, and district wage agreements. The strikers felt as though they had achieved nothing. The effect on the British coal-mining industry was profound. By the late 1930s, employment in mining had fallen by more than one-third from its pre-strike peak of 1.2 million miners, but productivity had rebounded from under 200 tons produced per miner to over 300 tons by the outbreak in 1939 of the Second World War.Peter Mathias, The First Industrial Nation: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1914. London: Routledge, 2001
Since 1945