1975: Miners set for 35 per cent pay rises
British mineworkers' leaders have agreed to accept the coal board's latest pay offer of up to 35%.
A settlement was reached when the coal board added an extra pound to wage rates after two-and-a-half days' intensive negotiations at the industry's London headquarters.
The deal, brokered by National Coal Board chair Sir Derek Ezra, is worth �140m and means increases of up to 35% for the UK's 246,000 miners.
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NUM executives voted 16 to 10 to recommend the award which gives new basic weekly rates of �61- up from �45 - at the coalface, �47 - up from �36 - elsewhere - and �41 - up from �30 - on the surface. Other improvements include extending unsocial hours by an extra two hours, increasing the hourly rate from 1p to 20p and setting national - rather than individual - weekly production bonuses of �3 for output over 100,000 tonnes of target.
The union will send out ballot papers to members next week and hope to implement the changes on 1 March.
Overall the offer falls just short of figures demanded by the NUM's left-wing at last year's conference.
Leading left-winger and President of the Yorkshire branch of the NUM Arthur Scargill said: The social contract has been breached and to that extent I welcome the advances which have been made."
"But I think much more could have been obtained with a more determined and militant approach," he continued.
NUM President Joseph Gormley said the latest pay deal remained in the spirit of the social contract.
Moderate trade unionists and the government were keen to preserve the social contract and avoid further industrial action.
The social contract was brokered by Harold Wilson's Labour Government to settle the miners' strike after the general election last February and had promised food subsidies and price restraints to the unions in return for pay restraint and co-operation.
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