David Jones and Joe Green Memorial

I had a bit of a shock when I got to the David Jones and Joe Green Memorial in Barnsley. NUM General Secretary Chris Kitchen is an old mate of mine, and he’d asked me to speak. I’d had a good think about what I wanted to say and got some notes down on my paper. For 5 minutes. When I got there, Frances O’Grady who was also speaking, cheerily informed me that we were expected to speak for 20 minutes!

It was a proud moment for me. We laid the wreath then headed into the chamber – it’s a beautiful building with a lot of history attached to it.

I spoke about the shared industrial energy history and heritage of GMB and NUM, and my own experiences living in Nottingham during the Miners’ Strike.

It felt like a police state at the time. As a bloke who looked suspiciously like I could be a miner, I was frequently stopped in my car and quizzed about my activities. I knew families who were existing on the absolute breadline, but I also saw a spirit, comradeship and sense of community that genuinely warmed the heart and believe in the good in people.

That two men took industrial action and died on the picket line thus did not live to see the end of of the massive dispute is tragic and incredibly sad.

Davey Jones’ brother – a former miner himself - was at the memorial, I can only imagine what it must be like to hear that news.

When you look around the former coalfields now you see a lasting legacy. And that cannot and will not be repeated with our gas and nuclear communities.

Just outside Barnsley is Grimethorpe, the home of the historic colliery band and Brassed Off. In years past, everyone there would have worked down the pit or was related to someone who did. The jobs were hard, they were dirty but they were secure, had decent pay, were fully unionised and you knew your kids would have somewhere to work when they left school. There was a whole community built around work. Fast forward to 2018. Grimethorpe now has warehousing. Factories employ hundreds of agency workers on insecure contracts with ‘flex’ time meaning people don’t know whether they have work from hour to hour let alone day to day. The pride in being the engine room of the country gone, instead people being run ragged to meet pick targets that are unrealistic and take a physical toll.

When I look at so many mining communities, I see written large the impact of a broken economy and so many reasons why frustrated voters in those areas voted to leave the EU.

The miners’ strike was about so much more than industrial action, it was about the sort of economy and society we wanted. Unions now must realise the part we have to play in creating a new economy and vision for work that is based on our people’s interests, not those of city bankers and Tory donors.

GMB does, and we will.

#GenSec