Welcome, It is with great pleasure that we introduce the union's presence on the World Wide Web.

The NUM has always regarded education and knowledge as a powerful tool for the working class and as this site develops it is hoped that this will be of assistance in providing the visitor with an understanding of how the world is seen from the eyes of the National Union of Mineworkers.

The National Union of Mineworkers is alive and kicking, and is still representing miners, their families and their communities. The NUM is still very active industrially and politically. It is over twenty five years since the start of the Great Miners' Strike of 1984/85. We warned then that if our arguments for a role for coal in our energy requirements were not heeded then the country would pay a heavy price. Over twenty five years on we have been proved absolutely correct.

Most of the nation's collieries have been closed, we are now at the mercy of foreign importers and gas and oil prices are rocketing. Our own gas reserves have been depleted at an alarming rate as we have squandered them in massive quantities in gas-fired power stations when we could have used coal. At the same time we have been squandering our indigenous coal reserves, with which this nation was blessed, by sterilising them in closed coal mines. At the same time we have been squandering the talents of our skilled workforce by making them redundant.

In the next few years we will have to import gas and oil from politically unstable or war torn regions of the world such as Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Equatorial, New Guinea in some cases through pipelines wide open to terrorist attack.

We will present the compelling case for Britain's coal industry more fully as the site develops and place the blame for a looming energy famine where it belongs, with those who have and are putting our energy needs in peril for purely political and vindictive reasons.

The National Union of Mineworkers is a unique organisation in that it still has a federal structure, which is comprised of area unions covering the length and breadth of Britain.

From Scotland to South Wales the NUM still represents miners, past and present, working and retired, as well as supporting wherever we can their extended families.

The Union has been highly successful in representing miners who suffered greatly from chest diseases and other injuries caused by the negligence of coal industry employers.

In respect of bronchitis and emphysema the Union's tireless efforts led to the biggest common law damages claim in history compensating thousands of miners and their families and making sure that those suffering from, and in many cases dying from, the consequences of terrible diseases and accidents received some justice for their suffering by way of compensation.We have been instrumental in getting osteoarthritis of the Knee for miners recognised as an industrial disease and you can make a claim through the DWP.

PICTURED FROM LEFT TO RIGHT LOUISE TOYE (MALTBY MINERS WELFARE BAND) NICKY WILSON (NUM VICE PRESIDENT) ALAN RITCHIE GUEST SPEAKER (UCATT GENERAL SECRETARY) CHRIS KITCHEN (YORKS & NATIONAL NUM GENERAL SECRETARY) DAN JARVIS (BARNSLEY CENTRAL MP) IAN LAVERY (WANSBECK MP & EX NUM PRESIDENT