Victory at long last for redundant coal miners
Mar 12 2008 by Ben Guy, The Journal
HUNDREDS of miners will finally receive compensation pay-outs of up to £7,000 that they were first promised almost two years ago.
UK Coal was ordered to pay a total of £2m to 300 workers who were made redundant at Ellington Colliery, near Morpeth, after an employment tribunal ruled that the company had failed to carry out the required 90-day consultation period before closing the pit in January 2005 after flooding.
The company appealed against the ruling, leading to a 15-month delay before the Employment Appeals Tribunal upheld the decision in October last year and ordered UK Coal to pay out the money.
A further industrial tribunal hearing, held to clarify payments to individual claimants, was last month adjourned until September, but now UK Coal and the unions have come to an agreement that means the first payments will be made in the next few weeks.
Ian Lavery, president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), representing around 230 claimants, said: “This is an important day for Ellington miners who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
“The closure of Ellington colliery was a major blow to the local community and the economy of the North East, and the compensation payments have been a long time coming.
“But I hope that now agreement has been reached, settlements will be made quickly and that UK Coal can now focus on creating new jobs in an industry which still has a major role to play in meeting the energy needs of the nation.”
Pat Carragher, general secretary of the British Association of Colliery Management (BACM), which represented a further 60 former Ellington managerial and supervisory employees, added: “Though the events at Ellington in January 2005 were unusual, we have been confident throughout this process that UK Coal were wrong not to consult with us for at least 90 days. This agreement cannot bring Ellington back to life, but the compensation payments can help former employees get on with their lives.”
The colliery ceased production more than three years ago after a flood of the main production face.
UK Coal human resource director Norman Haslam said: “As there was no clear precedent in employment law to compare with the unusual circumstances which resulted in the earlier than anticipated closure of Ellington, it has been necessary to test the validity of the compensation claim through the Employment Tribunal, which is there for this purpose.
“Whilst that process has taken far longer than we anticipated, the constructive discussions held with the NUM and BACM in recent weeks have resulted in outstanding issues being amicably resolved, enabling payments to be processed and made to former Ellington employees within the coming weeks.”
After the pit closed, employees were offered alternative jobs or redundancy.
Some transferred to other UK Coal mining operations, but most left the industry.
