Cylchgronau Cymru

8. COLLIERY CLOSURES AND PRODUCTIVITY GAINS IN THE SOUTH WALES COALFIELD 1983/84-1989/90 L. Mainwaring and V.J. Wass INTRODUCTION Deep-mine coal production is now all but extinct in South Wales, and it may seen odd that so much attention is still being paid to what is only a very minor part of the Welsh economy. Nevertheless, the dispute of 1984-5 and its aftermath had a profound social and economic impact on the valley communities of South Wales, the consequences of which will be felt for decades to come. The euthanasia of the industry and the motivation behind it therefore deserve close scrutiny. In a previous paper in Contemporary Wales (Wass and Mainwaring, 1989) we discussed these social and economic effects in some depth.' The purpose of this note is to update some results from that paper concerning the impact of the post-strike colliery closure programme on the overall productivity performance for the South Wales Area. The availability of two years' additional data, relating to colliery operating results, together with the virtual demise of the industry, allows us to put the post-strike strategy of British Coal (BC) into clearer perspective. BC's justification for the closure programme was based almost entirely on the grounds of profitability. South Wales as a whole was unprofitable, on average losing £ 32.8 million per annum between 1979/80 and 1983/4, and it was anticipated that the closure of the least efficient capacity would raise average productivity and lead the industry towards solvency.2 In fact, average coalfield output per manshift (OMS) had risen from a pre-strike level of 1.57 to 2.30 tonnes by March 1988, some 80 per cent (see table 8.1). Using colliery operating results, employment, production and productivity, for 1983/84 and the three years from March 1985, we estimated the direct contribution of colliery closures to the improvement in average coalfield productivity. We also predicted that, because: (1) returning miners would attempt to make up for earnings lost during the strike; (2) the productivity gains from closure would diminish as the least efficient collieries were taken out; and, (3) management would be anxious to meet production targets, productivity gains on this scale