a 2 The N.C,B. can provide new jobs for old!

i+ by Dai Francis Mr. Jim Griffiths, the Secretary of State for Wales, interviewed on BBO Wales recently, stated that the number of collbries in South Wales is to be reduced and the manpower concentrated into 60 pits, This has posed the following questions, What preparations are the Government mking for the men who will be displaced, the sick, the disabled who cannot be empl~ oyed in the industry? Are they to suffer the same fate as the hundred or so Pwllbach men who are now signing on at the labour exchange? When the union's representatives met Lord Robens to argue for the retention of Pwllbach colliery until adequate suitable employment could be found, we were told in no uncertain terms that we were knocking on the wrong door, The Government had declared its policy to close down production at the so-called uneccnomic units, and all the board could promise was to keep redundancy down to the minimum. The unemployed men at Pwllbach cannot find jobs within travelling distance of their homes and there are no immediate prospects of them doing soe The unemployment problem will develop if and when the board decides to close the next collicrr, particularly in the West Wales area, There are no jobs available for our mo. until the new factories are built and the men re-trained for the new ‘oo “i, the factories, It is necessary for us to examine the position to ssc what the Government is doing in the form of adequate preparation to prsvcat this local crisis, Most of Wales is now scheduled as a developmew!: ar@ with special Government incentives for incoming industry, but witout powers to direct industry, this can be ineffective, Milford Haven has been a development area for years and has still the highest unemployment rate in Britain, The Government has declared that for the whole of Britain, 26 advance factories are to be built some time in the future, The tot2i sxea of these 26 factories amounts to 370,000 sq. ft. The one Prestcold factcry at Swansea, which stood empty and idle for 18 months, until taken over by the Ford motor company, is 660,000 sq. ft. The average factory might employ perhaps 60 workers, In West Wales, which Mr. Griffiths says will be the worst hit, three trunk road schemes will be started to encours7e new indus— tries, but construction on these roads will not start until 1949/71, A new Government training centre is to be opened at Llanelli. “evsicrnent certificates in the last 12 months to March, 1965, may produc» 5,700 new jobs in Wales, but similar and even bigger estimates have been given every year, while the actual net loss of working age population from Wales goes up from 2,000 to 4,000 anmually- If and when these factories are built, what will they produce? In my notes in the Scptember/October, 1964, issue of The Miner, I referred to the profit made by the manufacturers who provide the N.C.B. with mining equipment and the huge profits made by these mamfacturers, These factories could very well be built by the N.C.B, itself to provide the wherewithal that is required in the south western divisions. Props, conveyors, electrical equipment, etc., that are required in the coal mining industry could be turned out from the factories, and the problem of training could very well be overcome by the board transforwins some of the pithead baths that are now derelict into centres to provide training for men who could become the skilled workers that would be requi:sd for the factories, Not only would such an innovation provide suitable employment for our men after training, but could save the board a considerable amount of money that now goes to make up the profits of the marmfacturers that provide the mining equipment, =+ From The Miner, the journal of the South Wales area of the N.U.Me