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Miners’ Accident, Funeral, &c. Funds. 1871
Researched by John Lumsdon
At the miners meeting of delegates from the various lodges of the Association on Monday May 6th, the subject of the position of the Widow, Orphan, and Funeral &c. Funds were discussed. It was pointed out that there were so few of the members of the association had commenced to subscribe to theses benevolent funds of the union that it would be almost impossible to carry them on with credit to the miners if there was not an accession of strength as the precarious tenure of the miner’s life rendered the society liable to sudden and heavy liabilities. Some advised that the funds should be suspended for a time; others thought that suspension would mean hauging in this case; and that the little life there is in the concern would depart.
Mr. Brown truly said that it would be a lasting disgrace and a great disaster to the cause of the union among the miners’ of North Stafford, if they were obliged to confess that they had so little forethought and care for themselves, their wives, and their children. At the Manchester Conference of the Amalgamation he had been proud to hear the delegates from Wigan say that they had £3,000 in their Funeral, Widow, and Orphan’s and Accident Fund; and to hear them, and the delegates from other Lancashire districts declare that those funds were the main prop of their union, which would not now have had an existence had it not been for them.
The North Stafford miners’ have, on the whole acted nobly since they commenced their union, and they have shown that they are made of sterner metal than some gave them credit for when they commenced; but it would be well for each union member to consider how best he can lay a foundation for the union, to rest upon that will enable it to stand firmly, not only as long as he lives, but for generations.
How better can the miners’ build them by founding on right principles these beautiful clubs of self and brotherly help? They are beneficial not alone for the material gain which each man or his family may receive, but chiefly for the good spirit they would be so sure to create between the workers in the mine, for whenever an accident occurred, each miner, as he felt the tear of manly sympathy trickle down his begrimed cheek at the death of some well known mate, who years ago, had worked in the same “drift” would feel proud that he belonged to an Association that would help the lonely widow and the fatherless children.
It has often been remarked that, notwithstanding the rough calling they pursue, miners’ ca feel as strongly and act as heroically as anybody of men and their brave and self-denying efforts, when there is a chance of rescuing from the sill burning mine a fellow creature is well pointed at as evidence of this.
Let these noble feelings find practical vent in establishing without any outside aid, miner’s benefit society, such as embedded in the rules that were adopted a few months ago. A miners and engineers’ benefit society for miners and engineers’ should be the motto in every lodge. What a farce it is for men to pay to ground clubs that are entirely in control of employers, who can discharge a man and deprive him of all chance of relief, when he may need it from the club into which he has paid for years. Break the ground clubs up, and become members of one that will be the same to a man wherever he may work.
Some of our readers may think that is easier to say than break them up, than to do it; but if men will join the union in sufficient numbers it will be as easy to do, as to say. W understand that at some collieries compulsion is used to the miners’ to make them become, or remain members of the ground clubs, the penalty of refusal being loss of situation. Poor slaves of the mine that dare not do what they like with their money when they have so hardly earned it. It is not legal to stop a man’s wages to pay in a club, and if the official of the Association would take a good case into the law court in which a man’s wages was stopped without his consent, they are likely to obtain a judgement that would deter owners and butties from acting so arbitrarily.
We understand that many of these clubs are dividend societies and break up every August, when the money left in the funds is divided. Some miners say that after this dividend has taken place, they will join the Funeral, Accident, &c. Funds, in connection with the union. Do it at once and do not wait for months later, and then when the time comes for re-commencing the ground club, you will be able to say, “I am a member of a general miners’ club, and cannot afford to enter another.”
To those miners’ who say they cannot pay to the benefit funds of the union because of being members of other friendly societies, we say that the society in connection with their own trade has a prior claim upon them. If the club is not sufficiently comprehensive in not including a sick pay, let those who think to agitate the question, at the same time remembering that increased advantages can only be safely given by means of increased subscriptions.
A resolution was carried with unanimous approval of the delegates that another effort shall be made to make the Funeral, Accident, &c, Funds what they ought to be.
Let each member of the Association act upon that resolution by becoming a member at once, and thus help to ensure the stability of the Miners’ Association in North Stafford.