Miners Must Be Redeployed Says Robens

LORD ROBENS, chairman of the National Coal Board, warned today that unless manpower in the mining industry was redeployed the future of the industry would be in jeopardy.

He ‘told 700 delegates at the conference of the National Association of Colliery “Managers at Cardiff that if the industry failed to deploy manpower efficiently, it would fail to meet the competition from oil. because prices would be forced up.

Lord Robens continued: “There will be people who will not want to move for purely personal “reasons. Therefore, it seems that the obligation then must rest with the Government of the day to provide alternative employment when mining is no longeravailable.

‘It certainly cannot be placed as a burden upon the National Coal Board unless, at the same time, its statutory obligation to pay its way is taken away from it.

“I am very much against then having to move and live in lodgings and hostels. I think it ..is socially undesirable, particularly that married men should have to leave their families-and return just for week-ends.

“Therefore, tile Board has embarked upon a very big housing programme. Over the next two years there will be built, or being built, something like 7,000 houses in the coalfields where good jobs are available.”

“For our part.” he went on, “we will do all that is humanly possible to make this transition smooth and easy. We will move only on consultation with all the unions and professorial bodies concerned.

“This will mean not only redeployment of men, but redeployment of management, and there can be no question at all about the Board’s responsibility to-do everything they can to ensure that the alternative work is commensurate with’ qualifications.”

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