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The National Federation of Colliery Officials was a trade union representing colliery workers in the United Kingdom who were not involved in manual labour.

The federation was established in December 1919 by local unions of colliery officials, with the most important being the Northern Colliery Officials' Mutual Association, founded in 1914, and the Lancashire and Cheshire Colliery Officials' Association. It soon had six smaller affiliates, including Consett, the Forest of Dean Colliery Examiners', Overmen, and Shot Firers' Association, the Midland Mining Officials' Association, the Somerset Colliery Officials' Association, and Yorkshire.

The federation received recognition from colliery owners in 1920, and quickly negotiated a national agreement on pay and conditions for colliery officials and clerks. By 1936, the membership of the federation was described as "surveyors, under-managers, overmen, master wastemen, electricians and engineers, surface foremen, screening plant foremen, and clerks". About three-quarters of its members were based in Durham and Northumberland, with the third-largest district being Lancashire, which housed its office, in Bolton.

By the 1940s, the federation was known as the National Federation of Colliery Officials and Staffs, reflecting its broader membership, and in 1945 it affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), with a membership of 8,183, of whom 120 were women.

When the mining industry was nationalised, in 1947, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) sought to unite all workers in the industry. Members of the federation voted heavily in favour of joining the NUM, and did so on 1 January 1947, becoming the Colliery Officials and Staffs Area (COSA). Two smaller, independent unions of colliery officials voted against joining the NUM. The TUC brokered a deal whereby national level clerical staff would transfer to the Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union, and divisional level clerical staff to the Transport and General Workers' Union, and this satisfied the smaller unions so that they dissolved, dividing their members between the new NUM section and the two other unions.

As employment in the mining industry declined, COSA became an increasingly important section of the NUM; by 1979, it had 18,980 members out of a total NUM membership of around 250,000. The section survives, and as of 2017, had 24 members.

General Secretaries

1919: Thomas Halstead

c.1940: James Shearer

1951: Sidney Ford

1960: Cliff Shephard

1970s: Les Storey

1979: Trevor Bell

1989: Ken Hollingsworth

References

1. ^ "Thomas Halstead". Bolton's Mayors. Bolton Metropolitan District Council. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
2. ^ Smethurst, John B.; Carter, Peter (June 2009). Historical Directory of Trade Unions. Vol. 6. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 532–536. ISBN 9780754666837. LCCN 80-151653.
3. "Safety in coal mines: colliery officials' views". The Science & Art of Mining. 19 December 1936. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
4. "Colliery Officials and Staff Area (N.U.M Clerical Section)". Archives Hub. Jisc. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
5. Allen, V. L. (1981). The Militancy of British Miners. Shipley: The Moor Press. p. 268. ISBN 0907698018.
6. "Annual Return for a Trade Union: National Union of Mineworkers (Colliery Officials and Staffs Area): 2017" (PDF). Trade Union Certification Officer. UK Government. Retrieved 21 March 2019.

• Trade unions established in 1919
• Mining trade unions
• National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain)
• 1919 establishments in the United Kingdom
• Mining in the United Kingdom
• Defunct trade unions of the United Kingdom
• Trade unions based in Nottinghamshire