Engineering linkages with the coal chain

Abstract

"Industrial restructuring without parallel in recent British industrial history" is how the current Chairman of British Coal, Sir Robert Haslam, has described events in that industry. Since 1960 upwards of three quarters of a million jobs have gone in the deep coal mining industry alone. Numerous studies have analysed the underlying mechanisms behind the rapid decline of the nationalised coal industry, but hitherto little attention has been paid to the national linkage effects of that decline. This thesis is an attempt to analyse the consequences of industrial restructuring in coal mining on its UK engineering suppliers. In so doing, the thesis develops into much more than an empirical case study of industrial linkage and becomes a critical analysis of state capital-private capital relations. In particular, it focusses on the shifting boundaries of state ownership in the energy sector of the 'eighties. It considers what are the main processes involved and some of the consequences for those people and places most dependent on mining related jobs for their livelihoods.