After the miners' strike 20 years ago, the death of the mining industry left thousands out of work in east Durham. While many organisations have fought hard to attract new jobs, the industries that have sprung up bring their own problems. Deputy Dusiness Editor Dan Jenkins reports.

Where low-wage jobs replaced pitmen's pay

EAST Durham has fared better than many other coalfield communities in terms of replacing the thousands of jobs lost when the pits shut.

About 10,000 jobs were axed in the area when the collieries closed. The Durham Coalfield overall saw 22,800 redundancies - more than a quarter of the workforce.

However, a study published this week showed these have been replaced by 23,900 jobs in other industries.

Professor Stephen Fothergill, of Sheffield Hallam University, who led the research, said: "In this part of the country, new job creation for men has been impressive."

But a debate still rages over whether these new jobs have anywhere near the same economic benefits as the mines - many are in low-wage sectors, such as call centres or retail.

Prof Fothergill said: "One view is that the jobs in the mines were well-paid, whereas the new sources of employment for men - in new factories, call centres, and the service sector - generally compare unfavourably in terms of pay and conditions.

"So mere numerical replacement of coal jobs may overstate the true extent of recovery."

Easington was one of the luckier areas in terms of Government assistance.

The East Durham Enterprise Zone was set up ten years ago to attract inward investment.

The initiative, which comes to an end this November, offers companies huge "sweeteners", including grants for the entire cost of building factories or offices and exemption from business rates.

According figures from Easington District Council, £40m has been invested, creating employment for more than 4,000 people.

But it admits a large proportion of jobs are in the call centre industry, on wages lower than those earned by miners.

Orange was the first company to set up a contact centre in east Durham, which opened on the Bracken Hill Business Park Peterlee, in February 1999.

It was followed by EDS and nvisage, which handles calls for npower, with the Inland Revenue due to join them. Nearby Dawdon Business Park has a Pensions Service call centre, employing 400 staff.

Council leader Alan Napier said: "Since the strike, we have seen a concerted effort to rebuild our economy."

Councillor Napier was an electrician at Murton Colliery, near Seaham and as council leader has overseen the site's transformation into the Dalton Park retail centre, creating another 800 jobs.

Pharmaceuticals group SSL opened a £25m factory on Whitehouse Business Park in 2002, employing 200. Direct mail service Metro-Mail moved there in 2001.

Others have weathered the storm, such as the Walkers crisps factory in Peterlee, established in 1960.

But competition for jobs is intense, as pressures in Tyne and Wear and elsewhere in the county have forced more people to travel into east Durham to work.

"The Durham coalfield is embedded in a region with more widespread employment problems," said Prof Fothergill.

"As jobs have been created in the former coalfield, there has been rising 'in-commuting' from neighbouring areas. This has reduced the benefit to coalfield residents."

Honesty and decency of stikers called 'the enemy within'

Twenty years on, Easington MP John Cummings talks about the legacy of the miners' strike.

'As the son of a fifth generation miner at Murton Colliery and secretary of the Murton Mechanics section of the NUM, I recall, in the run-up to the dispute, a feeling of inevitability.

Once the dispute was under way, there was a great sense of camaraderie on the picket line, a feeling of a whole community engaged in a common struggle.

My little Jack Russell terrier, Grit, was my constant companion and he was named the Picket Pup by the Murton Miners. He cut his teeth, so to speak, in the strike.

At times it seems that the whole power of the state was ranged against us, but we were determined to stick together in the face of adversity.

In many respects, the strike elevated the women of the community to new heights. They were, for the most part, stalwarts in supporting their men and staffing the kitchens and making sure, where they could, that the little ones did not go without.

In my own village, the Colliery Inn became the unofficial meeting point for the miners and their supporters during the strike. Christmas was a particularly difficult time for the men with families. A consignment of frozen turkeys, a gift from the French miners, caused mayhem when the birds stored in the cloakroom of the Miners Welfare Hall started to thaw, causing the pipes to burst and flooding out the kitchen and the strike headquarters.

The call to return to work when it came was answered with great stoicism. Those who had endured great hardships marched back through the pit gates with the colliery band and banner leading the way, bowed but not broken.

Nevertheless, the net result was a green light for Mrs Thatcher to decimate the industry. The market for British deep mine coal was undermined by the terms of the privatisation of the electricity supply industry. Regional electricity generating companies with a vested interest in developing their own power-generating capacity went headlong into a dash for gas.

King Coal was deposed, never to return. A great national asset was destroyed. An industry that led the world in innovation and developing new mining methods was decimated.

In the aftermath of the accelerated pit closure programme after the strike, many of my friends and former miners have had to rebuild their lives and find new employment.

The legacy of the industry is still with us. Pit closures do not just mean job losses. The colliery was the very cement that bound the mining communities together for six generations. It has been a difficult process to adjust to life without coal in the 20 years since the strike and in the ten years since the last colliery closed in East Durham.

Nevertheless, considerable progress has been made in developing new infrastructure and individual estates.

New companies have been encouraged to locate in the area and encouragement has been given to grow local businesses. A friend of mine who was one of the most active members of the National Union of Miners now runs his own successful business manufacturing plastic mouldings. There are other success stories of miners who went to university or who retrained and re-skilled to take up jobs in other industries.

There are also examples of men, injured or in ill health, who were broken by their experience and never worked again.

It is a great tribute to the resilience of these former miners and women from the many communities that they were able to go on to forge new lives in the teeth of such adversity. These same people were described by Margaret Thatcher as the enemy within. I admire them greatly and it is the greatest honour in the world to represent these thoroughly honest and decent people in Parliament.