{"id":23077,"date":"2019-02-22T17:30:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T17:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/?p=23077"},"modified":"2019-02-22T17:30:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T17:30:19","slug":"retired-miners-take-pension-fight-to-downing-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/cjsnews\/retired-miners-take-pension-fight-to-downing-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired miners take pension fight to Downing Street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/you.38degrees.org.uk\/petitions\/mineworker-pension-fight\">petition<\/a> calling on the UK Government to stop what campaigners call the \u201crobbery\u201d of mineworkers\u2019 pensions is on the cusp of reaching 100,000 signatures.<br \/>\nThe petition was launched three years ago by a group of ex-miners from South Wales.<br \/>\nThe Government is guarantor to two mineworkers&#8217; pensions schemes and jointly splits any surpluses from the fund, as part of a 1994 agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Campaigners say that 50:50 split is unfair and the miners should get bigger share.<br \/>\nKen Sullivan, a 67-year old former miner from Oakdale who has been leading the campaign, accused the Government of \u201crobbery\u201d over the deal and said he\u2019s motivated to carry on by the people who \u201care struggling really hard\u201d on their \u2018pit pensions\u2019.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_23085\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23085\" style=\"width: 296px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-23085 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/WhatsApp-Image-2019-02-22-at-15.19.41-1-296x394.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"296\" height=\"394\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-23085\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23085 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/WhatsApp-Image-2019-02-22-at-15.19.41-1-296x394.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"296\" height=\"394\" \/><\/noscript> Ken Sullivan has led the campaign<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nToday was the final day of gathering signatures, and the group finished with 560 names in Mountain Ash. With a further few thousand signatures from England currently being counted, the campaign is expected to confirm its total this weekend \u2013 but estimate it will be around 106,000.<br \/>\nHarry Parfitt, 84, who was a miner for nearly 40 years, said the campaign was &#8220;a struggle&#8221; with petitioners &#8220;out in all weather&#8221; to gather signatures.<br \/>\nChris Kitchen from the NUM described the union\u2019s relationship with the Government as \u201cnon-existent\u201d. He welcomed the petition for \u201cbringing prominence\u201d to an issue that he says the NUM have been campaigning on for 20 years.<br \/>\nThe campaign has political support from former Plaid Leader Leanne Wood and has been championed by MPs including Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen). Last week, Labour secured an adjournment debate on the issue, but the former miners today are still hoping to force a new debate.<br \/>\nMr Sullivan wants to \u201chelp write the script\u201d for MPs when the Minerworkers&#8217; Pension Scheme comes before Parliament again. But change will be hard to come by, as the official Miners\u2019 Pensions Scheme website reads: \u201cThe Government has made it repeatedly clear [\u2026] that it does not regard the 1994 arrangements as being unfair\u201d.<br \/>\nMr Sullivan is under no illusions \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s the first stage of the fight, but the hardest stage is still to come\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A petition calling on the UK Government to stop what campaigners call the \u201crobbery\u201d of mineworkers\u2019 pensions is on the cusp of reaching 100,000 signatures. The petition was launched three years ago by a group of ex-miners from South Wales. The Government is guarantor to two mineworkers&#8217; pensions schemes and jointly splits any surpluses from the fund, as part of a 1994 agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Campaigners say that 50:50 split is unfair and the miners [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,6],"tags":[457,458,459,460,461,462,463,464,465],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-23077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest","category-news","tag-chris-kitchen","tag-leane-wood","tag-miners","tag-miners-pension-scheme","tag-minerworkers-pension-scheme","tag-nation-union-of-mineworkers","tag-num","tag-pensions","tag-westminster"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Retired miners take pension fight to Downing Street - CJS News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/cjsnews\/retired-miners-take-pension-fight-to-downing-street\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Retired miners take pension fight to Downing Street - CJS News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A petition calling on the UK Government to stop what campaigners call the \u201crobbery\u201d of mineworkers\u2019 pensions is on the cusp of reaching 100,000 signatures. The petition was launched three years ago by a group of ex-miners from South Wales. The Government is guarantor to two mineworkers&#8217; pensions schemes and jointly splits any surpluses from the fund, as part of a 1994 agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Campaigners say that 50:50 split is unfair and the miners [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/cjsnews\/retired-miners-take-pension-fight-to-downing-street\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CJS News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-22T17:30:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/WhatsApp-Image-2019-02-22-at-15.19.41-1-296x394.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Eleanor Deeley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Eleanor Deeley\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/cjsnews\/retired-miners-take-pension-fight-to-downing-street\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/cjsnews\/retired-miners-take-pension-fight-to-downing-street\/\",\"name\":\"Retired miners take pension fight to Downing Street - 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