Cleveland Mineowners Association Collection

BS/CMA/1 Corporate Records including Minutes
BS/CMA/2 Legal Records

Cleveland Mineowners Association was founded in 1873. The Association was established by Mineowners in the Cleveland district and the surrounding areas, one of a number of bodies set up amidst strikes and industrial unrest in the region that year. Such strikes threatened to stop crucial supplies to the iron and steel companies in the area. The Association had offices at the Post Office Buildings, Middlesbrough although meetings were held elsewhere in the district when addressing localised issues.

The Cleveland Mineowners Association, including representatives of major employers such as Bell Brothers, Bolckow Vaughan, Dorman Long, Gjers Mills & Co, Pease & Partners and The Weardale Iron & Coal Company, would meet to discuss workers' pay, prices, working conditions, processes and action to take in times of dispute. The meetings of the Joint Committee, which included representatives of the owners and workers, chiefly the Cleveland Miners Association, met with the purpose of resolving disputes and matters raised by the miners ranging from wages, holidays, working conditions, mechanisation and compensation.

This can viewed as part of a new wave of industrial relations evident elsewhere, with the subsequent annual reports illustrating the continued negotiations between the Cleveland Mineowners Association and the Cleveland Miners Association. The Association was wound up following the closure of the last producing mine - Dorman Long's North Skelton Mine - in early 1964, the Association having withdrawn from the National Council of Associated Iron Ore Producers the previous year in anticipation of the closure.