Kevin Maguire
Monday March 1, 2004
The Guardian

The leaders of the strike-breaking Union of Democratic Mineworkers, which represents just 1,431 members, were criticised last night after it emerged that they receive pay and benefits of more than £150,000 each.
......Neil Greatrex and Michael Stevens, the Nottinghamshire-based union's two most senior figures, were branded "fat cats" over their huge remuneration deals in an organisation which has dwindled almost out of existence.
......A doubling of the pair's basic salaries in four years catapulted them to the top of the UK union pay league with only Gordon Taylor, leader of the Professional Footballers' Association, on a bigger package.
......The basic £100,250 earnings of Mr. Greatrex, UDM president and general secretary, and £91,313 of Mr. Stevens, vice-president, are well above the £73,834 paid to Dave Prentis for running Unison, Britain's biggest union with 1.3 million members.
......The pair also receive payments into a pension fund equivalent to a third of their salaries plus money towards mortgages, fuel, phones, council tax and water bills for their homes, as well as cars.
......In 2002, the latest available figures, Mr. Greatrex, who lives in Kirkby in Ashfield, Notts, received £17,869 in benefits and Mr. Stevens, who lives in nearby Edwinstowe, £19,702. National insurance contributions, which must be included in accounts, pushed the cost of the annual packages of the pair beyond £150,000 each.
......The UDM was formed by Nottinghamshire colliers who worked during the year-long 1984-85 pit strike and opposed NUM president Arthur Scargill. The strike erupted 20 years ago this week.
......The big jump in earnings of the two UDM chiefs dates from 1998 when the UDM created Vendside, a no win, no fee health claims subsidiary. Vendside was recently criticised by the Department of Trade and Industry over its marketing techniques, while MPs have voiced objections to fees levied by the union on ill and injured miners.
......Under a deal with the government, the DTI pays the UDM up to £1,550 plus VAT to cover the cost of every application made under a £2bn compensation scheme for two common miners' ailments, chest diseases and vibration white finger. Vendside, according to documents seen by the Guardian, is also charging non-members as much as £587 from compensation packages.
......Mr Greatrex and Mr Stevens are directors of Vendside, wholly owned by the UDM, and the company paid £500,000 to the union over a three-year period in office rent and administration.
......The certification officer, Whitehall's union watchdog, has launched a preliminary investigation into the UDM's operation of Vendside following a formal complaint from the industry spokesman of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price, the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, attacked Mr. Greatrex and Mr. Stevens as "fat cats" and said by paying most of the salaries through the Notts UDM section rather than the national UDM, the huge figures never appeared in the certification officer's annual report. Mr. Price added: "The Nottingham section's accounts reveal the extent to which the UDM is bankrolled by Vendside. The UDM has profited from the suffering of former miners and their families."
......Graham Allen, the Nottingham North MP and a former Labour minister who has complained in parliament about Vendside's charges, said: "The UDM's defence is legally watertight but the ethics are questionable. This needs to be thoroughly investigated."
......Vendside is based in the UDM's Mansfield headquarters but its website does not mention the union by name. Instead it boasts of having recovered more than £215m for more than 33,000 claimants since 1998. A parliamentary answer obtained by Mr. Price showed the average payment won by Vendside under the chest disease scheme was £5,213, more than £1,500 less than the average £6,810 obtained by solicitors in England.
......The UDM leaders declined to speak to the Guardian, but the union recently issued a statement accusing critics of targeting it ahead of this week's 20th anniversary of the start of the momentous strike. ......The union argued it had settled the highest compensation claim, £394,000 for chronic bronchitis-emphysema, and charges imposed on non-members were a backdated membership fee.
......"These accusations appear to be generated from old-style mining unions and are politically driven by certain people who still harbour hatred against the UDM due to how the union was formed in 1985," the statement said. "We must remind you that the 20th anniversary of the miners' strike is in March. Much bitterness still exists and much jealousy is generated because the UDM has been successful and still exists."
......Other mining unions refer claimants directly to solicitors, though parts of the National Union of Mineworkers seek a "donation" from successful chest and finger scheme claimants to fund work in former coalfields.
......The minister responsible for coal health claims, Nigel Griffiths, has criticised claims firms and solicitors charging pitmen on top of DTI fees. "We believe that 100% of the compensation we pay must go to the claimant without anyone else taking a slice of it," he said last year. "I deplore any attempt to charge sick miners or their widows and families for legal expenses which are already covered by the DTI."