The Charity Commission is assessing governance and management concerns at a mining charity amid a long-running staff strike.
More than 40 workers at the National Coal Mining Museum began industrial action in August last year due to a dispute over pay, and have been on strike since then.
Today, the regulator told Civil Society that it had opened a compliance case into the National Coal Mining Museum “to assess wider information about the charity’s governance and management, and determine any next steps”.
“In line with our guidance, the charity has submitted a serious incident report in relation to an ongoing pay dispute,” a spokesperson said.
Accounts for the year ending 31 March 2025 show that the charity employed an average of 109 staff last year.
Extended strike action
Strike action began last year after UNISON Yorkshire and Humberside suggested a 5% pay rise or £1 per hour increase for all staff at the charity, whichever was greater, in response to it offering a £1 per hour increase for mine guides and 5% for everyone else.
The union said the charity’s “initial offer would’ve given a bigger pay rise to the male mine guides than to the women employed elsewhere in the museum”.
In a subsequent meeting with conciliation service ACAS, the charity’s managers “made an offer of 80p an hour or 5% for all workers, whichever was the greater, despite a previous pledge to recommend their own offer”, according to the union.
The strike, which was due to run until the end of January, has been extended three times and is now expected to continue until June.
UNISON Yorkshire and Humberside said in a reballot that closed on 9 January, 92% of the charity’s staff backed strike action, with a turnout of 86%.
“Staff have been left with no option other than to continue the walkout due to the behaviour of museum chief executive Lynn Dunning, who has failed to return to negotiations with an acceptable offer,” it said.
“The union believes this demonstrates a lack of leadership at the helm of the popular attraction, which showcases the UK’s industrial heritage.”
According to the union, since staff began striking, the charity’s senior managers have put forward one revised pay offer, whose terms “were worse than a proposal rejected before the strike action began”.
‘Issues go far beyond our pay dispute’
In a Facebook post shared this week, UNISON Wakefield District said: “UNISON Wakefield has repeatedly raised serious concerns about leadership failure, poor decision-making and a lack of accountability at the very top of the organisation.
“The Charity Commission’s involvement underlines that these issues go far beyond our pay dispute.
“Our members have shown extraordinary resolve in standing up for fair pay, dignity at work and the future of this important heritage institution.”
A spokesperson for the National Coal Mining Museum told Civil Society: “The charity remains fully committed to transparency throughout this period of industrial action and continues to make all efforts to clarify and address misrepresentations about the charity that may have arisen from information shared by third parties.
“We’ll continue to engage fully with the Charity Commission, providing any additional information they may require.”
