Tyrone O'Sullivan is the chairman of Tower Colliery, Hirwaun, South Wales. He led the team of miners that fought to buy the pit from British Coal in 1995. He and 238 other miners each paid u8,000 from their redundancy settlement to become shareholders. The additional funds needed were borrowed from various banks. No other mine, in the history of British Coal, has been bought by the workforce. Tyrone was effectively fighting British Coal for wages and conditions all his working life but it was in the latter years that the ...
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Tyrone O'Sullivan is the chairman of Tower Colliery, Hirwaun, South Wales. He led the team of miners that fought to buy the pit from British Coal in 1995. He and 238 other miners each paid u8,000 from their redundancy settlement to become shareholders. The additional funds needed were borrowed from various banks. No other mine, in the history of British Coal, has been bought by the workforce. Tyrone was effectively fighting British Coal for wages and conditions all his working life but it was in the latter years that the fight became about the very survival of the pit. Tower is now the last surviving deep mine in Wales and is a profitable going concern. British Coal, towards the end of its regime, earmarked Tower as a pit with no future and were determined to close it down. This would have resulted in devastation of the local community. The Tower miners refused to lie down and they fought like no other group of miners in the land. The miners had faith in Tyrone and his buy-out team which has paid dividends as the workers are now being rewarded as joint owners of a successful business, sharing equally in its profits."
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