[20]:29, In January 2014, Prime Minister David Cameron stated, "I think if anyone needs to make an apology for their role in the miners' strike it should be Arthur Scargill for the appalling way that he led the union." In the post-war consensus, policy allowed for closures only where agreed to by the workers, who in turn received guaranteed economic security. [18]:157158 On 25 May, a writ issued in the High Court by Colin Clark from Pye Hill Colliery, sponsored by Hart, was successful in forbidding the Nottinghamshire area from instructing that the strike was official and to be obeyed. Britain had lots of industries that were not efficient and making money Shipbuilding Car manufacturing Coal Mining, Coal Mining Coal Mines generally in the north of England, Scotland Wales. [18]:130 Part way through the strike, Norman Willis took over from Murray as general secretary of the TUC. Mr. Justice Watkins ruled that, "The result of a ballot, nationally conducted, is not binding upon the National Executive Committee in using its powers in between conferences. Some miners began returning to work from September, with many more returning by January as union pay ran out and some found it hard to pay for basic necessities. [19]:214 A masked gang waving baseball bats invaded his house and beat him for five minutes, whilst his pregnant wife and children hid upstairs. That violence strengthened the stature of the Coal Board and the Thatcher government. [37] The industry's Select Committee heard that 36,040 of the 39,685 redundancies between 1973 and 1982 were of men aged 55 and over, and redundancy pay was increased substantially in 1981 and 1983. The UK miners' strike of 1984-5 was a defining moment in the history of the United Kingdom, one that not only illuminates the country's near-history, but functions as a prism through which to. [35]:142145 In 1982, NUM members accepted a 9.3% pay rise, rejecting their leaders' call for a strike. The mining industry was effectively a closed shop. 00:00, 8 MAR 2009. They were . You can unsubscribe at any time. First of all, it looks at the strike through three lenses, class, community and family. In August 1984, photographer Keith Pattison was commissioned by Sunderland's Artists' Agency to photograph the strike in Easington Colliery for a month. Answer (1 of 12): It usually means a strikebreaker. Children challenging educational inequality in England, 1944-1970. Whatever people thought of the issues at stake, millions were appalled by the scenes of open fighting between pickets and police, which became emblematic of the conflicted, confrontational 1980s. ", Campbell, Adrian, and Malcolm Warner. [18]:264, Occasionally, attacks were made on working members of NACODS and administrative staff. I am not prepared quietly to accept the destruction of the coal industry, nor am I willing to see our social services decimated. These will bring together those former miners and their support groups who fought for their jobs in the late 1970s and early eighties, culminating in the Great Miners' Strike of 1984/85. It viewed the strike from the perspective of both the police and the miners. The anecdote comes after the unlikely claim the Queen Mother supported the later miners' strike in 1984. The intention at the outset of the project, was to focus on a fixed number of mining villages, one for each coalfield. #OnThisDay 1984. [57], The NUM had held three ballots on national strikes: 55% voted against in January 1982, and 61% voted against in October 1982 and March 1983. Action was prompted on 5 March by the NCB's announcement that five pits would be subject to "accelerated closure" in just five weeks; the other three were Herrington in County Durham, Snowdown in Kent and Polmaise in Scotland. Wilsher, Peter, Donald Macintyre, and Michael CE Jones, eds. "[19]:254 The Kent NUM continued picketing across the country, delaying the return to work at many pits for two weeks. [48]:227, The number of strikebreakers, sometimes referred to perjoratively as scabs, increased from the start of January, as the strikers struggled to pay for food as union pay ran out. [9] Poverty increased in former coal mining areas, and in 1994 Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire was the poorest settlement in the country. [18]:300 In addition, 12 left-wing MPs refused to sit down in the Commons in January in an attempt to force a debate on the strike. ", "Sir Peter Gregson, civil servant obituary: Whitehall mandarin who helped lay the groundwork for Mrs Thatcher's defeat of Arthur Scargill,". [38], Prime Minister Thatcher expected Scargill to force a confrontation, and in response she set up a defence in depth. [55]:374, A Court of Session decision in Edinburgh ruled that Scottish miners had acted within their rights by taking local ballots on a show of hands and so union funds in Scotland could not be sequestered. It was a major victory for Thatcher and the Conservative Party, with the Thatcher government able to consolidate their economic programme. [18]:228 Some groups prioritised aid to pits in South Wales, as they felt that Scargill was distributing donations to his most favoured pits in Kent and Yorkshire. His tough reputation raised expectations that coal jobs would be cut on a similar scale and confrontations between MacGregor and Scargill seemed inevitable. Sheffield, in the south, was the national headquarters of the NUM but mainly a steel town and a cosmopolitan regional capital, a focus for activists who supported the Miners Strike rather than of miners themselves. ID: TR9C1E (RM) An injured miner is helped away by fellow pickets at Port Talbot Steelworks, South Wales, during the miners' strike of 1984. The violence was costing the NUM public support in the country as a whole, as a Gallup poll showed 79% disapproval of NUM methods. Instead of seeking the civil remedies under the existing civil law, they relied completely on the police to solve their problems by implementing the criminal law. He attempted to repair relations between Scargill and Kinnock, but to no avail. [18]:165, In September, Lord Justice Nicholls heard two cases, in the first, North Derbyshire miners argued that the strike was illegal both at area level, as a majority of its miners had voted against, and at national level, as there had been no ballot. [100] Other explanations include the perception that Nottinghamshire pits were safe from the threat of closure, as they had large reserves, and the area-level incentive scheme introduced by Tony Benn caused them to be amongst the best-paid in Britain. The 1972 miners' strike crippled the country as picket lines were put in place, coal supplies dwindled, and Edward Heath's Government declared a state of emergency. March 5 - Britain's biggest coal region, Yorkshire, calls a county-wide strike starting March 12 after the National Coal Board announces the imminent closure of two mines. [19]:254 Some sources claim that the Scottish NUM continued the strike alongside Kent. This book, first published in 1986, examines the miners' strike of 1984-5 - an event that formed the decisive break with a forty-year-old British tradition of political and industrial compromise. The outcome was the Miner's Campaign Tapes. [84] Property, families and pets belonging to working miners were also attacked. [81] Stella Rimington, wrote, "We in MI5 limited our investigations to those who were using the strike for subversive purposes. The Soviet Union's official trade union federation donated 1.5million to the NUM. The defeat of the strike led very quickly to the closure of most coal mines, a general deindustrialisation of the economy, the rapid privatisation of nationalised industries, the shattering of organised labour, growing unemployment, the hollowing-out of mining and other working-class communities, and a steady increase in social inequality in British society. The National Recording Centre (NRC), founded by the Association of Chief Police Officers for England and Wales (ACPO) in 1972 helped the government prepare for the organisation of police units travelling to areas of protests and in figuring out how to deal with flying pickets (strikers who travelled to different areas to protest). Historian Kenneth Rose, who wrote her official biography, said she called the strikers . [46] Meanwhile, the Thatcher government had prepared against a repeat of the effective 1974 industrial action by stockpiling coal, converting some power stations to burn heavy fuel oil, and recruiting fleets of road hauliers to transport coal in case sympathetic railwaymen went on strike to support the miners. [127], There is a prevailing view that Arthur Scargill, the NUM National President, called the strike. There are signs, however, that this was gendered too, with daughters of miners doing better than their brothers. Gascoyne, a forceful 59-year-old ex-faceworker who swears a lot, was the branch secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers throughout the strike of 1984-85 and until the pit closed. The son of a communist miner, he has kept its memory alive at the Shirebrook Miners' Welfare Social Club, founded in 1920. But it was more than that: to the communities involved, from Scotland and South Wales to Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, it often felt like an undeclared civil war, pitting village against village, family against family even brother against brother. Miners forged their sense of themselves as the shock troops of the Industrial Revolution. [18]:251252, As the courts seized the NUM's assets, it began to look abroad for money, and found supplies in the Soviet bloc and, it was mistakenly thought, also from Libya. Which Side Are You On? Ex-miners who took part in 1984 strike return to picket line at National Coal Mining Museum; Ex-miners who took part in 1984 strike return to picket line at National Coal Mining Museum. She encouraged the police to crack down on picketing miners and badgered local Chief Constables to block the mobile flying pickets which had been so successful in the 1970s. The 1996 film Brassed Off was set 10 years after the strike in the era when numerous pits closed before the privatisation of British Coal. [47] Wakefield Council provided free meals for children during school holidays. [80], MI5 surveillance on NUM vice-president Mick McGahey found he was "extremely angry and embarrassed" about Scargill's links with the Libyan regime, but did not express his concerns publicly;[81] however he was happy to take money from the Soviet Union. The decision was upheld by a vote by the NUM executive five weeks into the strike. "Female involvement in the miners' strike 19841985: Trajectories of activism. The number of strikes fell sharply in 1985 as a result of the "demonstration effect" and trade union power in general diminished. [19]:6162 Ollerton Colliery closed for a few days as a mark of respect for Jones. [21], On 6 March 1984, the NCB announced that the agreement reached after the 1974 strike was obsolete, and that to reduce government subsidies, 20 collieries would close with a loss of 20,000 jobs. After successful strikes in 1972 and 1974 which prevented pit closures, calls were made for strikes in the early 1980s, eventually leading to the strike of 1984-1985. "Pies and essays: women writing through the British 19841985 coal miners' strike. Brief History of Policing in Great Britain, Brief History of the Association of Chief Police Officers. Buckley, Sheryl Bernadette. In 1984, some pit villages had no other industries for many miles around. [95] Fundraising for the so-called "Dirty Thirty" striking Leicestershire miners was extensive and they redirected some of their excess aid to other parts of the NUM. The decision was taken by a delegates' conference and not authorised by an individual ballot. Explore public disorder in C20th Britain through police records. [25]:24. Graham Cunnington, Angus Farquhar and Paul Jamrozy, Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me, "1984: The beginning of the end for British coal", "BBC ON THIS DAY 28 1984: Pit dispute 'illegal' says judge", "Grimethorpe, the mining village that hit rock bottom then bounced back", "Britain to have just one remaining coal pit after UK Coal announces closures", "Historical coal data: coal production, availability and consumption 1853 to 2016", "All Employees: Mining and Logging: Coal Mining", "John Saville: An Open Conspiracy Conservative Politics and the Miners' Strike 19845 (August 1985)", "We could surrender or stand and fight", "Deindustrialization and the Moral Economy of the Scottish Coalfields, 1947 to 1991", "The Nottinghamshire miners', the Union of Democratic Mineworkers and the 198485 miners strike: scabs or scapegoats? The government strategy, designed by Margaret Thatcher, was threefold: to build up ample coal stocks, to keep as many miners at work as possible, and to use police to break up attacks by pickets on working miners. As Kinnock denounced the lack of the ballot, violence against strikebreakers and Scargill's tactical approach, he was asked by hecklers what he had done for the striking miners. [13], Coal mining, nationalised by Clement Attlee's Labour government in 1947, was managed by the National Coal Board (NCB) under Ian MacGregor in 1984. They were sequestering the NUM funds, except in Scotland, because the judges deemed that the Scottish area had acted within the rules of the Union" David Hamilton MP, Midlothian[45]:8, Scargill claims "It was essential to present a united response to the NCB and we agreed that, if the coal board planned to force pit closures on an area by area basis, then we must respond at least initially on that same basis. The NUM President, Arthur Scargill, made the strike official across Britain on 12 March 1984, but the lack of a national ballot beforehand caused controversy. [88] Taxi driver, David Wilkie, was killed on 30 November 1984 while driving a non-striking miner to Merthyr Vale Colliery, in South Wales. [20]:3637 Reviews for Cadeby in Yorkshire and Bates in Northumberland concluded that the pits could stay open but the NCB overruled and closed them. When interrupted, Kinnock accused the hecklers of "living like parasites off the struggle of the miners." ", encapsulated the strikers' feeling of betrayal by the perceived indifference of wider elements within British society. The 198485 miners' strike and technological change JONATHAN WINTERTON* The proximate cause of the 1984-85 miners' strike, the longest mass strike in British history, was a round of colliery closures announced by the National Coal Board (NCB, now British Coal) in March 1984 as part of the restructuring of the British coal mining industry. [39]:355364[35]:142150 She believed that the excessive costs of increasingly inefficient collieries had to end in order to grow the economy. Clause 6 of the Social Security Act 1980[69] banned the dependents of strikers from receiving "urgent needs" payments and applied a compulsory deduction from the benefits of strikers' dependents. Hand getting of coal had stopped by 1945 and the process was fully mechanised by the late 1960s. Learn. Allow us to analyse website use and to improve the visitor's experience. Onllwyn stood at the intersection between Welsh Wales, farming, rural and Welsh-speaking and American Wales, industrial, urbanised and English-speaking. [70] The Department of Social Security assumed that striking miners were receiving 15 per week from the union (equivalent to 49 in 2019), based on payments early in the strike that were not made in the later months when funds had become exhausted. On 12 March 1984, Arthur Scargill, president of the NUM, declared that the strikes in the various coal fields were to be a national strike and called for strike action from NUM members in all coal fields. Professor Emeritus, is heading the project, funded as a Leverhulme Emeritus Professor for 2020-22. Most of the strikers were men, but a few women - cooks, cleaners, and office workers - went on strike too. The Kent area's effective fundraising from sympathisers in London and in continental Europe was resented by other areas. [19]:164 During the 1972 strike, violent confrontations between striking NUM and non-striking NACODS members led to an agreement that NACODS members could stay off work without loss of pay if they were faced with aggressive picketing. The BBC reported that pickets from Polmaise Colliery had punched miners at Bilston Glen Colliery who were trying to enter their workplace on 12 March. [19]:69 When pickets from Kent were stopped at the Dartford Tunnel and preventing from travelling to the Midlands, the Kent NUM applied for an injunction against use of this power. Commissioned by Sunderland City Council, Savage worked with the Durham Miners Association to create the large scale commemorative window, which features images and symbols of the strike and the North East's mining heritage. [50], During the strike, 11,291 people were arrested, mostly for breach of the peace or obstructing roads whilst picketing, of whom 8,392 were charged and between 150 and 200 were imprisoned. It was the start. [18]:251252 The Morning Star was the only national daily newspaper that consistently supported the striking miners and the NUM. [86] The intimidation of working miners in Nottinghamshire, vandalism to cars and pelting them with stones, paint or brake fluid, was a major factor in the formation of the breakaway Union of Democratic Mineworkers. The second difference was that the government was far better prepared in 1984 than it had been 10 years earlier. [98] The support groups organised collections outside supermarkets, communal kitchens, benefit concerts and other activities. Many historians have provided interpretations and explanations of the defeat, largely centring on Scargill's decisions. Thatcher realised she needed at least a six-month supply of coal to win a strike. [citation needed], Throughout the strike, the South London group Test Dept travelled on their "battle bus" to Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Paddington and Glasgow. Premiering on 13 June 2022, the BBCOne series Sherwood (2022 TV series) is a fictionalized murder mystery set both in 1984 and in the present day in the Ashfield area of Nottinghamshire surrounding deep divisions in the community between striking miners, police officers, non-striking miners, and their descendants. He did not. Commitment to the COAL NOT DOLE cause Miners had to live on charity for large periods of time. Created by. McGahey, Heathfield and I were aware from feedback that a slight majority of areas favoured the demand for a national strike ballot; therefore, we were expecting and had prepared for that course of action with posters, ballot papers and leaflets. It was set in the fictional town of Grimley, a thin disguise for the hard-hit ex-mining village of Grimethorpe, where some of it was filmed. Neil Kinnock supported the call for a national ballot in April 1984. A. Booth and R. Smith, "The irony of the Iron Fist: Social security and the miners' strike 198485", Jacqueline Jones, "Small Towns and Big Dreams: Meditations on Two Mining-Town Movies". She referred to union leaders as "the enemy within" and claimed they did not share the values of other British people; advocates of the strike misinterpreted the quote to suggest that Thatcher had used it as a reference to all miners.[62]. [108] The strike emboldened the NCB to accelerate the closure of pits on economic grounds. [18]:101 At the 1985 Police Federation conference, Ronald Carroll from West Yorkshire Police argued that, "The police were used by the Coal Board to do all their dirty work. In December 2015, the last deep colliery in Britain closed. [51], From September, some miners returned to work even where the strike had been universally observed. "[18]:303 Scargill became president of the NUM for life in 1985.
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