Allow us to analyse website use and to improve the visitor's experience. [18]:274 It attracted members from many isolated pits in England including Agecroft and Parsonage in Lancashire, Chase Terrace and Trenton Workshops in Staffordshire, and Daw Mill in Warwickshire. The year-long strike that followed changed the political, economic and social history of Wales forever. In 1983, Britain had 174 working collieries; by 2009 there were six. [130] After winning an award at an Italian film festival, it was broadcast on Channel 4 on 9 January 1985. [15], By 1984, the richest seams of coal had been increasingly worked out and the remaining coal was more and more expensive to reach. It won a Golden Rose and Press Reward at the Montreux Festival.[135]. T part of 1974 Heath gov that was brought down by miners strike, she benefitted from excesses of power during winter of discontent and defeat on Callaghan . #OnThisDay 1984. When asked the same question during 510 December 1984, 51% had most sympathy for the employers; 26% for the miners; 18% for neither and 5% did not know. In 1984 the National Coal Board announced that 20 coal mines would close. [19]:73 Although the Yorkshire area had a policy of opposing a national ballot, there was support for a ballot expressed by Yorkshire branches at Glasshoughton,[48]:69 Grimethorpe, Shireoaks and Kinsley. The table is taken from Callinicos & Simons (1985). According to a poll by the Opinion Research Corporation for the Evening Standard, published on 31 August 1984, some 94 per cent of the public disapproved of pickets' tactics and, when asked to pick between working and striking miners, 74 per cent sympathised with working miners compared to just 19 per cent with strikers. The violence was costing the NUM public support in the country as a whole, as a Gallup poll showed 79% disapproval of NUM methods. In 1984, a conservative . The coal industry was privatised in December 1994 creating "R.J.B. "Red Hill Mining Town", by U2 is about the breakdown of relationships during the strike. "The secret life of us: 1984, the miners' strike and the place of biography in writing history 'from below'. The life-history format provides a narrative arc beginning with lives before the strike, moving to lives during the strike to and concluding with lives after the strike. Twenty-five years later, on 6 May 2010, Election Day, Pattison took David Peace to Easington to interview three of the people caught up in the strike. [10], While more than 1,000 collieries were working in the UK during the first half of the 20th century, by 1984 only 173 were still operating[11] and employment had dropped from its peak of 1million in 1922, down to 231,000 for the decade to 1982. Thousands of miners went on strike. The South Wales area called for a return to work on condition that men sacked during the strike would be reinstated, but the NCB rejected the proposal when its bargaining position was improved by miners returning to work. [49], The strike was almost universally observed in South Wales, Yorkshire, Scotland, North East England and Kent, but there was less support across the Midlands and in North Wales. [101][21], As the Nottinghamshire collieries had attracted displaced miners from Scotland and the north-east in the 1960s, it has been argued that they were reluctant to strike to stop pit closures when there had been no action to save their home pits from closure. But as national unemployment mounted, it was obvious more closures would provoke an intense reaction. In 1983, Thatcher appointed Ian MacGregor to head the National Coal Board. But the mine is not forgotten. As a result, the strikers never really came close to causing the kind of coal shortages and power cuts that might have brought victory. Miners were men; the only women employed at the pit were cooks, cleaners or office staff. The intimidation and the brutality that has been displayed are something reminiscent of a Latin American state.[65]. Martin Kettle, "The National Reporting Centre and the 1984 miners' strike," in Bob Fine and Robert Millar, eds.. J. McIlroy, "Police and pickets: The law against the miners" in Beynon ed. Ridley described how a future Conservative government could resist and defeat a major strike in a nationalised industry. [18]:228, Chesterfield FC gave discounted tickets to striking miners until the start of 1985, when it abandoned the policy as most North Derbyshire miners had returned to work. During the strike, many pits lost their customers and the immediate problem facing the industry was due to the economic recession in the early-1980s. When I talk about 'extra-parliamentary action' there is a great outcry in the press and from leading Tories about my refusal to accept the democratic will of the people. The two highly successful national strikes of . In the former the Swansea, Dulais and Neath Valleys flowed south and west to the coast at Swansea and Neath. [137][138][139], Kay Sutcliffe, the wife of a striking miner at Aylesham, wrote the poem "Coal not Dole", which became popular with the Women Against Pit Closures groups across the country and was later made into a song by Norma Waterson. It was a major victory for Thatcher and the Conservative Party, with the Thatcher government able to consolidate their economic programme. Desperate to preserve their jobs and communities, which often depended entirely on the local pit, the Yorkshire miners walked out, as did their Scottish counterparts. The NUM was divided over the action and many mineworkers, especially in the Midlands, worked through the dispute. [48]:201, The strike ended on 3 March 1985, nearly a year after it had begun. Nottinghamshire became a target for aggressive and sometimes violent picketing as Scargill's pickets tried to stop local miners from working. The strike officially ended on 3 March 1985. "[79] This was long after an investigation by Seumas Milne described the allegations as wholly without substance and a "classic smear campaign". [56] Kent NUM leader Jack Collins said after the decision to go back without any agreement of amnesty for the sacked men, "The people who have decided to go back to work and leave men on the sidelines are traitors to the trade-union movement. They were the bringers of fire who enabled steam locomotion, iron and steel production, engineering, railways and transcontinental shipping. We don't share your data with any third party organisations for marketing purposes. [cheering] It must not succeed. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce . Thirty years after Britain's mining communities were convulsed by the Great Miners' Strike, . In March 1984, the coal miners went on strike again. [18]:6 Kinnock later said that it was "the greatest regret of [his] whole life" that he did not call for a national ballot at an earlier stage. [85] Ted McKay, the North Wales secretary who supported a national ballot before strike action, said he had received death threats and threats to kidnap his children. In many former mining areas antipathy towards the police remained strong for many years. Many of the richest coal fields had been worked out and the number of miners had been decreasing over the previous few decades. These communities were often at some distance from towns and cities with their concentrations of other workers. [19]:914 The NUM's success in bringing down the Heath government demonstrated its power, but it caused resentment at their demand to be treated as a special case in wage negotiations. [16], In January 1981, the Yorkshire area of the NUM held a successful ballot to approve strike action over any pit threatened with closure on economic grounds. The government viewed the legislation not as concerned with saving public funds but "to restore a fairer bargaining balance between employers and trade unions" by increasing the necessity to return to work. But this time was different. The year-long action was marred by violent . Scottish union leaders order the region's 14,500 miners to join the Yorkshire walkout. Wherever they lived, of course, miners had miners families. The children of mining families, brought up during and after the strike, made the fullest use of the expansion of the university sector. The solution was mechanisation and greater efficiency per worker, making many miners redundant due to overcapacity of production. [100], David Amos noted that some pits in Nottinghamshire closed in the early 1980s. Rock falls, gas explosions, flooding and injuries from moving machinery were all too frequent and often took many lives. She was one of the most influential figures of the past century, and one of the most powerful women in history. [48]:234 He announced that NUM membership was no longer a prerequisite for mineworkers' employment, ending the closed shop. In the post-war consensus, policy allowed for closures only where agreed to by the workers, who in turn received guaranteed economic security. [141], In 2001, British visual artist Jeremy Deller worked with historical societies, battle re-enactors, and people who participated in the violent 1984 clashes between picketers and police to reconstruct and re-enact the Battle of Orgreave. His policy divided the NUM membership, undermined his position with the leaders of the trade union movement, hurt the union's reputation in British public opinion, and led to violence along the picket line. Tensions between strikers and those who worked continued after the return to work. On July 16, 1984, the papers showed, Mrs. Thatcher and her most senior cabinet ministers met to debate the possibility of declaring a state of emergency and using the military to transport coal . [48]:218 Michael Eaton argued that "a decision to return to work was a personal decision on the part of the individual. The comradeship of miners developed underground continued about ground slaking their thirst in the Miners Welfare, playing football or rugby, meeting local girls at the Welfare or rugby club. [84] Property, families and pets belonging to working miners were also attacked. [90], Two pickets, David Jones and Joe Green, were killed in separate incidents,[91] and three teenagers (Darren Holmes, aged 15, and Paul Holmes and Paul Womersley, both aged 14) died picking coal from a colliery waste heap in the winter. Most pickets throughout the strike were non-violent. In other cases, particularly in the Midlands, the mining village scarcely existed. [48]:111112 He appeared on a picket line on 3 January 1985,[48]:113 after having said in November that he was "too busy". [48]:227 The Nottinghamshire NUM then opposed the strike openly and stopped payments to local strikers. [19]:6162 Ollerton Colliery closed for a few days as a mark of respect for Jones. Many historians have provided interpretations and explanations of the defeat, largely centring on Scargill's decisions. ", Peter, Gibbon. [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. In Scotland, the focus will be on the town of Cowdenbeath in Central Fife, known as the Chicago of Fife, in turn at the heart of a series of mining villages such as Limphinnans, Kitty, Lochgelly and Lochore, which had the reputation of being little Moscows because of the strength of the Communist party there in the 1920s and 1930s. It does not mean that because at some stage you elect a government that you tolerate its existence. [19]:71, Welfare benefits had never been available to strikers but their dependents had been entitled to make claims in previous disputes. [19]:253, The issue of sacked miners was important in Kent, where several men had been sacked for a sit-in at Betteshanger Colliery. Created by. The Miners` Strike 198485 (Yate & District Labour History Group), Kelliher, Diarmaid. The NUM delegates voted 6954 not to have a national ballot,[33]:357 a position argued for by Arthur Scargill. 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. There were rumours that the new Coal Board chairman, Ian MacGregor, wanted to close an additional 70. But as the dispute went on, she became ever more outspoken, even describing the miners leaders as Britains enemy within. 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. If you want more information about what cookies are and which cookies we collect, please read our cookie policy. It led to an escalation of tension, and riots in Easington in Durham[19]:203204 and Brampton Bierlow in Yorkshire. "[18]:171 He ruled that the Yorkshire area could not refer to the strike as "official", although he did not condemn the strike as "illegal" as he did in the case of the national strike and the North Derbyshire strike. The strike marked an important development in the traditional mining heartlands, where feminist ideas had not been strong.[99]. ID: TR9C1E (RM) An injured miner is helped away by fellow pickets at Port Talbot Steelworks, South Wales, during the miners' strike of 1984. This backup plan was not needed and was not implemented. [128], Independent filmmakers documented the strike including the behaviour of the police, the role of miners' wives and the role of the media. Calls for a further strike in 1986 were ignored and from 174 collieries in 1983, only six remained in 2009. It was compared to the return to work led by George Spencer in Nottinghamshire during the 1926 coal strike, but Nottinghamshire had gone on strike alongside other regions in 1972 and 1974. [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. Image: Dorothea Heath On 1 March 1984 the National Coal Board announced that it planned to close 20 coal mines with the loss of 20,000 jobs. Scargill predicted rightly, as it turned out that in an attempt to stem its heavy financial losses, the National Coal Board was bound to push for further closures. David Hart, a farmer and property developer with libertarian political beliefs, did much to organise and fund working miners. [24] The dominance of mining in these local economies led Oxford professor Andrew Glyn to conclude that no pit closure could be beneficial for government revenue. In 1984, some pit villages had no other industries for many miles around. [48]:227 At some pits in Nottinghamshire, Ollerton, Welbeck and Clipstone, roughly half the workforce stayed in the NUM. [14] The calculation of these operating losses was disputed. Even at this early stage, Scargills cause was probably doomed. Match. A QUARTER of a century ago Britain was split by its most bitter industrial dispute ever. It showed the abject poverty associated with the strike and the harshness and desperation of not having coal for heat in winter. [39]:355364[35]:142150 She believed that the excessive costs of increasingly inefficient collieries had to end in order to grow the economy. [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. [133], The 2000 film Billy Elliot, set in 1984, was based around mining communities in Easington Colliery and Seaham. [48]:217 A wildcat strike at South Kirkby Colliery was supported by neighbouring Ferrymoor-Riddings on 30 April 1985 after four men were dismissed for attacks on strikebreakers, and another wildcat strike occurred at Hatfield Colliery in April 1986 after it emerged that there was a strikebreaker had not been transferred away from the pit. Around Barnsley in the west, the base of the Yorkshire miners, was a constellation of pits including Worsborough, Dodworth, Gawber, Woolley, Grimethorpe and South Elmsall. Thirdly, it is an oral history approach, using interviews with a number of key miners, miners wives and supporters to allow the story of the strike to be told through the rich experiences of a selected cast of characters. Scargill states: "Our special conference was held on 19 April. Secondly, it is a local and regional approach, a close study of certain mining communities in the context of their region. When the union refused to pay, an order was made to sequester the union's assets, but they had been transferred abroad. When the owners refused to negotiate with the union, miners appealed to President Roosevelt to . Many communities in Northern England, Scotland and Wales would lose their primary source of employment. Miners wives, in even greater numbers, returned to education and became teachers, social workers or probation officers.
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