Those who went on strike earned no money and were ineligible for benefits as their industrial action was deemed illegal; they had to rely on scrimping, savings and handouts. On 3 March 1985, the NUM executive, running low on funds and with striking families struggling to feed, heat and clothe themselves, narrowly voted to end the industrial action, without concessions from the government. The miners' strike that ended an era Adam Smith Institute. How many jobs were lost in the miners strike 1984? VideoUK using migrants as scapegoats - Albanian PM in full. The 1926 and 1984 Strikes The strike began on 13 October 1969 and lasted for roughly two weeks, with some pits returning to work before others. However, history seems to have proved impervious to the many lessons of the UKs most significant post-war labour conflict. [20] The role of the volunteers was to drive in convoys to break the picketlines blocking the supply of coal to the Scottish power plants. Stalwarts of the Durham Miners' Association, whose politics were forged in the 1980s strikes, fear the party could suffer the same fate in north-east England as it has in Scotland. Mortgage calculator: How much could you pay? The General Strike, the only one to take place in Britain, was called on 3rd May 1926 and lasted nine days; an historic walkout by British workers representing the dissatisfaction of millions and ushering in the need for change across the country. Mrs Howells says people who she had known for years then started ignoring her in the street, while some were shopping 12 miles from home to avoid meeting someone from the "wrong side" in the supermarket aisles. . 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. Read about our approach to external linking. The Miners Strikes in the 1970s and early Even The Times forebodingly warned in June 1985 that the dispute some politicians hoped would break the power of the NUM has actually created new cadres for the future. Energiemangel in England herrschte. In other areas it was much better supported - for example in south Wales, 99.6% of the 21,500 workers joined the action and, a year on, 93% were still not working. [22], The inadequacy of the government's response to the strike provoked re-evaluation of emergency planning. "Even now people ignore me if I say hello," says Yvonne Woodhead, 35 years since her husband decided to join miners across the UK in going on strike. The government announced on 6 March 1984 that 20 collieries would close, meaning that many mining . On 5 January 1972, the NUM's executive committee rejected another offer from the National Coal Board, the state-owned body running the mining industry. Submitted by Steven. This article is over 13 years, 7 months old. on January 11, 2007. During his ten-year tenure, productivity increased by 70%, but with far fewer pits and a much reduced workforce. The economic downturn that defined the first decade of the new millennium was relayed by a Western media eager to mobilise the boom and bust, recession and unemployment discourses of the 1970s and 80s, making the politics of the recent past a more immediate, relatable and felt presence. Nottinghamshire was the home of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM), whose members continued to work after splitting from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), arguing the strike had not been approved in a vote. The strike was seen by some as a turning point after which the NUM took a more militant approach, especially in the Yorkshire area, where many of the officials were voted out and replaced with left-wingers. [1] The strike began on 13 October 1969 and lasted for roughly two weeks, with some pits returning to work before others. I still hate Thatcher - Miners Strike - Irish - Poll Tax Riot - Skargill - Welsh - Working Class Pre Poster. Great Britain 1921, 1926. [1] In other militant coalfields, such as Kent, South Wales and Scotland, walkouts followed shortly afterwards. 2022 BBC. The National Coal Board reorganised its regions in the year 1966-7 so that Yorkshire was split into four administrative areas. [14], A miner from Hatfield Colliery, near Doncaster, Freddie Matthews, was killed by a lorry while he was picketing on 3 February 1972, and a huge crowd attended his funeral. [1] Wages were lower, and working hours were longer for surface work than for underground work. And as summer approached, a strike started among West End tailors for better piece rates. You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER . [10], During a parliamentary debate on the strike in its second week, both Labour and Conservative MPs praised the miners for the forbearance shown during the mass pit closures in the 1960s. "I found him and said: 'You're coming with me, or you can go up that lane and get yourself killed.'. The UK miners' strike of 1969 was an unofficial strike that involved 140 of the 307 collieries owned by the National Coal Board, including all collieries in the Yorkshire area. "[21] Mine workers held out for an extra 1 per week, but eventually settled for a package of "fringe benefits" worth a total of 10 million. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point. In this montage (featuring the Clash's 1979 song "London Calling"), we see the police raid on Billy's town during the 1984 miner's strike, in which coal miners fought against low wages, poor working conditions, and rising . The 1972 UK miners' strike was a major dispute over pay between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Conservative Edward Heath government of the United Kingdom. Does anyone know of good documentaries about the 1984 miners strike. Although she says she never resented anyone for not striking, when people treated her differently she thought: "You can get stuffed - you know something ducky, my husband is fighting for such as you. Mrs Woodhead, now 68, remembers how during the strike, she borrowed plastic cups from a local school for the strikers' children to use. Today fewer and fewer remember March 1984 - and many that do might wish to forget it - but the tensions the strike created are often only just below the surface. More than 8,000 people were charged during the dispute, mostly with breach of the . "There are people here that will not go into a certain pub or a certain shop because 'that's where the scabs went'. They wanted a flat in Glasgow but ended up with a crumbling eyesore 35 miles away A band of oddities, gentlemen and pirates, Watch the incredible new drama, SAS Rogue Heroes, from the creator of Peaky Blinders on BBC iPlayer, Watch the new comedy horror Wreck on iPlayer, Road Rage: Cars Vs Bikes. Video, UK using migrants as scapegoats - Albanian PM in full, Drift off to sleep with Michael Mosley. "THE NOTTINGHAMSHIRE MINERS', THE UNION OF DEMOCRATIC MINEWORKERS AND THE 1984-85 MINERS STRIKE: SCABS OR SCAPEGOATS? From cultures of worklessness and social damage, to the role of regional development agencies and community initiatives, the 1984-5 UK miners strike was instrumental in establishing a range of discourses that came to define the subsequent decades. The Covid epidemic has, we learn from every media outlet this last week, reignited the North-South divide in England, threatening the Prime Minister's election-winning promise to "level up" the North. England; Regions; Derby; New film hears voices from Miners' Strike. Later Shirebrook became so divided that a Metropolitan Police officer called it "the Belfast of England". The 1972 strike was the first time miners had walked away from work since 1926. In Nottinghamshire, the majority of miners carried on working, Nottinghamshire pits remained open, helping the government keep the power stations running, In some areas almost all the miners went on strike, The head of the NUM would not hold a national vote on the strike, Mrs Woodhead, who is now a councillor, still has mugs, plates and badges from the strike but keeps them boxed up nowadays, Women supported the miners in soup kitchens and on the picket line, Thousands of pickets and police officers clashed at Orgreave in some of the most violent confrontations witnessed during the year-long miners' strike, Flying pickets came to Nottinghamshire to bolster the numbers of demonstrators, and the government brought in extra police officers to deal with them, The miners ultimately went back to work with no concessions from the government, 'I believe in my heart Saffie would have survived' Video, 'I believe in my heart Saffie would have survived', UK using migrants as scapegoats - Albanian PM in full. Theirs will be the standard by which all struggles are measured . "In Ollerton, there's them that talk to each other and them that don't," she says. Enter Rocker, who had spent years trying to entice the Jewish garment workers of . The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. For a generation born in the Cool Britannia of 1990s New Labour, there is a new motivation to look back to the Conservative legacy that bore the political conditions of the present day, to re-examine decades of unrest, division and disquiet both at home and abroad. The miners have brought class politics back on the agenda. Defining the conflicts of the present through the events, personalities and language of 1984-5, the press framed these contemporary disputes as a product of the miners strike, an unwelcome and continuing manifestation of militancy and discontent. Most of the U.K.'s energy at the time was produced by coal . Miners' wages had not kept pace with those of other industrial workers since 1960. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations. The country's last deep coal mine, Kellingley Colliery in North Yorkshire, shut in 2015. The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work. The 1972 Miners' Strike was noticeable as it was the first time since 1926 that British miners had been on strike. Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), called on the miners to strike, and on 12 March a strike started which was to last for nearly a year. A film to mark the 35th anniversary of the end of the Miners' Strike is using new interviews with . The miners had gone on strike twice in the previous decade. She is editor of the internationally peer reviewed C21 Literature: journal of 21st-century writings and the author of Mining The Meaning: Cultural Representations of the 1984-5 UK Miners Strike (CSP, 2012). "It goes deeper than deep. The nationwide strike was a last attempt by the mining unions to save the industry after the National Coal Board announced 20 pits in England would have to close with the loss of 20,000 jobs. The nationwide strike was a last attempt by the mining unions to save the industry after the National Coal Board announced 20 pits in England would have to close with the loss of 20,000 jobs. $25.13. By Sunset-Sunset. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UK_miners%27_strike_(1969)&oldid=1083666932, National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain), October 1969 events in the United Kingdom, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. [20] The plans were never put into place because the dispute was brought to a close. The miners' strike of 1984-1985 was a major industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. It was a political strike. Money and food are scarce. Today fewer and fewer remember March 1984 - and many that do might wish to forget it - but the tensions the strike created are often only just below the surface. November 20, 2015 By Jonathan. [20] Fire brigades were also contacted to provide off-duty staff and volunteer groups to cater for the coal convoys. As the NUM kept the structure of one area for Yorkshire, a panel system developed for negotiation with the NCB, which gave greater opportunities for militant pits in certain districts to go against the NUM leadership. [1], On 11 October, Arthur Scargill led a group of Yorkshire mineworkers in pushing for action at the Yorkshire NUM's area council. [1] The annual conference of the NUM had voted in July 1968 to demand the surface workers' hours be lowered to seven and three-quarters, but the union's executive had not acted upon the vote. Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help. Mrs Howells says people who she had known for years then started ignoring her in the street, while some were shopping 12 miles from home to avoid meeting someone from the "wrong side" in the supermarket aisles. As predicted by economists, this led to deflation and rising unemployment. In popular culture, a film came out in 2014 that looked at the coal miners' strike. For the previous two days, some one million coal miners had been locked out of their mines after a dispute with the . In Nottinghamshire, a ballot was held and miners voted to carry on working. [18] He nicknamed the strike as "the October revolution" (referencing the Soviet historical event of the same name) and said in 1975, "'69 was responsible for producing all the victories that were to come".[19]. By dru1138. The strike began on 9 January 1972 and ended on 28 February 1972, when the miners returned to work. 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On the advice of the Bank of England, Churchill restored the British currency to the gold standard. miners' strike / day 8; nat england: yorks: barnsley:ext / day tms pickets standing l . ", Hughes, Rosaleen Anne. Her forthcoming monograph Crunch Lit examines fictional responses to the global credit crunch. [4], The cause was the hours of work for surface workers, who were often older mineworkers who were no longer capable of working underground. Miners left their pits to fight the attempt of the Thatcher government to close the collieries, break the miners' union and the labour movement in general, and open the way to a free market economy in which deregulated financial capitalism would be set free by the Big Bang . 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 . A timeline chronology of the UK Miners' Strike 1984 - 1985 including the background to the strike and the main events of the conflict. [3][6] In his study of the Yorkshire NUM, Andrew Taylor gives five reasons why the Yorkshire area aligned itself with the militant areas of Kent, Scotland and South Wales during the 1960s: The action led to discussions on the NUM's threshold of a two-thirds majority for a national strike. People seem to think that history is safeits only the present thats not. [3] The NUM leadership of Sidney Ford was regarded by many within the union as having been too passive and accommodating of a Labour government. She now represents Rainworth South and Blidworth as a Labour councillor and believes the pit closures show they were right to strike. ", Two miners from opposite sides meet for the first time since the strike. Submitted by Steven. [12] The package was accepted by 237,462 votes to 41,322. To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here. About sharing. 2011 marked a new era of discontent, dubbed by the press a Scargill moment of economic pressure, austerity measures, pension reductions and mass redundancies, during which the very right to strike was challenged by the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, as commentators predicted the biggest walkouts since the 1926 General Strike. News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. VideoRoad Rage: Cars Vs Bikes, Drift off to sleep with Michael Mosley. "Governing in hard times: the Heath government and civil emergenciesthe 1972 and the 1974 miners strikes" (phD dissertation, Queen Mary University of London; 2012. It was Britain's first general strike and sparked fear in the country that revolution was waiting in the wings. The NUM members put on a brave face, many marching back . In 1972 and 1974, strikes shut down every coal mine in Britain, and a combination of solidarity strikes by the steel and railway unions and targeted picketing of coking works, ports and industrial sites brought the country to a standstill. The Miners' Strike of 1984 was a turning point in British history. It came about because of disagreements between the miners and the Government over pay; throughout Britain's industry there was a widespread hostility to the Tories' offers of pay. The 2014 film, which tells the real life tale of gay activists in London who decided to fundraise for striking miners in south Wales, is one of a number of . Only a quarter of the county's miners joined the national strike, according to the National Coal Mining Museum. British coal workers have called off a four-week strike following a 35% pay offer from the new Labour government in what is being seen as a resounding victory for the miners. As young Billy studies ballet, despite the objections of his dad and the derision of his community, the mining town in which he lives experiences relentless hardship and despair. . [16] Tom Swain, Labour MP to Derbyshire North East, remarked, "This could be the start of another Ulster in the Yorkshire coalfield. AudioHow do you solve a problem like cement? Under the National Power Loading Agreement, wages no longer varied from colliery to colliery so mineworkers were more likely to find a common cause to strike when there was discontent over pay. AudioDrift off to sleep with Michael Mosley, Vicious gangsterism in 1980s Glasgow. Perhaps the most impactful of all were Heath's tangles with the miners union, who went on strike once in 1972, and then again in 1974. 2 March 2020 . The General Strike 1926. On March 3rd, 1985, the National Union of Mineworkers, led by Arthurs Scargill, voted to return to work after a year-long strike, the longest and most bitter strike, and one that finished without an agreement. Miners' conditions improved during World War I and the immediate postwar period, when the mines were taken under government control and the demand for coal was high. [16] In the aftermath of the death, the picketing in the Doncaster area became more violent, with clashes reported with the NACODS members at Markham Main and Kilnhurst. People made up their minds in the first month of the strike and stuck to it.". . 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", Two miners from opposite sides meet for the first time since the strike. Margaret Thatcher and her impact on north-east England. Although she says she never resented anyone for not striking, when people treated her differently she thought: "You can get stuffed - you know something ducky, my husband is fighting for such as you. "Even now people ignore me if I say hello," says Yvonne Woodhead, 35 years since her husband decided to join miners across the UK in going on strike. By RudeCrudeUKs. The strike began on 9 January 1972 and ended on 28 February 1972, when the miners returned . around Doncaster) but also areas that were opposed to militancy. "The 1972 miners' strike: popular agency and industrial politics in Britain. **** To Nicholas Ridley's prescription, Thatcher had added the appointment of Peter Walker as energy secretary. Miners' strike, 1984-85. Industrial relations in the mining industry had long been fraught with contention. [2] The union had avoided making demands of Labour governments since the Second World War, and it had been largely inactive during a period of widespread pit closures under the first Wilson government. In his own study of the strike, The Enemy Within, Seamus Milne suggests that the 1984-5 miners strike is an episode which demands a revisionist reassessment, not least due to the evidence which emerged after the dispute suggesting that alternative accounts of the conflict were not wholly driven by in-built bias or the bitterness of defeat. She immediately jumped in the car to stop her husband David crossing the picket line, fearing for his life. Minutes of a meeting in 1985 show Leon Brittan then . Find professional Miners Strike videos and stock footage available for license in film, television, advertising and corporate uses. Only a quarter of the county's miners joined the national strike, according to the National Coal Mining Museum. ", Phillips, Jim. People made up their minds in the first month of the strike and stuck to it.". The decision led to lifelong feuds with those . Copy link. [20], An inquiry into miners' pay, chaired by Lord Wilberforce, was set up by the government in February 1972, as the strike was drawing to a close. The UK miners' strike of 1969 was an unofficial strike that involved 140 of the 307 collieries owned by the National Coal Board, including all collieries in the Yorkshire area. Read about our approach to external linking. The militant elements became more prominent in the late 1960s when the moderate leadership of the NUM had failed to win concessions from the first Wilson government. [5], Most of North Derbyshire was picketed out, but only five pits in Nottinghamshire were picketed out by the week ending on 24 October 1969. As the most divisive dispute in our recent history, the 1984-5 miners strike remains a spectre that continues to haunt our contemporary world. 3 key Thatcher policies to end the Miners Strike of 1984-85. Against 238,865. Striking miners lined the streets leading to pits in an attempt to stop their colleagues from going to work and, as tensions rose, a 24-year-old picket from Wakefield, David Jones, died hours after being hit by a brick in the Nottinghamshire town of Ollerton.

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