Miners strike of 1984-1985. Where did it go wrong?

[Bitter Ashes]

Something I've got a personal intrest in is the miners' strike in the mid 80's that saw the closures of the pits throughout the UK. While it was clearly a great sight to see solidarity ammoungst the miners, putting thier own jobs on the line to try save the miners they did not even know, it did go all horribly wrong in the end.

The strikers held firm against numerous batton charges repeated across the country. They stood up for miners they had never met. They did all this knowing that the goverment had engineered a welfare system to make thier families go hungry if they continued.

In return all the pits were closed. The public turned thier backs on the miners. A vicous smear campaign was waged against unionisation and a bitter resentment was rekindled that still lives on today.

What did the unions and/or strikers do wrong? Surely the whole country should have been horrified at how these people were treated and been inspired, not disgusted, by thier heroism. What steps should be taken to make sure that class action does not backfire like this again?

[Patchd]

I hear Scargill, while in charge of the NUM, sold out many workers before the Great Strike occurred. Can anyone elaborate on this please, I have heard of figures up to 50% of the workers had been sold out before the strike, is this true?

[Devrim]

I hear Scargill, while in charge of the NUM, sold out many workers before the Great Strike occurred. Can anyone elaborate on this please, I have heard of figures up to 50% of the workers had been sold out before the strike, is this true?

I am not sure what you are referring to here.

During the wildcat strike in 1981 when 50,000 workers were on strike against job losses, Scargill was called a 'scab' and a 'traitor' and at times needed a police escort.

Devrim

[pastradamus]

It was an absolute crime what that mad-dog ***** thatcher did to Scargill and Crew. In a way as I said before they remind me of the Levellers during the Cromwell period and you are indeed very correct to have interest in this struggle Ranma.

The Thatcherist propaganda war against the Miners is very interesting as its one of the only times over the past 40 years in Britain when we see mass public turing their back on workers. I have great interest in this word-war. This should be talked about in Jacob Richters topic concerning Mass media in the theory section in my belief.

[Pogue]

Well, Thatcher employed police form afar to brutally crush things.

The UDM was formed a scab union, which severely undermined the miners, making some of them in this scab union think if they didn't strike they'd keep their jobs. Of course, they didn't.

The fatc it went on for so long contributed, people get tired, demoralised, but no one gave up, but it certainly strains things.

Lack of major solidarity amongst the class, i.e. lack of blacklisting scab mines/resources by railway workers, etc. The electricians union helped scab as well.

Stockpiles of coal Thatcher had.

A whole book could be written on this and i am tired, so I'll leave you with the brief points above but I'll elaborate tommorow.

[Angry Young Man]

Margaret Thatcher's machiavellian prowess. That's what she used for pretty much everything she did. And her underling Kinnock helped alot too. Just like he did two years later in Liverpool.

[Psy]

The workers didn't escalate the class war in response to repression from the capitalist class, in other words those that make half a revolution only dig their own grave. The miners should have occupied the mines and fortified their positions (mines are pretty easy to defend even against the British army due to access to high explosive and the ability to hide high explosive charges on all approaches to the mines). Also if the miners strike turned into general occupations of parts London like in Paris 1968 it would have put the capitalists on the defensive.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I too am very interested in the subject Ranma. The miners' struggle represents the highest level of class struggle we have seen in this country in recent times.

[redarmyfaction38]

Well, Thatcher employed police form afar to brutally crush things.

The UDM was formed a scab union, which severely undermined the miners, making some of them in this scab union think if they didn't strike they'd keep their jobs. Of course, they didn't.

The fatc it went on for so long contributed, people get tired, demoralised, but no one gave up, but it certainly strains things.

Lack of major solidarity amongst the class, i.e. lack of blacklisting scab mines/resources by railway workers, etc. The electricians union helped scab as well.

Stockpiles of coal Thatcher had.

A whole book could be written on this and i am tired, so I'll leave you with the brief points above but I'll elaborate tommorow.
mmmm!
i remember the miners strike and was one of the millions of ordinary working class people that emptied their food cupboards of any food we didn't need to give to striking miners, i was one of many hundreds of thousands of activists that donated part of their wages every week to the striking miners.
this "lack of solidarity" is an absolute myth at ground level, railway workers refused to drive a train beneath a bridge with a banner declaring it an num picket line ffs!
it was the "usual suspects" that undermined and ALLOWED thatcher to defeat the miners, the labour party leadership, the tired trade union leaders tied to capitalism and "social democracy", more interested in mainting their position in "society" than furthering the interests of the peoplethat paid their wages.
the miners were actually a hairs breadth from winning when the strike finally collapsed.
thatcher had prepared well, she had used "govt. agencies" to recruit "disaffected" num members in the coal fields.
the udm split was planned and payed for.
the use of police from outside mining areas was forced upon thatcher, the local police commanders refused to use the tactics she demanded, they and their officers saw themselves as part of the community and recognised they had to live in those communities long after the strike would finish.
hidden history mate.
whilst we're on the subject of maggie f ing thatcher she was one step away from losing the falklands war too, the british armed forces were wel short of supplies and on the verge of having no ammo to fight with when argentina surrendered, not leftist propaganda, the facts supplied by miltary personnel that actualy had to do the fighting.
ain't history a *****, if we knew then what we know now.....

[redarmyfaction38]

mmmm!
i remember the miners strike and was one of the millions of ordinary working class people that emptied their food cupboards of any food we didn't need to give to striking miners, i was one of many hundreds of thousands of activists that donated part of their wages every week to the striking miners.
this "lack of solidarity" is an absolute myth at ground level, railway workers refused to drive a train beneath a bridge with a banner declaring it an num picket line ffs!
it was the "usual suspects" that undermined and ALLOWED thatcher to defeat the miners, the labour party leadership, the tired trade union leaders tied to capitalism and "social democracy", more interested in mainting their position in "society" than furthering the interests of the peoplethat paid their wages.
the miners were actually a hairs breadth from winning when the strike finally collapsed.
thatcher had prepared well, she had used "govt. agencies" to recruit "disaffected" num members in the coal fields.
the udm split was planned and payed for.
the use of police from outside mining areas was forced upon thatcher, the local police commanders refused to use the tactics she demanded, they and their officers saw themselves as part of the community and recognised they had to live in those communities long after the strike would finish.
hidden history mate.
whilst we're on the subject of maggie f ing thatcher she was one step away from losing the falklands war too, the british armed forces were wel short of supplies and on the verge of having no ammo to fight with when argentina surrendered, not leftist propaganda, the facts supplied by miltary personnel that actualy had to do the fighting.
ain't history a *****, if we knew then what we know now.....
other bits
scargill went to num national executive meetings with the intention of speaking out for a national ballot and found himself sidelined by the ruling executive because the decision had all ready been taken at conference to strike if any pit was threatened by closure.
scargill acted like any true trade union leader should do and despite his personal reservations threw himself totally into trying to win the strike.
rev. left organisations like the militant tendancy also took this line, whilst thinking that a national ballot would be the best course of action in the face of capitalist propaganda, they felt accepting the democratic decision of the members of the num was more important and fought tooth and nail to support and defend that democratic workers decision.

[Old Man Diogenes]

I heard that Scargill didn't stick to Union rules and rather than hold a ballot on the strike like I assumed you were supposed to he just called it.

[brigadista]

mmmm!
i remember the miners strike and was one of the millions of ordinary working class people that emptied their food cupboards of any food we didn't need to give to striking miners, i was one of many hundreds of thousands of activists that donated part of their wages every week to the striking miners.
this "lack of solidarity" is an absolute myth at ground level, railway workers refused to drive a train beneath a bridge with a banner declaring it an num picket line ffs!
it was the "usual suspects" that undermined and ALLOWED thatcher to defeat the miners, the labour party leadership, the tired trade union leaders tied to capitalism and "social democracy", more interested in mainting their position in "society" than furthering the interests of the peoplethat paid their wages.
the miners were actually a hairs breadth from winning when the strike finally collapsed.
thatcher had prepared well, she had used "govt. agencies" to recruit "disaffected" num members in the coal fields.
the udm split was planned and payed for.
the use of police from outside mining areas was forced upon thatcher, the local police commanders refused to use the tactics she demanded, they and their officers saw themselves as part of the community and recognised they had to live in those communities long after the strike would finish.
hidden history mate.
whilst we're on the subject of maggie f ing thatcher she was one step away from losing the falklands war too, the british armed forces were wel short of supplies and on the verge of having no ammo to fight with when argentina surrendered, not leftist propaganda, the facts supplied by miltary personnel that actualy had to do the fighting.
ain't history a *****, if we knew then what we know now.....


this is the truth - and a lot of the metropolitan police paid their mortgages from the money they earned policing the strike.

may thatcher burn in hell...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RedArmyFaction has got it right, but this from Ranma is incorrect:


In return all the pits were closed. The public turned thier backs on the miners. A vicous smear campaign was waged against unionisation and a bitter resentment was rekindled that still lives on today.

Many pits were closed, but not all. The vast bulk were closed seven or eight years later, but the UK was on the verge of a general strike in defence of the miners over this. Even solicitors were writing to the national press calling for a general strike, so wdespread was the support! But the TUC backed down (for the usual scab reasons) so as not to embarrass the Labout Party Leadership.

Here is what I have posted in another thread on this:


I was invloved in this strike, and much of what you say is 100% accurate. It is also worth noting that the decision to strike was taken at a national delegate conference, and thus was fully democratic according to union rules.

Also, had Scargill gone about organising his pickets like he did in Yorkshire in 1972, where he by-passed the union bureaucrats in other unions, and spoke directly to the rank and file (this is what in the end closed Saltley), they'd have won this strike.

http://www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk/Arthur%20Scargill%20Recent%20Speeches%20and%20Meet ings.htm

But he forgot all about this 12 years later!

Had the NUM adopted the tactics from 1972, they'd have won this strike without the Nottinghamshire pits.

Moreover, had the NUM won a national ballot, there is no reason to suppose Nottingham would have respected it, any more than they respected the delegate vote to strike.

Here is one account of the closure of Saltley in 1972:


On the 10th of February 1972 approx 3,000 striking miners who were seeking a better wage deal were joined at the gates of the Saltley coke depot by an estimated 150,000 Birmingham car workers and other trade unionists who had marched under trade union banners down from Washwood Heath and from the city centre.

Despite the presence of over 800 police they forced the closure of the gates of the Saltley coke depot to prevent lorries from all over the country from collecting coke from what was then the only large supply of fuel coke left in the country.

Anyone who witnessed those scenes,as I did, will never forget them

http://forums.sundaymercury.net/viewtopic.php?p=5522

This witness does not tell us that Scargill had gone directly to these workers and spoke to them at mass meetings in the weeks and days running up to this.

The Police chief at the scene rang the Home Secretary and told him he could not keep the gates open unless the government deployed troops.

Fearing a general strike, the Tory government backed-down. The strike was won.

The 1984 strike was Thatcher's revenge.

Here's Tony Cliff on the 1972 strike:


Tony Cliff
Patterns of mass strike
(Part 3)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Background to the 1972 miners’ strike
The level of activity and solidarity of both miners and non-miners during this strike cannot be properly understood without a look at the background of the preceding years.

The run-up to the 1972 strike was exactly the opposite of the 1926 strike – a long period of rising workers’ militancy on a large scale. This was based on the two decades after the war when shop stewards’ organisation went from strength to strength. For a whole generation workers did not experience serious defeat comparable with the bitter and exhausting defeats of the twenties. Workers’ living standards improved continuously. The struggle for improved pay and conditions was led by shop stewards’ committees and similar rank- and-file organisations. The workers developed a new tradition of ‘do-it-yourself’ reformism, that expressed their growing self-reliance and self-assertiveness. Throughout the period unofficial strikes dominated the field of industrial relations. As many as 95% of all strikes were unofficial. [82] The strikes were by and large of short duration and ended in workers’ victories.

The 1950s were years of increasing wealth and full employment. British capitalism, however, was trapped in a deepening, if not so obvious, contradiction: its prosperity went hand in hand with the long-term decline of the British economy vis-à-vis the world economy. Intermittent crises demonstrated this. Movements towards economic expansion involved deterioration in the balance of payments which in turn led to a loss of confidence in sterling, and to foreign exchange crises. ‘Stop-go’ was the rule.

This situation led one British government after another to try and impose an incomes policy. In 1962, for the first time, the Macmillan government introduced a pay pause which was largely voluntary. In 1965 the Labour government operated a stronger and more detailed form of control over pay, through the National Board of Prices and Incomes to which a total of 170 prices arid incomes references were made. To start with the incomes policy was voluntary, but in 1966 statutory elements were imposed. In the sterling crisis of July 1966 a complete statutory freeze on pay was imposed. This was followed by a series of measures giving ministers the power to delay the implementation of individual pay agreements for varying periods while these were investigated by the NBPI. In the event of an adverse report by the Board further delaying powers could be employed.

A continuous rise in prices moved workers to greater and greater resistance to the government’s incomes policy. By 1969 the government was forced to abandon most of the statutory apparatus, and rely instead on voluntary agreements alone.

When elected in 1970, Ted Heath entirely repealed the incomes policy and dissolved the NBPI. He intended to rely on an increased level of unemployment, greater resistance to public sector pay claims and the proposed Industrial Relations Act. When it became clear the strategy was not working, the Tory government in 1972 returned to an incomes policy with even stronger statutory control than the Labour government one.

The workers reacted. To the extent that incomes policy was effective, it dammed up claims from several groups, particularly in the public sector, that had fallen behind those in the private sector. The period was also one of sharply rising prices, first as a consequence of the devaluation of sterling in November 1967, and then from the increases in world commodity prices which were to dominate the early 1970s.

In 1969 a prolonged and ultimately successful major strike of local authority workers took place. Other workers went on strike the same year: lorry drivers, Ford workers, dockers, miners, teachers. This really was a wages explosion, and it was called so. In 1970 other big strikes and industrial actions took place: by local government manual workers, Vauxhall workers, miners, electricity workers and teachers. In 1971 Ford workers, electricity workers and post office workers came out on strike; in 1972 miners, dockers and building Workers.

From 1966 onwards governments, both Labour and Tory, moved towards a policy of imposing a new legal framework of industrial relations. Wilson was forced to retreat in 1969, when In Place of Strife was killed by union resistance. When returned to power the Conservatives introduced an Industrial Relations Act that became law in 1971. Agitation for strikes against the Industrial Relations Act led to a one-day unofficial strike in December 1970 involving 600,000 workers, primarily from the motor and printing industries.

In February 1971 a march against the Bill attracted 130,000 workers; in March some 2 million workers came out on strike against it. As political strikes are not officially counted as strikes, one has to rely on estimates for their size. One such estimate is that the strikes, official and unofficial, against the Industrial Relations Act in 1970-71 involved twice as many workers as the entire year’s industrial disputes. [83]

A new method of industrial action took hold on a large scale – factory occupations. It started in August 1971 with 8,500 workers of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders undertaking a work-in. It was followed by over 200 occupations of factories, workshops, shipyards, and offices during the following 18 months.

Colin Crouch summed up very well how government intervention – incomes policy, industrial relations legislation, the push towards productivity deals, etc – forced workers to generalise their own struggles: ‘In part it has been the very reforms designed to reinstitutionalise local action – incomes policy, reforms to bargaining structures and payment systems, productivity bargaining, and industrial relations reform – which have broken the local isolation of militant action and given it wider repercussions both economically and politically. The growth of shop-floor militancy initially produced a government response which forced industrial relations to become intensely politicised.’ [84]

This was the background to a period in which the NUM pursued a generally conciliatory policy towards the Labour governments of 1945-51 and 1964-70 and passive compliance towards the Tory governments of 1951-64. Throughout the thirteen years of Tory rule pits were systematically closed. The NUM leaders, as well as the members, believed that an end would be put to these closures when Labour took office. But in 1964-70 the Labour government massively reduced the labour force in the pits. During thirteen years of Tory government, 1951-64, the number of miners declined by 175,600; while during the six years of the Labour government it declined by 211,900 to a mere 305,100 workers.

The NUM leaders no more opposed Labour’s wages control than they did pit closures. Again and again miners were trapped by the Labour government’s incomes policy. In 1948 miners’ wages were 29 per cent above the average pay of workers in manufacturing industries. By 1960 it was 7.4 per cent, and by 1970 miners were earning 3.1 per cent less than the average worker in manufacturing. Added to this, in 1966 came the impact of the National Power Loading Agreement. The NPLA ended piece work and secured the equalisation of wages throughout the coal industry, so that for example, the miners in South Wales would be paid the same rate for the job as the miners in Nottinghamshire or Yorkshire. The NPLA was gradually implemented between 1966 and 1971: ‘The effect of NPLA was to equalise pay, but in doing so, low pay was “nationalised” and the unforeseen effect of NPLA was to “nationalise” dissatisfaction over wages throughout the NUM’. [85]

The angriest miners were in Yorkshire. Up to the 1960s pit closures were confined mainly to peripheral coal fields which learnt to live for a decade with this phenomenon. Yorkshire – the largest Area coal field – felt the full impact in the mid-1960s, and it had a tremendous psychological effect on the miners. In 1967 alone 9 pits were closed in Yorkshire. Furthermore in 1967-68 the miners there were in the unique position of having their wages held back twice:

once by incomes policy, then by the implementation of the NPLA. There were large unofficial strikes in Yorkshire in 1955 and 1961.

The 1955 strike was concerned with inadequate price lists and the tardiness of their revision. It began at Markham Main (Armthorpe) and spread quickly so that after a few days there were 44,660 miners on strike.

The 1961 strike, though starting in North Yorkshire, was centred in the Doncaster area where the Brodsworth branch called on the Doncaster Panel to call a strike over piece rates, which the Panel duly did. The strike largely failed to spread despite the efforts of flying pickets, although Doncaster itself stayed out for some three months. [86]

Of even greater impact was the explosion of miners’ frustration in 1969. The issue round which the strike broke out was the working hours of surface workers. On the morning of Monday 13 October, every pit but one in Yorkshire was idle. The remaining pit came out by the Tuesday: ‘The strike spread from Yorkshire, its main base, to Scotland, South Wales, Derbyshire, Kent, Nottingham and the Midlands until it involved 130,000 miners from 140 pits. It lasted from 13th to 27th October, 1969. It spread despite poor communications between the Areas.’ [87]

Another unofficial strike, this time round wages, broke out in 1970. Again the Doncaster Panel was at the centre of it. The strike spread from Yorkshire to South Wales and Scotland – altogether 103,000 miners went on strike. [88] Andrew Taylor writes: ‘The importance of these strikes was that they were organised by the branch leadership via the Panel system.’ [89]

The rising rank-and-file pressure shaped a new leadership in the Yorkshire NUM. Between 1947 and 1973 the area was controlled by the right. As late as April 1968 a Yorkshire area conference of the NUM voted against industrial action over pit closures by a show of hands. The decision of the conference was put to a branch vote which approved it by 1,671 votes to 210. [90] Still, for many years there were groups of militant miners burrowing away. It is interesting to note that in the Yorkshire Area Vice-Presidential elections in 1961, Jock Kane, the Communist, received 23,797 votes, not far behind the right-wing winner, Jack Leigh, who got 29,797 votes. [91]

In 1967 the Barnsley Miners Forum was founded. It met monthly and acted as a ginger group of branch lay officials. It played an important role in standing up to the right-wing leadership of the Yorkshire NUM, and initiated the 1969 and 1970 unofficial mass strikes.

In 1972, however, the miners won not only by their own efforts but by the help they received from other workers. These groups, above all, were the power workers and the Birmingham engineers. What was the experience of power workers prior to 1972 that made them so willing to aid the miners’ strike industrially?

In September 1967 the Prices and Incomes Board, in reply to a request for a 5 per cent wage rise put forward by the unions in the electricity supply industry, offered 3.7 per cent, with heavy new productivity strings attached. The workers responded by threatening a strike. In a few stations it even came to actual strike action, and they won a wage rise of 10 per cent. [92]

Again, power workers participated in the wages explosion of 1969, and, through unofficial activity, again got a 10 per cent wage rise. [93] In 1970 they came back for another bite at the cherry. At various unofficial meetings up and down the country in the summer of 1970, the demand came from the rank and file for a payrise of £10 a week, without string. In November the unions put forward a claim for £5.80. The employers responded with an offer of £1.75, raised later to £2. The unions therefore began a work-to-rule and ban on overtime. Frank Chapple explained that one reason for refusing arbitration was that ‘it would undoubtedly have led to strikes and loss of all control of our members in industry.’

The rest can be read here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1985/patterns/part3.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1985/patterns/index.htm

http://www.revleft.com/vb/miners-strike-remembering-t105054/index.html

[Bitter Ashes]

I've actualy been considering paying a visit to the National Mining Museum over in Wakefield. Ex-miners do tours of the pits, so as you can imagine I've got a tonne of questions to ask about working conditions, the treatment of the workers and, of course, the strikes.

I was wondering if anyone else was intrested in doing a little day trip over there too?

[Trystan]

The strike failed because of the right-wing of the TUC and Labour Party. I don't think a ballot would have made much of a difference. Thatcher and co didn't care about democracy (hence her campaign against the unions), and it was quite clear that the miners backed the strike. The "should have been a ballot" line was a PR tool used by scabs and the right-wing press.

[ariseyeworkersfromthy]

A number of years after the strike the last remaining pits were closed.

The scab union went with them.

Some tories and the daily mail called foul but its was too late even the scabs could,nt save their jobs.

The pits closed.