UK miners' strike (1984–1985)

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The miners' strike of 1984/1985 was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trades union movement. It was also seen as a major political and ideological victory for Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party.

Coal was a nationalised industry and, as in most of Europe, was heavily subsidised. A number of mines in the United Kingdom were profitable and remained open after the strike, including some operating as of 2007^[1]. There were also a number of mines that were unprofitable and the government wanted to close. The viability of many of these mines was called into question but the government in a hurry to avoid any further losses closed many before reports were collated instead using temporary offers of increased redundency pay to effectively blackmail miners into voting in favour of pit closures. In addition, all the mines required efficiency improvements in order to attain or increase their profitability, which was to be done by means of increased mechanisation. Many unions resisted this as it would necessarily result in job cuts.

The strike became a symbolic struggle, since the miners' union was one of the strongest in the country. The strike ended with the defeat of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) by the Conservative government, which then proceeded to consolidate its free market programme. The political power of the NUM was broken permanently. The dispute exposed deep divisions in British society and caused considerable bitterness, especially in Northern England and in South Wales where several mining communities were destroyed. Ten deaths resulted from events around the strike, which is exceptional in the history of British industrial relations.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Pit closures announced 1.2 Action begins 1.3 The question of a pre-strike ballot 1.4 NACODS 1.5 "Scabs and blacklegs" 1.6 Government action 1.7 Observation of the strike 1.8 Orgreave and other confrontations 1.9 The strike fades 1.10 The formal end 1.11 Consequences 1.12 MI5 "counter-subversion" 1.13 Public opinion and the Media 2 Variation in observing the strike 3 After the strike 4 The strike in fiction 5 Popular songs about the strike 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] History

A strike nearly occurred in 1981, when the government had a similar plan to close twenty-three pits, though the threat of a strike was then enough to force the government to back down.^[2] It was widely believed that a confrontation had only been averted in the short-run and the Yorkshire miners passed a resolution that a strike should take place if any pit was threatened with closure for reasons other than exhaustion or geological difficulties. In 1982 the members accepted a Government offer of a 9.3 percent raise, rejecting their leaders' call for a strike authorization. ^[3] In 1983, the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appointed Ian MacGregor as head of the National Coal Board (the UK statutory corporation that controlled coal mining). He had previously been head of the British Steel Corporation, which, according to one of Thatcher's biographers, he had turned from one of the least efficient steel-makers in Europe to one of the most efficient, nearly bringing the company into profit.^[4] However, this was achieved at the expense of a halving of the workforce in the space of two years. This reputation raised the expectation that jobs would be cut on a similar scale in mining, and confrontations between MacGregor and the leader of the miners, Arthur Scargill, seemed inevitable.

[edit] Pit closures announced

In 1984, the National Coal Board announced that an agreement reached after the 1974 miners' strike had become obsolete, and that in order to rationalise government subsidisation of industry they intended to close 20 coal mines. Twenty thousand jobs would be lost, and many communities in the north of England and in Wales would lose their primary source of employment. Although not widely known at the time, the Thatcher government had prepared against a repeat of the effective '74 industrial action by stock-piling coal, converting some power stations to burn oil, and recruiting fleets of road hauliers to transport coal in case sympathetic railwaymen went on strike to support the miners.

[edit] Action begins

Sensitive to the impact of the proposed closures in their own areas, miners in various coal fields began strike action. In the Yorkshire coal field strike action began when workers at the Manvers complex walked out over the lack of consultation. Over 6,000 miners were already on strike when a local ballot led to strike action from 5 March at Cortonwood Colliery at Brampton Bierlow, and at Bullcliffe Wood colliery, near Ossett. What had prompted the 5 March action was the further announcement by the Coal Board that five pits were to be subject to "accelerated closure" within just five weeks; the other three were at Herrington in County Durham, Snowdown in Kent and Polmaise in Scotland. On the next day pickets from the Yorkshire area appeared at pits in the Nottinghamshire coal field (one of those least threatened by pit closures). 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.

[edit] The question of a pre-strike ballot

The issue of whether a ballot was needed for a national strike was very complicated after the actions of previous NUM leader Joe Gormley. When wage reforms were rejected by two national ballots, Gormley declared that each region could decide on these reforms on their own accord; his decisions had been upheld by courts on appeal. Scargill did not call a ballot for national strike action, perhaps due to uncertainty over the outcome. Instead, he attempted to start the strike through allowing each region to call its own strikes, imitating Gormley's strategy over wage reforms; it was argued that 'safe' regions should not be allowed to ballot other regions out of jobs. This decision was upheld by another vote five weeks into the strike.^[5] Many miners, especially at the threatened pits, were also opposed to a ballot as they take some time to organise and campaign for, and there was some urgency due to the programme of accelerated closure within five weeks. There was a fear that strike supporters would refuse to take part in a ballot. Critics point out that his policy of letting each region decide seemed inconsistent with the threatened expulsion of the Nottinghamshire branch after 20,000 out of 27,000 miners in the county voted against the strike.

The Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher enforced a recent law that required unions to ballot members on strike action. On 19 July 1984, Thatcher said in Parliament that giving in to the miners would be surrendering the rule of parliamentary democracy to the rule of the mob; she referred to the striking miners as "the enemy within" who did not share the values of the British people. "We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty". On the day after the Orgreave pickets of 29 May, which saw 5000 pickets engaged in violent clashes with the police, Thatcher said in a speech:

"I must tell you that what we have got is an attempt to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, and it must not succeed. It must not succeed. There are those who are using violence and intimidation to impose their will on others who do not want it.... The rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob."^[6]

Arthur Scargill's response to the incident was:

"We've had riot shields, we've had riot gear, we've had police on horseback charging into our people, we've had people hit with truncheons and people kicked to the ground.... The intimidation and the brutality that has been displayed are something reminiscent of a Latin American state."^[7]

In August, two miners from Manton colliery who protested that the strike was not "official" without a ballot took the NUM to court. In September the High Court ruled that the NUM had breached its own constitution by calling a strike without first holding a ballot. Scargill was fined £1,000 (which was paid for him by an anonymous donor) and the NUM was fined £200,000. When the union refused to pay its fine, its assets were ordered to be sequestrated but they had been transferred abroad.^[8] By the end of January 1985 around £5 million of NUM assets had been recovered.^[9]

As a result of this decision, miners were not entitled to state benefits, thus forcing the majority of miners and their families to survive the strike on handouts, donations from the European "food mountain" and other charities. Being without benefits had more serious consequences for the miners and their families. Their children were not entitled to free school meals or social security help with school uniforms. Poverty and hunger became rife in the mining heartlands. This forced many miners into a dilemma: return to work, and be viewed as a "scab"; or maintain support and live primarily on donations, which is what the majority did.

A wide network of several hundred miners' support groups were set up, often led by miners' "wives and girlfriends groups". These support groups organised thousands of collections outside supermarkets, communal kitchens, benefit concerts etc. in an attempt to help the miners to win the strike.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) did not support the NUM, seeming to support Thatcher's call for a secret ballot. Solidarity action was taken, however, by railworkers and by dockers, who were both threatened with dismissal if they refused to handle coal. The Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU), an electricians' union, actively opposed the strike; Ian MacGregor's autobiography detailed how its leaders supplied the government with valuable information that allowed the strike to be defeated. Steelworkers' unions did not support the strike, which was widely resented by the miners, after the support that they had given the steel strike in 1980 and after concessions were made by the NUM on deliveries of coke to steel works during the strike. The National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers (NACODS) nearly went on strike in September; this was one point where the balance seemed to be tipping in favour of the miners, but Scargill's subsequent contempt of court orders caused the union to be fined and lost wider support. MacGregor later admitted that, had NACODS gone ahead with their strike, a compromise would probably have been forced on the Coal Board. Files later made public showed that the Government had an informant inside NACODS, passing them information about the negotiations.^[10]

[edit] NACODS

The fact that NACODS did not strike, created an even worse situation in the mines themselves — with NACODS deputies being labelled as "scabs" by union hardliners. On 23 October, 1,000 pickets attempted to prevent a sole bath attendant from entering the threatened Emley Moor colliery.^[11] Some of the engineers felt that going on strike would actually work against the cause, as geological problems could develop that would prevent the pit from reopening and defeat the whole goal of opposing closures; however, hardline strikers were not always sympathetic to this line of argument. The first two pits to close in 1985 were Barrow colliery at Worsborough Bridge and Acton Hall colliery at Featherstone, and they were both closed not due to being "uneconomic" but due to being unsafe for the miners to return to work.

[edit] "Scabs and blacklegs"

The refusal of some miners to support the strike was seen as a betrayal by those who did go on strike. As Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire share a boundary, and as the former was generally observing the strike and the latter generally opposing it, the scene was set for many bitter confrontations in the area. Instances of violence directed against working miners by striking miners were reported. In some cases, this extended to attacks on the property, the families and the pets of working miners.^[12] Many miners were also very hostile to any journalists or reporters who came near pitheads. The Sun newspaper took a very anti-strike position during the strike, as did the Daily Mail, and even the Daily Mirror became hostile as the strike went on. Only left-wing newspapers such as the Morning Star, Class War, Workers Power, Militant, Socialist Organiser and Socialist Worker were constantly supportive of the striking miners.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Government action

The Government mobilised the police (including Metropolitan Police squads from London) to attempt to stop further attempts by the pickets to stop miners who wanted to work (some claim this involved intimidation and violence^{Reference Needed}). Police attempted to stop pickets travelling between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, an action which led to many protests.[1] The government claimed these were to safeguard individual civil rights, many miners have seen this as class warfare, with the police as the 'special bodies of armed men' that Friedrich Engels described.

During the industrial action 11,291 people were arrested and 8,392 charged with offences such as breach of the peace and obstructing the highway. Former striking miners have alleged that soldiers were used as police on the picket lines, though no evidence of this has been produced. In many former mining areas antipathy towards the police remains strong. The Government was criticised^[13] for abusing its power when it ruled that local police might be too sympathetic to the miners to take action against the strike, and instead brought in forces from distant counties. The MPs for Doncaster North and Castleford and Pontefract both raised concerns in Parliament over suggestions that the police had asked miners held in custody about their political allegiances.

[edit] Observation of the strike

At the beginning, the strike was almost universally observed in the coalfields of Yorkshire, Scotland, the North-East and Kent. Lancashire had originally been lukewarm on the strike, but, ignoring the wishes of the working members, its leaders announced on 22 March that the strike was official.^[14] South Wales contained many miners resentful over how their previous attempts to launch strikes in support of the steel workers and health workers had been largely unsupported, but there were enough pits in the region under threat of closure to gain momentum for the strike in the area. Support was less strong in the Midlands and North Wales. In Nottinghamshire most of the pits had modern equipment and had large coal reserves; most of the Nottinghamshire miners remained at work and the Nottinghamshire NUM disagreed with the decision to launch a national strike without a ballot. The 1977 industry reforms had given Nottinghamshire miners larger salaries than workers in any of the other counties and they were unwilling to give up their daily pay. Many within the NUM condemned them as strikebreakers, and the Nottinghamshire branch, heavily aided by the Thatcher government, eventually broke away to form the core of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. Since the end of the strike the UDM and the NUM have been involved in numerous court cases concerning financial irregularities.

[edit] Orgreave and other confrontations

A widely reported clash during the Miners' Strike took place at the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham on 18 June 1984. This confrontation between striking miners and police, dubbed by some 'The Battle of Orgreave', was the subject of a TV re-enactment in 2001, conceived and organised by artist Jeremy Deller and recorded by Mike Figgis for Channel 4. Violence flared after police on horse-back charged the miners with truncheons drawn and inflicted serious injuries upon several individuals. In 1991, the South Yorkshire Police were forced to pay out £425,000 to thirty-nine miners who were arrested in the events at the incident.^[15]

Other less well known, but equally bloody riots also took place, for example, in Maltby, South Yorkshire.^[16] These confrontations contained organised police lines including charges by police and police mounted on horseback. In some cases miners organised themselves against this.

[edit] The strike fades

Events that prompted the end of the strike included a brutal assault on a working miner in Castleford in November, the manslaughter of a taxi driver escorting a working miner to work in South Wales in December, and the distraction of attention to the famine in Ethiopia. The strike failed to have the widespread impact of earlier stoppages which had led to blackouts and power cuts in the 1970s; electricity companies were able to maintain supplies throughout the winter, the time of biggest demand.^[17]

As the strike went on, a series of media reports cast doubt on the integrity of senior NUM officials. There were allegations that Scargill had met with Libyan agents in Paris,^[18] and the Daily Mirror and TV programme "The Cook Report" claimed in 1990 that Scargill and the NUM had received money from the Libyan government; this was particularly damaging coming soon after the murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London. Roy Greenslade, the Mirror's editor at the time, later said he believes his paper's allegations were false even though Scargill never sued over any of the stories.^[19]

It was also claimed that Arthur Scargill diverted money donated by Russian miners during the strike. The NUM received payments from the trade unions of Afghanistan (which was Soviet-occupied at the time). Soviet miners who sent money to the NUM would not have been able to attain convertible currency without the support of the Government of the Soviet Union and Thatcher claims she has seen documentary evidence that suggests that Soviet-leader Mikhail Gorbachev authorised these payments.^[20]

The hint of a link obviously tarred Scargill and yet trust in him amongst striking miners never seemed to wane. Scargill was perceived as a militant hero to the unions,^[21] and as a Marxist thug by some of the mainstream press. Scargill always denied these accusations and accused the government of fueling a smear campaign. However, the ex-head of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington said in her autobiography, "We in MI5 limited our investigations to those who were using the strike for subversive purposes."^[22] The union's funds had also run too low to pay for pickets' transportation and many miners had been unable to pay for heating over the winter. Some mining families resorted to scavenging for coal on slag heaps, a futile task as most of the "slag" was fool's gold and mining effluence. Many found themselves arrested for trespass and theft at times.

[edit] The formal end

The strike ended on 3 March 1985, nearly a year after it had begun. Some workers had returned to work of their own accord, a symbolic victory for the Government, although ministers later admitted that the figures of returnees were inflated. In order to save the union, the NUM voted, by a tiny margin, to return to work without a new agreement with management. In the special conference that ended the strike, only Kent voted to carry on. Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and South Derbyshire did not send any delegates to the conference.

The end of the strike was felt as a terrible blow to loyal NUM members, though many understood that the extreme poverty being suffered after a year without wages was difficult to hold. Indeed, in many areas striking miners made a distinction between those who had returned to work after only a couple of months strike, and those who felt forced to return to work for the sake of their children, many months later.

In several pits, miners' wives groups organised the distribution of carnations at the gates on the day the miners went back, the flower that symbolises the hero. Many pits marched back to work heads high behind brass bands.

[edit] Consequences

David Wilkie was a British taxi driver killed on 30 November 1984. He had been taking a non-striking miner to work in the Merthyr Vale Colliery in Merthyr, South Wales when two striking miners dropped a concrete post onto his car from a road bridge above. He died at the scene. The two miners served a prison sentence for manslaughter.

Six pickets died during the strike and three young men, all less than 16, died from picking coal in the winter. The deaths of pickets David Jones and Joe Green continue to this day to be viewed with suspicion. Jones was killed in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, by a flying brick during fighting between police, pickets, and non-striking miners,^[23] while Green was hit by a truck while picketing at Ferrybridge power station in Yorkshire.^[14] The NUM names its memorial lectures after the two.^[24]

The impact of the strike was nowhere near as hard-hitting as previous strikes such as those of the early 1970s. With most homes equipped with oil or gas central heating and the railways long since converted to diesel and electricity, the only remaining significant sector of Britain's national infrastructure that was still reliant upon coal was the National Grid. The problem of potential power-shortages as a result of a coal strike had been recognised by the Thatcher government which insisted that Britain's coal-fired power stations create their own stockpiles of coal which would keep them running throughout any industrial action. This policy turned out to be incredibly successful during the miner's strike as the power stations were able to keep production going even through the winter of 1984-85. As a result of this it is arguable that the only people who suffered or lost out as a result of the strike were the miners themselves.

During the strike many pits permanently lost their customers. Much of the immediate problem facing the industry was due to the economic recession in the early 1980s. However, there was also extensive competition within the world coal market as well as a concerted move towards oil and gas for power production. The Government's own policy, known as the Ridley Plan was to reduce Britain's reliance on coal; they also claimed that coal could be imported from Australia, America and Colombia more cheaply than it could be extracted from beneath Britain.^[25] The strike subsequently emboldened the NCB to accelerate the closure of many pits on economic grounds.

Football hooliganism, another big social issue of the mid-1980s in England, saw several vitriolic rivalries between supporters of clubs on either side of the strike. As most Nottinghamshire miners did not strike, the county's football teams often became the bitter enemies of Yorkshire and Derbyshire sides^{[original research?]}; the local derby between Chesterfield and Mansfield Town often saw running battles between the supporters, with Mansfield nicknamed the 'scabs' by many Chesterfield fans. There was also rivalry in the divide between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, as Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest were the biggest and best supported clubs in the area.

[edit] MI5 "counter-subversion"

Dame Stella Rimington (Director-General of MI5, 1992 – 1996) published an autobiography in 2001 in which she revealed MI5 'counter-subversion' exercises against the NUM and the striking miners, which included the tapping of union leaders' phones. However, she denied that the agency had informers in the NUM, specifically denying that then chief executive Roger Windsor had been an agent.^[26]

[edit] Public opinion and the Media

Public opinion during the strike was divided and varied greatly in different regions. Overall, the government generally had more support than the miners.

When asked in a Gallup poll in July 1984 whether their sympathies lay mainly with the employers or the miners, 40% said employers; 33% were for the miners; 19% were for neither and 8% did not know. When asked the same question in December 5 – 10 1984, 51% had most sympathy for the employers; 26% for the miners; 18% for neither and 5% did not know.^[27] When asked in July 1984 whether they approved or disapproved of the methods used by the miners, 15% approved; 79% disapproved and 6% did not know. When asked the same question in December 5 – 10 1984, 7% approved; 88% disapproved and 5% did not know.^[27] In July 1984, when asked whether they thought the miners were using responsible or irresponsible methods, 12% said responsible; 78% said irresponsible and 10% did not know. When asked the same question in August 1984, 9% said responsible; 84% said irresponsible and 7% did not know.^[27]

The media at the time however made no serious attempt to cover the NUMs economic arguments until after the strike had ended.^[28] The government's public relations machine and the NCB worked closely with the establishment and had access to effectively unlimited resources which had the effect of suppressing these economic arguments. Towers, writing in the Industrial Relations Journal immediately after the strike in 1985, gives several explanations as to why this occurred. "One explanation ... was the obsessive reporting of the 'violence' of generally relatively unarmed men and some women who, in the end, offered no serious challenge to the truncheons, shields and horses of a well-organised, optimally deployed police force."^[28]

Socialist groups also claimed that the mainstream media deliberately misrepresented the miners' strike, saying of The Sun's reporting of the strike: "The day-to-day reporting involved more subtle attacks, or a biased selection of facts and a lack of alternative points of view. These things arguably had a far bigger negative effect on the miners' cause".^[29][30]

[edit] Variation in observing the strike

Levels of Solidarity in the 1984-85 strike by area From Miners on Strike, Andrew J. Richards, 1996.

Area	Manpower	% on strike 19/11/84	% on strike 14/2/85	% on strike 1/3/85
Cokeworks	4,500	95.6	73	65
Kent	3,000	95.9	95	93
Lancashire	6,500	61.5	49	38
Leicestershire	1,900	10.5	10	10
Midlands	19,000	32.3	15	23
North Derbyshire	10,500	66.7	44	40
North-East	23,000	95.5	70	60
North Wales	1,000	35	10	10
Nottinghamshire	30,000	20	14	22
Scotland	13,100	93.9	75	69
South Derbyshire	3,000	11	11	11
South Wales	21,500	99.6	98	93
Workshops	9,000	55.6	-	50
Yorkshire	56,000	97.3	90	83
NATIONAL	196,000	73.7	64	60

No figures available for the 1000 N.C.B. staff employees.

[edit] After the strike

The coal industry was finally privatised in December 1994 to create a firm named "R.J.B. Mining", now known as UK Coal. Between the end of the strike and privatisation, pit closures continued with a particularly intense group of closures in the early '90s. There were 15 former British Coal deep mines left in production at the time of privatisation,^[31] however by March 2005 there were only 8 major deep mines left.^[32] Since then, the last pit in Northumberland, Ellington Colliery at Ellington, has closed whilst pits at Rossington and Harworth have been mothballed. During the strike, Scargill had constantly claimed that the government had a long-term plan to reduce the industry in this way. The miners' will to resist deteriorated rapidly and there was a very apathetic response to the intensive period of closures in the early 1990s, despite evidence that there was much more sympathy for the miners then than in 1984.^{[citation needed]}

Nottinghamshire miners had hoped that their pits were safe, but they too were mostly closed in the 1985-1994 period. This was widely resented as a betrayal of the promises that had been made to working miners in the strike; they had been told that their jobs were safe and their industry had a future. The subsequent behaviour of the Conservative government was seen by most on the left and in the "heavy" industries to confirm fears about how they had been used to divide the miners' union.

The effect of the strike has been long and bitter for many areas that depended on coal. Enduring a year without strike pay (as the NUM would only provide money to picketing strikers) and their being denied social security benefits as a result of a new law that made such benefits unavailable to illegal strikers (whilst at the same time new laws passed by the Thatcher government in preparation for a confrontation with the NUM assumed that any benefits that were available to strikers' dependents would take into consideration strike payments paid to strikers by the union) forced many miners into debt. The closure of pits also affected engineering, railways, electricity and steel production, which were all interlinked with the coal industry. Unemployment reached as high as 50% in some villages over the next decade. Suicides rose significantly. Migration out of old mining areas left many villages full of derelict houses and earning the reputation as ghost towns or pit villages. The tensions between those who had supported the strike and those who had not, lasted for many years afterwards (and sometimes continue today, having been passed down the generations); "scab" was a word passed down generations, eroding the strong sense of unity that had previously existed in such communities.

The 1994 European Union enquiry into poverty classified Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire as the poorest settlement in the country and one of the poorest in the E.U. The county of South Yorkshire was made into an Objective 1 development zone and every single ward in the City of Wakefield district in West Yorkshire was classified as in need of special assistance. In, Merseyside, the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, which had contained the "Cronton" pit (although Cronton had been closed just prior to the onset of the strike and was undergoing salvaging operations during the early months of the strike, at the end of which operations Cronton miners, having been transferred to neighbouring collieries, mostly joined the strike), has constantly been named amongst the most deprived areas of both Britain and Europe, as has the neighbouring Metropolitan Borough of St Helens in which Sutton Manor, Bold and Parkside collieries were situated.

Other areas have recovered and now boast a good standard of living. Recovery was quickest in areas where the economy was more diverse, such as in Kent or the West Midlands. Brodsworth boasted the largest mine in the country and is also enjoying relative affluence. Old colliery sites have often been turned into new industrial parks or retail parks. Xscape is built on the former site of Castleford's Glasshoughton colliery. The Miners strike continues to divide former miner communities, resentment and bitterness often running very deep and even across generations. A murder in the former mining town of Annesley, Nottinghamshire in 2004 was a result of an argument between former members of the NUM and the UDM, an indication of how high feelings still run.

While the strike was on, public opinion in the Home Counties (except Kent) was mixed, whereas in the Welsh valleys, Yorkshire and other areas actually affected by the strike, support was high. It has become a symbol of the perceived indifference that the Tory Party under Thatcher had to problems of unemployment and poverty. The Daily Mirror, which had been hostile towards the strike at the time, began a campaign to raise awareness of the social deprivation in the coalfields. The film Brassed Off has been much more successful than was expected, having even gained recognition in America. The Coalfields Regeneration Trust^[33] is an organisation that donates money to investment within the old mining areas.

Although mining is now only a very small industry in Britain, it is more productive than in France, Germany or in the United States^{[34][35][clarification needed]}

Andrew J. Richard's book, Miners on Strike, dedicated a chapter to how unusual it was in 1984 for a large-scale strike to be launched in protest at job cuts. In Britain, trade unions had traditionally launched strikes for claims on wage rises and rights at work, but strikes in defence of jobs had been very rare. Since the example of the 1984-5 miners' strike, union leaders have been much more likely to call for action in defence of jobs. Coincidentally, 1984 was the year when Harvard economists Richard B. Freeman and James Medoff published the book "What do Unions do?", where such a strategy was seen as good for productivity and less of a pressure on inflation.

[edit] The strike in fiction

The UK miners' strike was the background for the 2000 film Billy Elliot. Several scenes depict the chaos at the picket lines, clashes between armies of police and striking miners, and the shame associated with crossing the picket line. The movie also showed the abject poverty associated with the strike, the harshness and desperation of not having coal for heat in winter as well as depicting the contrast between miners and the middle-class. It has since been made into a musical that opened in London in 2005 and New York in 2008.

It is also involved in the background to the plot in Brassed Off, which is set ten years after the strike when all the miners have lost the will to resist and accept the closure of their pit with resignation. Brassed Off was set in the fictional "Grimley", a thinly disguised version of the hard-hit ex-mining village of Grimethorpe, where some of it was filmed.

The satirical Comic Strip Presents episode The Strike (1988) depicts an idealistic Welsh screenwriter's growing dismay as his hard-hitting and grittily realistic script about the strike is mutilated by a Hollywood producer into an all-action thriller starring Al Pacino (played by Peter Richardson) and Meryl Streep (played by Jennifer Saunders). The 1984 episode of the 1996 BBC television drama serial Our Friends in the North revolves around the events of the strike, and the scenes of clashes between the police and striking miners were re-created using many of those who had taken part in the actual real-life events on the miners' side. In 2005 BBC One broadcast the one-off drama Faith, written by William Ivory and starring Jamie Draven and Maxine Peake. Many of the social scenes were filmed in the former Colliery town of Thorne, nr Doncaster. It viewed the strike from the perspective of both the police and the miners.

A 2005 book called "GB84" by David Peace combines fictional accounts of pickets, union officials and strike-breakers. Graphic details are provided of many of the strike's major events. It also suggests that the British Intelligence services were involved in undermining the strike, including in the alleged suggestion of a link between Scargill and Gaddafi.

As mentioned above, in 2001, British visual artist Jeremy Deller worked with historical societies, battle re-enactors, and dozens of the people who participated in the violent 1984 clashes of picketers and police to reconstruct and re-enact the Battle of Orgreave. A documentary about the re-enactment was produced by Deller and director Mike Figgis and was broadcast on British television; and Deller also published a book called The English Civil War Part II documenting both the project and the historical events it investigates (Artangel Press, 2002). Involving the re-enactors, who would normally recreate Viking battles or medieval wars, was a way for Deller to situate the recent and controversial Battle of Orgreave (and labour politics themselves) as part of mainstream history.^[36]

G. Mckie's poem, Ode to Heseltine, was written after the announcement to close 31 collieries in 1992, which betrayed previous promises to miners who had worked on during the strike.^[37]

[edit] Popular songs about the strike

The strike has been the subject of songs by many music groups. Of the more well known; Manic Street Preachers A Design for Life, the band Pulp recorded a song "Last day of the miners' strike", Funeral for a Friend wrote a song called "History", and Ewan MacColl wrote the song "Daddy, What did you do in the strike?". Newcastle native Sting recorded a song about the strike called "We Work the Black Seam" for his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, in 1985.Billy Bragg's " Which Side Are You On?," neatly encapsulated the strikers' feeling of betrayal by the perceived indifference of wider elements within British society. Also in 1985, the English punk group The Mekons portrayed the miners' situation in the song "Abernant 1984/5" on the album Fear and Whiskey.

The folk song "The Ballad of '84" contains the view that David Jones and Joe Green died as a result of the police's handling of events. U2's song "Red Hill Mining Town" from their Joshua Tree album is about the strike, according to lead singer Bono. On 7 July 1984 the anarcho-punk band Crass played their final show in Aberdare, Wales at a benefit for striking miners.

Chumbawamba recorded several pieces in support of the miners. These include the cassette only "Common Ground", recorded as a benefit for the miners. They also recorded a song called "Fitzwilliam", which described the Yorkshire village of that name after the strike. Fitzwilliam eventually saw around a third of its housing stock demolished due to the dominance of derelict properties. They also made a song called "Frickley" about the football club Frickley Athletic, which referenced the continued distrust of the police by those in mining areas after the strike.

Banner Theatre recorded two cassettes - "Here We Go" in 1985 and "Saltley Gate" in 1993, with many songs from the pen of Dave Rogers. The best known are "Saltley Gate" about the mass Birmingham picket, "Maerdy, the Last Pit in the Rhondda" and "Busking for the Miners" which celebrates how Birmingham people supported the miners' struggle. "Monday Morning Rain" was written for Banner's 1989 show "In the Reign of Pig's Pudding" and is a poignant song about the effects of unemployment after pit closures - it is included in the album "Elixir of Life". Dave also wrote songs for the New Vic Theatre production "Nice Girls", relating to the protest camps set up outside threatened pits by women from all over Britain in 1993. Banner toured these camps and created the song "Women on the Line" - this was later included in their video ballad "Burning Issues" which marked the twentieth anniversary of the 1984/5 Miners Strike and was developed with former mining communities in Yorkshire, Lancashire, the Midlands and South Wales.

The strike also inspired two entire albums. Freq, recorded in 1984 by ex-Hawkwind singer and lyricist Robert Calvert. Alternating with songs such as "All the machines are quiet" and "Work song" are five short tracks taken from speeches and demonstrations recorded amongst the miners themselves. The industrial group Test Department recorded the 1984 album Shoulder to Shoulder, in collaboration with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir. The album combined harsh industrial rhythms with the traditional songs sung by the male choir, and also included poetry and speeches from the strike.

Soul/punk/pop/rockabilly band The Redskins, who were notable for their left-wing views and lyrics, supported the struggle of the miners and the union. Their song "Keep on Keepin' On" was a rallying support for the strike, and the band played benefits in support of the strike. The punk/Oi! band Angelic Upstarts recorded a song supportive of the miners called "One More Day".

Welsh punk rockers Foreign Legion have a song called Another Day about the strike. this is featured on the album What Goes Around Comes Around

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Lyddon, D. TUC History Online: The 1984-85 Miners' Strike (Retrieved 2nd December 2004)
• Towers, B. Posing larger questions: The British Miners' Strike of 1984-85. Industrial Relations Journal, (1985) Vol. 16 (2), pp.8-25.
• Watching the pits disappear. Map showing location of pits in 1984 and the closures each year since. Note that Leeds is on the wrong place on the map; the area pointed to seems to actually be Grimethorpe.
• University paper on the slow recovery of ex-mining areas following the shock of the closure programme.

[edit] Further reading

• Seamus Milne, The Enemy Within - The Secret War Against the Miners, Verso, London, 1994. See pages 18-19 for details of the 1991 payouts to miners from the Battle of Orgreave.
• Alex Callinicos and Mike Simons "The great strike, the miners strike of 1984-5 and its lessons/ Alex Callinicos, Mike Simons" Socialist Review 27/7
• Northern Mining Research for pit closure dates
• David Peace, GB 84, Faber and Faber (3 Mar 2005), a novel.
• Red Hill - A Mining Community,Coronet Books, Tony Parker, ISBN 0-340-42365-X, a compilation of eyewitness accounts of the miners' strike from both sides of the dispute
• State of Siege, Jim Coulter et al, Canary Press, ISBN 0 9509967 0 X, a critique of policing methods in the coalfields during the strike

[edit] See also

• Mick McGahey
• Peter Heathfield
• Betty Heathfield
• List of collieries in Yorkshire 1984-present with dates of closure
• U.S. Coal Strike of 1902

[edit] External links

• Miner's Advice - website providing help and information to ex-coal miners
• The official NUM website
• A look at present day mining
• Women in the miners' strike 1984/85 in the northeast of England