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| 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners' strike | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Support the Miners March, London, 1984 | ||||
| Date | 6 March 1984 – 3 March 1985 (11 months, 3 weeks and 4 days) | |||
| Location | ||||
| Caused by | Proposed pit closures and job losses | |||
| Goals |
| |||
| Resulted in | Pit closures, job losses, foreign coal imports, political unrest, major decline in union influence in British politics | |||
| Parties | ||||
| ||||
| Lead figures | ||||
| Number | ||||
| ||||
| Casualties | ||||
| Death(s) | 6 | |||
| Injuries |
| |||
| Arrested | 11,291 | |||
| Detained | 150–200 | |||
| Charged | 8,392 | |||
The 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners' strike was a major industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent closures of pits that the government deemed "uneconomic" in the coal industry, which had been nationalised in 1947. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.
The NUM was divided over the action, which began in Yorkshire, and some mineworkers, especially in the Midlands, worked through the dispute. Few major trade unions supported the NUM, primarily using the argument of the absence of a vote at national level. Violent confrontations between flying pickets and police characterised the year-long strike, which ended in a decisive victory for the Conservative government and allowed the closure of most of Britain's collieries. Many observers regard the strike as "the most bitter industrial dispute in British history".[1][2] The number of person-days of work lost to the strike was over 26 million, making it the largest since the 1926 General Strike.[2] The journalist Seumas Milne said of the strike that "it has no real parallel – in size, duration and impact – anywhere in the world".[3]: ix
The NCB was encouraged to gear itself towards reduced subsidies in the early 1980s.[4] After a strike was narrowly averted in February 1981, pit closures and pay restraint led to unofficial strikes. The main strike started on 6 March 1984 with a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery, which led to the NUM's Yorkshire Area's sanctioning of a strike on the grounds of a ballot result from 1981 in the Yorkshire Area, which was later challenged in court. The NUM President, Arthur Scargill, made the strike official across Britain on 12 March 1984, but the lack of a national ballot beforehand caused controversy. The NUM strategy was to cause a severe energy shortage of the sort that had won victory in the 1972 strike. The government strategy, designed by Margaret Thatcher, was threefold: to build up ample coal stocks, to keep as many miners at work as possible, and to use police to break up attacks by pickets on working miners. The critical element was the NUM's failure to hold a national strike ballot.[5][6]: 71–95 [7]
The strike was ruled illegal in September 1984, as no national ballot of NUM members had been held.[8] It ended on 3 March 1985. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, the NUM's defeat significantly weakening the trade union movement. It was a major victory for Thatcher and the Conservative Party, with the Thatcher government able to consolidate their economic programme. The number of strikes fell sharply in 1985 as a result of the "demonstration effect" and trade union power in general diminished.[2] Three deaths resulted from events related to the strike.
The much-reduced coal industry was privatised in December 1994, ultimately becoming UK Coal. In 1983, Britain had 175 working pits, all of which had closed by the end of 2015.[9] Poverty increased in former coal mining areas, and in 1994 Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire was the poorest settlement in the country.[10]
Background
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 1 million in 1922, down to 231,000 for the decade to 1982.[12] This long-term decline in coal employment was common across the developed world; in the United States, employment in the coal-mining industry continued to fall from 180,000 in 1985 to 70,000 in the year 2000.[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. As in most of Europe, the industry was heavily subsidised. In 1982–1983, the operating loss per tonne was £3.05, and international market prices for coal were about 25% cheaper than that charged by the NCB.[14] The calculation of these operating losses was disputed, with the Marxist historian John Saville declaring costs other than operating losses were included in the data as part of a scheme to undermine trade unions.[15]
By 1984, the richest seams of coal had been increasingly worked out and the remaining coal was more and more expensive to reach. The solution was mechanisation and greater efficiency per worker, making many miners redundant due to overcapacity of production.[16] The industry was restructured between 1958 and 1967 in cooperation with the unions, with a halving of the workforce; offset by government and industry initiatives to provide alternative employment. Stabilisation occurred between 1968 and 1977, when closures were minimised with the support of the unions even though the broader economy slowed. The accelerated contraction imposed by Thatcher after 1979 was strenuously opposed by the unions. In the post-war consensus, policy allowed for closures only where agreed to by the workers, who in turn received guaranteed economic security. Consensus did not apply when closures were enforced and redundant miners had severely limited employment alternatives.[17]: 99–115
The NUM's strike in 1974 played a major role in bringing down Edward Heath's Conservative government. The party's response was the Ridley Plan, an internal report that was leaked to The Economist magazine and appeared in its 27 May 1978 issue. Ridley described how a future Conservative government could resist and defeat a major strike in a nationalised industry. In Ridley's opinion, trade union power in the UK was interfering with market forces, pushing up inflation, and the unions' undue political power had to be curbed to restore the UK's economy.[18][19]
National Union of Mineworkers
The mining industry was effectively a closed shop. Although not official policy, employment of non-unionised labour would have led to a mass walkout of mineworkers.[20]: 267
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) came into being in 1945 and in 1947 most collieries in Britain were nationalised (958 nationalised, 400 private).[21]: 5 Demand for coal was high in the years following the Second World War, and Polish refugees were drafted to work in the pits.[20]: 8 Over time, coal's share in the energy market declined relative to oil and nuclear.[21]: 6 Large-scale closures of collieries occurred in the 1960s, which led to migration of miners from the run-down coalfields (Scotland, Wales, Lancashire, the north-east of England) to Yorkshire and the Midlands coalfields.[21]: 8 After a period of inaction from the NUM leadership over employment cuts, there was an unofficial strike in 1969, after which many more militant candidates were elected to NUM leadership.[22]: 17 [23]: 248–250 The threshold for endorsement of strike action in a national ballot was reduced from two-thirds in favour to 55% in 1971.[24]: 11–12 There was then success in the national strike in 1972, an overtime ban, and the subsequent strike in 1974 (which led to the Three-Day Week).[21]: 9–14 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.[20]: 11
The NUM had a decentralised regional structure and certain regions were seen as more militant than others. Scotland, South Wales and Kent were militant and had some communist officials, whereas the Midlands were much less militant.[20]: 12 The only nationally coordinated actions in the 1984–1985 strike were the mass pickets at Orgreave.[25]
In the more militant mining areas, strikebreakers were reviled and never forgiven for betraying the community. In 1984, some pit villages had no other industries for many miles around.[20]: 10 In South Wales, miners showed a high degree of solidarity, as they came from isolated villages where most workers were employed in the pits, had similar lifestyles, and had an evangelical religious style based on Methodism that led to an ideology of egalitarianism.[26] 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.[27]: 24
From 1981, the NUM was led by Arthur Scargill, a militant trade unionist and socialist, with strong leanings towards communism.[28][29][30] Scargill was a vocal opponent of Thatcher's government. In March 1983, he stated "The policies of this government are clear – to destroy the coal industry and the NUM".[31] Scargill wrote in the NUM journal The Miner: "Waiting in the wings, wishing to chop us to pieces, is Yankee steel butcher MacGregor. This 70-year-old multi-millionaire import, who massacred half the steel workforce in less than three years, is almost certainly brought in to wield the axe on pits. It's now or never for Britain's mineworkers. This is the final chance – while we still have the strength – to save our industry".[32] On 12 May 1983, in response to being questioned on how he would respond if the Conservatives were re-elected in the general election, Scargill replied: "My attitude would be the same as the attitude of the working class in Germany when the Nazis came to power. It does not mean that because at some stage you elect a government that you tolerate its existence. You oppose it".[33] He also said he would oppose a second-term Thatcher government "as vigorously as I possibly can".[33] After the election, Scargill called for extra-parliamentary action against the Conservative government in a speech to the NUM conference in Perth on 4 July 1983:
"A fight back against this Government's policies will inevitably take place outside rather than inside Parliament. 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. I am not prepared to accept policies elected by a minority of the British electorate. I am not prepared quietly to accept the destruction of the coal industry, nor am I willing to see our social services decimated. This totally undemocratic Government can now easily push through whatever laws it chooses. Faced with possible parliamentary destruction of all that is good and compassionate in our society, extra-parliamentary action will be the only course open to the working class and the Labour movement."[34]
Scargill also rejected the idea that pits that did not make a profit were "uneconomic": he claimed there was no such thing as an uneconomic pit and argued that no pits should close except due to geological exhaustion or safety.[35]: 356 [36]
National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers
No mining could legally be done without being overseen by an overman or deputy.[21]: 161–162 Their union, the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers (NACODS) with 17,000 members in 1984, was less willing to take industrial action.[21]: 161–162 Its constitution required a two-thirds majority for a national strike.[21]: 164 During the 1972 strike, violent confrontations between striking NUM and non-striking NACODS members led to an agreement that NACODS members could stay off work without loss of pay if they were faced with aggressive picketing.[21]: 161–162 Thus solidarity with striking NUM members could be shown by claims of violence preventing the crossing of picket lines even without a NACODS union vote for strike action. Initially the threshold for striking was not met; although a majority had voted for strike action, it was not enough. However, later during the strike 82% did vote for strike action.[16]
Sequence of events
Calls for action
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.[20]: 169 This led to a two-week local strike over the closure of Orgreave Colliery, but the ballot result was later invoked to justify strikes over other closures, including Cortonwood in 1984.[20]: 169 In February 1981, the government announced plans to close 23 pits across the country but the threat of a national strike was enough to force a back down. Coal stocks would last only six weeks, after which Britain would shut down and people would demand concessions. Thatcher realised she needed at least a six-month supply of coal to win a strike.[37]: 142–145 In 1982, NUM members accepted a 9.3% pay rise, rejecting their leaders' call for a strike.[38]
Most pits proposed for closure in 1981 were closed on a case-by-case basis by the colliery review procedure, and the NCB cut employment by 41,000 between March 1981 and March 1984.[39] The effect of closures was lessened by transfers to other pits and the opening up of the Selby Coalfield where working conditions and wages were relatively favourable.[20]: 25–26 Localised strikes occurred at Kinneil Colliery in Scotland and Lewis Merthyr Colliery in Wales.[39] The industry's Select Committee heard that 36,040 of the 39,685 redundancies between 1973 and 1982 were of men aged 55 and over, and redundancy pay was increased substantially in 1981 and 1983.[20]: 25–26
The NUM balloted its members for national strikes in January 1982, October 1982 and March 1983 regarding pit closures and restrained wages and each time a minority voted in favour, well short of the required 55% majority.[39] In protest at a pay offer of 5.2%, the NUM instituted an overtime ban in November 1983, which remained in place at the onset of the strike.[40]
Thatcher's strategy
Thatcher expected Scargill to force a confrontation, and in response she set up a defence in depth.[41]: 355–364 [37]: 142–150 She believed that the excessive costs of increasingly inefficient collieries had to end in order to grow the economy. She planned to close inefficient pits and depend more on imported coal, oil, gas and nuclear. She appointed hardliners to key positions, set up a high level planning committee,[42] and allocated funds from the highly profitable electrical supply system to stockpile at least six months’ worth of coal.[43] Thatcher's team set up mobile police units so that forces from outside the strike areas could neutralise efforts by flying pickets to stop the transport of coal to power stations. It used the National Recording Centre (NRC), set up in 1972 by the Association of Chief Police Officers for England and Wales linking 43 police forces to enable police forces to travel to assist in major disturbances.[44][45] Scargill played into her hands by ignoring the buildup of coal stocks and calling the strike at the end of winter when demand for coal was declining.[46]
In 1983, Thatcher appointed Ian MacGregor to head the National Coal Board. He had turned the British Steel Corporation from one of the least efficient steel-makers in Europe to one of the most efficient, bringing the company into near profit.[41]: 99–100 Success was achieved at the expense of halving the workforce in two years and he had overseen a 14-week national strike in 1980. His tough reputation raised expectations that coal jobs would be cut on a similar scale and confrontations between MacGregor and Scargill seemed inevitable.[citation needed]
Debate over a national ballot
On 19 April 1984 a Special National Delegate Conference was held where there was a vote on whether to hold a national ballot or not. The NUM delegates voted 69–54 not to have a national ballot,[35]: 357 a position argued for by Arthur Scargill. Scargill states: "Our special conference was held on 19 April. McGahey, Heathfield and I were aware from feedback that a slight majority of areas favoured the demand for a national strike ballot; therefore, we were expecting and had prepared for that course of action with posters, ballot papers and leaflets. A major campaign was ready to go for a "Yes" vote in a national strike ballot."[16] McGahey said: "We shall not be constitutionalised out of a strike...Area by area will decide and there will be a domino effect".[35]: 357
Without a national ballot, most miners in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, South Derbyshire, North Wales and the West Midlands kept on working during the strike, along with a sizeable minority in Lancashire. The police provided protection for working miners from aggressive picketing.[23]
Pit closures announced
On 6 March 1984, the NCB announced that the agreement reached after the 1974 strike was obsolete, and that to reduce government subsidies, 20 collieries would close with a loss of 20,000 jobs. Many communities in Northern England, Scotland and Wales would lose their primary source of employment.[47]
Scargill said the government had a long-term strategy to close more than 70 pits. The government denied the claim and MacGregor wrote to every NUM member claiming Scargill was deceiving them and there were no plans to close any more pits than had already been announced. Cabinet papers released in 2014 indicate that MacGregor wished to close 75 pits over a three-year period.[48] Meanwhile, the Thatcher government had prepared against a repeat of the effective 1974 industrial action by stockpiling coal, converting some power stations to burn heavy fuel oil, and recruiting fleets of road hauliers to transport coal in case sympathetic railwaymen went on strike to support the miners.[49]
Action begins
Sensitive to the impact of proposed closures, miners in various coalfields began strike action. In Yorkshire, miners at Manvers,[20]: 86 Cadeby,[50]: 66 Silverwood,[50]: 66 Kiveton Park[50]: 66 and Yorkshire Main[20]: 218 were on unofficial strike for other issues before official action was called. More than 6,000 miners were on strike from 5 March at Cortonwood and Bullcliffe Wood, near Wakefield.[50]: 67 Neither pit's reserves were exhausted. Bullcliffe Wood had been under threat, but Cortonwood had been considered safe. Action was prompted on 5 March by the NCB's announcement that five pits would be subject to "accelerated closure" in just five weeks; the other three were Herrington in County Durham, Snowdown in Kent and Polmaise in Scotland. The next day, pickets from Yorkshire appeared at pits in Nottinghamshire and Harworth Colliery closed after a mass influx of pickets amid claims that Nottinghamshire was "scabland in 1926".[23]: 293 On 12 March 1984, Scargill declared the NUM's support for the regional strikes in Yorkshire and Scotland, and called for action from NUM members in all other areas but decided not to hold a nationwide vote which was used by his opponents to delegitimise the strike.[51]
Picketing
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. Nottinghamshire became a target for aggressive and sometimes violent picketing as Scargill's pickets tried to stop local miners from working.[20]: 264 Lancashire miners were reluctant to strike, but most refused to cross picket lines formed by the Yorkshire NUM.[50]: 81–82 Picketing in Lancashire was less aggressive and is credited with a more sympathetic response from the local miners.[50]: 81–82
The 'Battle of Orgreave' took place on 18 June 1984 at the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham, which striking miners were attempting to blockade. The confrontation, between about 5,000 miners and the same number of police, broke into violence after police on horseback charged with truncheons drawn – 51 picketers and 72 policemen were injured. Other less well known, but bloody, battles between pickets and police took place, for example, in Maltby, South Yorkshire.[52]
During the strike, 11,291 people were arrested, mostly for breach of the peace or obstructing roads whilst picketing, of whom 8,392 were charged and between 150 and 200 were imprisoned.[2] At least 9,000 mineworkers were dismissed after being arrested whilst picketing even when no charges were brought.[2]
After the 1980 steel strike, many hauliers blacklisted drivers who refused to cross picket lines to prevent them obtaining work, and so more drivers crossed picket lines in 1984–1985 than in previous disputes.[20]: 144 Picketing failed to have the widespread impact of earlier stoppages that led to blackouts and power cuts in the 1970s and electricity companies maintained supplies throughout the winter, the time of biggest demand.[53]
From September, some miners returned to work even where the strike had been universally observed. It led to an escalation of tension, and riots in Easington in Durham[21]: 203–204 and Brampton Bierlow in Yorkshire.[21]: 206–207
Strike ballots by NACODS
In April 1984, NACODS voted to strike but was short of the two-thirds majority that their constitution required.[21]: 164 In areas where the strike was observed, most NACODS members did not cross picket lines and, under an agreement from the 1972 strike, stayed off work on full pay.[21]: 161–162 When the number of strikebreakers increased in August, Merrick Spanton, the NCB personnel director, said he expected NACODS members to cross picket lines to supervise their work threatening the 1972 agreement which led to a second ballot.[21]: 161–162 MacGregor suggested that deputies could be replaced by outsiders as Ronald Reagan had done during the 1981 airline strike.[54] In September, for the first time, NACODS voted to strike with a vote of 81% in favour.[16][20]: 196 The government then made concessions over the review procedure for unprofitable collieries, much to the anger of MacGregor, and a deal negotiated by North Yorkshire NCB Director Michael Eaton persuaded NACODS to call off the strike action.[20]: 197–200
The results of the review procedure were not binding on the NCB, and the NUM rejected the agreement.[22]: 36–37 Reviews for Cadeby in Yorkshire and Bates in Northumberland concluded that the pits could stay open but the NCB overruled and closed them.[22]: 36–37 The abandonment of strike plans when most of their demands had not been met led to conspiracy theories on the motives of NACODS leaders.[22]: 36–37
MacGregor later admitted that if NACODS had gone ahead with a strike, a compromise would probably have been forced on the NCB. Files later made public showed that the government had an informant inside the Trades Union Congress (TUC), passing information about negotiations.[55]
In 2009, Scargill wrote that the settlement agreed with NACODS and the NCB would have ended the strike and said, "The monumental betrayal by NACODS has never been explained in a way that makes sense."[16]
Court judgments on legality of strike
In the first month of the strike, the NCB secured a court injunction to restrict picketing in Nottinghamshire, but the Energy Minister, Peter Walker forbade MacGregor from invoking it as the government considered it would antagonise the miners and unite them behind the NUM.[20]: 157–158 Legal challenges were brought by groups of working miners, who subsequently organised as the Working Miners' Committee. David Hart, a farmer and property developer with libertarian political beliefs, did much to organise and fund working miners.[20]: 157–158 On 25 May, a writ issued in the High Court by Colin Clark from Pye Hill Colliery, sponsored by Hart, was successful in forbidding the Nottinghamshire area from instructing that the strike was official and to be obeyed.[20]: 165 Similar actions were successful in Lancashire and South Wales.[20]: 165
In September, Lord Justice Nicholls heard two cases, in the first, North Derbyshire miners argued that the strike was illegal both at area level, as a majority of its miners had voted against, and at national level, as there had been no ballot. In the second, two miners from Manton Colliery, in the Yorkshire area but geographically in North Nottinghamshire, argued that the area-level strike in Yorkshire was illegal. Miners at Manton had overwhelmingly voted against the strike, but police had advised that their safety could not be guaranteed.[21]: 46 The NUM was not represented at the hearing.[21]: 46 The High Court ruled that the NUM had breached its constitution by calling a strike without holding a ballot.[56] Although Nicholls did not order the NUM to hold a ballot, he forbade the union from disciplining members who crossed picket lines.[56]
The strike in Yorkshire relied on a ballot from January 1981, in which 85.6% of the members voted to strike if any pit was threatened with closure on economic grounds.[20]: 169 The motion was passed with regard to the closure of Orgreave Colliery, which prompted a two-week strike.[20]: 169 The NUM executive approved the decision in Yorkshire to invoke the ballot result as binding on 8 March 1984.[20]: 169 Nicholls ruled that the 1981 ballot result was "too remote in time ... too much change in the branch membership of the Area since then for that ballot to be capable of justifying a call to strike action two and a half years later."[20]: 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.[20]: 171
Scargill referred to the ruling as "another attempt by an unelected judge to interfere in the union's affairs."[56] He was fined £1,000 (paid by an anonymous businessman), and the NUM was fined £200,000. When the union refused to pay, an order was made to sequester the union's assets, but they had been transferred abroad.[35]: 366 In October 1984, the NUM executive voted to cooperate with the court to recover the funds, despite opposition from Scargill, who stated in court that he was only apologising for his contempt of court because the executive voted for him to do so.[20]: 175–176 By the end of January 1985, around £5 million of NUM assets had been recovered.[57]: 374
A Court of Session decision in Edinburgh ruled that Scottish miners had acted within their rights by taking local ballots on a show of hands and so union funds in Scotland could not be sequestered. "During the strike, the one area they couldn't touch was Scotland. They were sequestering the NUM funds, except in Scotland, because the judges deemed that the Scottish area had acted within the rules of the Union" – David Hamilton MP, Midlothian.[47]: 8
Scargill claims "It was essential to present a united response to the NCB and we agreed that, if the coal board planned to force pit closures on an area by area basis, then we must respond at least initially on that same basis. The NUM's rules permitted areas to take official strike action if authorised by our national executive committee in accordance with Rule 41."[16]
Breakaway union
The Nottinghamshire NUM supported the strike, but most of its members continued to work and many considered the strike unconstitutional given their majority vote against a strike and absence of a ballot for a national strike.[20]: 262 As many working miners felt the NUM was not doing enough to protect them from intimidation from pickets, a demonstration was organised on May Day in Mansfield, in which the representative Ray Chadburn was shouted down, and fighting ensued between protesters for and against the strike.[20]: 264
In NUM elections in summer 1984, members in Nottinghamshire voted out most of the leaders who had supported the strike, so that 27 of 31 newly elected were opposed to the strike.[50]: 227 The Nottinghamshire NUM then opposed the strike openly and stopped payments to local strikers.[50]: 227 The national NUM attempted to introduce "Rule 51", to discipline area leaders who were working against national policy.[50]: 227 The action was nicknamed the "star chamber court" by working miners (in reference to the Star Chamber in English history).[50]: 227 It was prevented by an injunction from the High Court.[50]: 228
Working miners in Nottinghamshire and South Derbyshire set up a new union: the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM).[20]: 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.[20]: 274
Although most Leicestershire miners continued working, they voted to stay in the NUM.[20]: 276 Unlike Nottinghamshire, the leadership in Leicestershire never attempted to enforce the strike,[20]: 276 and an official, Jack Jones, had publicly criticised Scargill.[50]: 227 At some pits in Nottinghamshire – Ollerton, Welbeck and Clipstone – roughly half the workforce stayed in the NUM.[50]: 234
The TUC neither recognised nor condemned the new union.[20]: 276 The UDM was eventually de facto recognised when the NCB included it in wage negotiations.[20]: 304–305 MacGregor strongly encouraged the UDM.[50]: 234 He announced that NUM membership was no longer a prerequisite for mineworkers' employment, ending the closed shop.[50]: 227
The formal end
The number of strikebreakers, sometimes referred to pejoratively as scabs, increased from the start of January, as the strikers struggled to pay for food as union pay ran out.[50]: 201 They were not treated with the same contempt by strikers as those who had returned to work earlier, but in some collieries, fights broke out between hunger scabs who had been active pickets, and those who had broken the strike earlier.[50]: 201
The strike ended on 3 March 1985, nearly a year after it had begun. 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.[21]: 249 Only the Yorkshire and Kent regions voted against ending the strike.[21]: 249–251 One of the few concessions made by the NCB was to postpone the closure of the five pits: Cortonwood, Bullcliffe Wood, Herrington, Polmaise and Snowdown.[21]: 253
The issue of sacked miners was important in Kent, where several men had been sacked for a sit-in at Betteshanger Colliery.[58] 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."[21]: 254 The Kent NUM continued picketing across the country, delaying the return to work at many pits for two weeks.[21]: 254 Some sources claim that the Scottish NUM continued the strike alongside Kent.[24]: 69
At several pits, miners' wives groups organised the distribution of carnations, the flower that symbolises the hero, at the pit gates on the day the miners went back. Many pits marched back to work behind brass bands, in processions dubbed "loyalty parades". Scargill led a procession accompanied by a Scots piper, back to work at Barrow Colliery in Worsborough but then it was stopped by a picket of Kent miners. Scargill said, "I never cross a picket line," and turned the procession away.[21]: 254
Issues
Ballots
The role of ballots in NUM policy had been disputed over a number of years, and a series of legal disputes in 1977 left their status unclear. In 1977, the implementation of an incentive scheme proved controversial, as different areas would receive different pay rates. After the NUM's National Executive Conference rejected the scheme, NUM leader Joe Gormley arranged a national ballot. The Kent area who opposed the scheme sought a court injunction to prevent it, but Lord Denning ruled that "the conference might not have spoken with the true voice of all the members and in his view a ballot was a reasonable and democratic proposal". The scheme was rejected by 110,634 votes to 87,901. The Nottinghamshire, South Derbyshire and Leicestershire areas resolved to adopt the incentive scheme as their members would benefit from increased pay. The Yorkshire, Kent and South Wales areas sought an injunction to prevent these actions on the grounds of the ballot result. 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. It may serve to persuade the committee to take one action or another, or to refrain from action, but it has no great force or significance."[22]: 32
Scargill did not call a ballot for national strike action, perhaps due to uncertainty over the outcome. Instead, he started the strike by 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. The decision was upheld by a vote by the NUM executive five weeks into the strike.[59]
The NUM had held three ballots on national strikes: 55% voted against in January 1982, and 61% voted against in October 1982 and March 1983.[20]: 169 Before the March 1983 vote, the Kent area, one of the most militant, argued for national strikes to be called by conferences of delegates rather than by ballot, but the proposal was rejected.[21]: 32–33 As the strike began in 1984 with unofficial action in Yorkshire, there was pressure from strikers to make it official, and NUM executives who insisted on a ballot were attacked by pickets at an executive meeting in Sheffield in April.[21]: 77 In contrast, a sit-in down the pit was held by supporters of a ballot at Hem Heath in Staffordshire.[21]: 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,[50]: 69 Grimethorpe, Shireoaks and Kinsley.[20]: 82
Two polls by MORI in April 1984 found that the majority of miners supported a strike.[21]: 78 Ken Livingstone wrote in his memoirs that Scargill had interpreted a Daily Mail poll that suggested a comfortable majority of miners favoured a national strike to be a trick and that he would actually lose a national ballot.[60]
In ballots in South Wales on 10 March 1984, only 10 of the 28 pits voted in favour of striking, but the arrival of pickets from Yorkshire the next day led to virtually all miners in South Wales going on strike in solidarity.[21]: 262 The initial vote against strike action by most lodges in South Wales was interpreted as an act of retaliation for a lack of support from Yorkshire in years when numerous pits in Wales were closing, especially following the closure of the Lewis Merthyr colliery in March 1983 and only 54% of Yorkshire miners voting for a national strike that month, a full 14% below the vote for a national strike in both South Wales and Kent.[61][failed verification]
Area ballots on 15 and 16 March 1984 saw verdicts against a strike in Cumberland, Midlands, North Derbyshire (narrowly), South Derbyshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire (with around 90% against), Nottinghamshire and North Wales.[62][50]: 71 [63]: 100 The Northumberland NUM voted by a small majority in favour, but below the 55% needed for official approval.[62][50]: 71 NUM leaders in Lancashire argued that, as 41% had voted in favour of a strike, all its members should strike "in order to maintain unity".[50]: 71
The Conservative government under Thatcher enforced a law that required unions to ballot members on strike action. On 19 July 1984, Thatcher said in the House of Commons that giving in to the miners would be surrendering the rule of parliamentary democracy to the rule of the mob. She referred to union leaders as "the enemy within" and claimed they did not share the values of other British people; advocates of the strike misinterpreted the quote to suggest that Thatcher had used it as a reference to all miners.[64]
Thatcher on 19 July 1984 delivered a speech in which she spoke to backbench MPs and compared the Falklands War to the strike:
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.[65]
She claimed that the miners' leader was making the country witness an attempt at preventing democracy.[65]
On the day after the Orgreave picket of 18 June, which saw five thousand pickets clash violently with police, she remarked:
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.[66]
Neil Kinnock supported the call for a national ballot in April 1984.[21]: 73 Scargill's response to the Orgreave 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.[67]
At the Battle of Orgreave on 18 June 1984, the NUM pickets failed to stop the movement of lorries amid police violence and subsequent retaliation by the pickets, with the footage controversially reversed by the BBC on their news broadcast. The violence was costing the NUM public support in the country as a whole, as a Gallup poll showed 79% disapproval of NUM methods. While it was now clear that the government had the equipment, the forces, the organisation, and the will to prevail against pickets, the strong pro-strike solidarity outside of the Midlands and the possibility of extended strike action by other trade unions, especially the NACODS which could shut down every pit in the country if NACODS members went on strike, was a constant threat for the government and had the outcome of who would be likely to win the miners' strike dispute hanging in the balance for many months.
The number of miners at work grew to 53,000 by late June.[37]: 2:158
Votes for strike action by area
The table shows a breakdown by area of the results of strike ballots of January 1982, October 1982 and March 1983, and the results of area ballots in March 1984. The table is taken from Callinicos & Simons (1985).[39] Cases from 1984 where lodges voted separately (as in South Wales and Scotland) are not shown.
| Area / Groups | Members (approx) | % for strike action, national ballot of January 1982 | % for strike action, national ballot of October 1982 | % for strike action, national ballot of March 1983 | % for strike action, area ballots of March 1984 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cumberland | 650 | 52 | 36 | 42 | 22 |
| Derbyshire | 10,500 | 50 | 40 | 38 | 50 |
| S. Derbyshire | 3,000 | 16 | 13 | 12 | 16 |
| Durham | 13,000 | 46 | 31 | 39 | — |
| Kent | 2,000 | 54 | 69 | 68 | — |
| Leicester | 2,500 | 20 | 13 | 18 | — |
| Midlands (West) | 12,200 | 27 | 23 | 21 | 27 |
| Nottingham | 32,000 | 30 | 21 | 19 | 26 |
| Lancashire | 7,500 | 40 | 44 | 39 | 41 |
| Northumberland | 5,000 | 37 | 32 | 35 | 52 |
| Scotland | 11,500 | 63 | 69 | 50 | — |
| Yorkshire | 56,000 | 66 | 56 | 54 | — |
| North Wales | 1,000 | 18 | 24 | 23 | 36 |
| South Wales | 21,000 | 54 | 59 | 68 | — |
| Colliery Officials | 16,000 | 14 | 10 | 15 | — |
| Cokemen | 4,500 | 32 | 22 | 39 | — |
| National Average | 45 | 39 | 39 | — |
Mobilisation of police
The government mobilised police forces from around Britain including the Metropolitan Police in an attempt to stop pickets preventing strikebreakers from working. They attempted to stop pickets travelling from Yorkshire to Nottinghamshire which led to many protests.[68] On 26 March 1984, pickets protested against the police powers by driving very slowly on the M1 and the A1 around Doncaster.[21]: 70 The government claimed the actions were to uphold the law and safeguard individual civil rights. The police were given powers to halt and reroute traffic away from collieries, and some areas of Nottinghamshire became difficult to reach by road.[21]: 69
In the first 27 weeks of the strike, 164,508 "presumed pickets" were prevented from entering the county.[21]: 69 When pickets from Kent were stopped at the Dartford Tunnel and preventing from travelling to the Midlands, the Kent NUM applied for an injunction against use of this power.[21]: 70 Sir Michael Havers initially denied the application outright, but Mr Justice Skinner later ruled that the power may only be used if the anticipated breach of the peace were "in close proximity both in time and place".[21]: 70 On 16 July 1984, Thatcher convened a ministerial meeting to consider declaring a state of emergency, with the option to use 4,500 military drivers and 1,650 tipper trucks to keep coal supplies available. This backup plan was not needed and was not implemented.[69]
During the strike 11,291 people were arrested and 8,392 were charged with breach of the peace or obstructing the highway. In many former mining areas antipathy towards the police remained strong for many years.[70] Bail forms for picketing offences set restrictions on residence and movement in relation to NCB property.[21]: 70 Tony Benn compared the powers to the racial pass laws in South Africa.[21]: 71
No welfare benefit payments
Welfare benefits had never been available to strikers but their dependents had been entitled to make claims in previous disputes. Clause 6 of the Social Security Act 1980[71] banned the dependents of strikers from receiving "urgent needs" payments and applied a compulsory deduction from the benefits of strikers' dependents. 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.[72] The Department of Social Security assumed that striking miners were receiving £15 per week from the union (equivalent to £49 in 2019), based on payments early in the strike that were not made in the later months when funds had become exhausted.[20]: 220 [73]
MI5 "counter-subversion"
The Director General of MI5 from 1992 to 1996, Dame Stella Rimington, wrote in her autobiography in 2001 that MI5 'counter-subversion' exercises against the NUM and striking miners included tapping union leaders' phones. She denied the agency had informers in the NUM, specifically denying its chief executive Roger Windsor had been an agent.[74]
Public opinion and the media
According to John Campbell "though there was widespread sympathy for the miners, faced with the loss of their livelihoods, there was remarkably little public support for the strike, because of Scargill's methods".[35]: 358 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 during 5–10 December 1984, 51% had most sympathy for the employers; 26% for the miners; 18% for neither and 5% did not know.[75] 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 during 5–10 December 1984, 7% approved; 88% disapproved and 5% did not know.[75] 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.[75]