The Miners' Strike 1984/85

Equality in the struggle

Jean Lane, a Women’s Fightback organiser during the miners’ strike, remembers how Paul Whetton responded to women organising. The need for the organisation of working class women to change society, became common parlance for men and women throughout the strike, changing forever how many women saw themselves and how men viewed them. Wife into comrade, women changed their role from housekeeper to picket, speaker, traveller, poet. Paul, from the beginning, was very clear on the importance of the role of Women Against Pit Closures. They were what kept Notts, and arguably the strike itself, going...

Paul Whetton, Trotskyist Notts Miners Leader In the 1984-5 Strike

On Friday 3 March Paul Whetton, miner, trade union militant, socialist and Workers’ Liberty collaborator, died aged 66. It was the 21st anniversary of the end of the great miners’ strike of 1984-85. John Bloxam remembers him. On 3 March 1985, the National Union of Mineworkers delegate conference voted 98 to 91 to return to work without a settlement, but as a still-intact union. Paul lobbied against the return, arguing with other left wingers that the strike should continue until 700 sacked miners got their jobs back. Having been out-voted, however, he was part of the disciplined return to work...

Twenty years too late

Mick Duncan reviews "Faith" , BBC1, 28 February The Tory Party complained about William Ivory’s Faith, claiming it painted Margaret Thatcher in a bad light. Ivory is a talented writer, and this feature length drama of love and betrayal, set in an anonymous Yorkshire town during the miners’ strike, certainly had its moments. But painting Thatcher in a bad light? It would take the dramatic talent of Shakespeare coupled with a god-given gift for abuse equivalent to that of Hunter S Thompson to achieve that. You can’t make the devil more evil than he already is. So it is with Thatcher. What this...

The end of the “superpit”

The last pit in the “superpit” coalfield of Selby, North Yorkshire, closed last month and with it went 1,700 mining jobs. The coalfield — which consisted of five pits and one drift mine — covered 110 square miles, an area the size of the Isle of Wight. It was started October 1976, at a time when British capitalism thought coal was a good alternative to oil. When it opened, the Selby coalfield was praised by then Labour government as a “striking symbol of the re-birth of coal as a major energy source”. The closure means the number of UK mines has shrunk to just 11, employing 3,000 miners. Only...

The Miners' Strike: Why did Notts scab?

For most miners, the Notts coalfield was synonymous with conservatism and right wing domination. It was the first coalfield to return to work in 1926. The home of “Spencerism” (employer’s union) and the main area of support for the introduction of an incentive scheme in 1977. Conditions in the coalfield — thick straight seams and relatively good wages and conditions — helped. Notts was not the only area with a right wing tradition but, unlike neighbouring Yorkshire (which also was right wing until the 1960s), it had little history of militant rank and file organisation and strikes. The Notts...

The miners’ strike 1984-5

Socialist Worker, the miners and the “downturn” By Jack Cleary, from Socialist Organiser 6 February 1985 Socialists need realism, honesty and candour in assessing the world around us. On the other hand we should have no business with unnecessary or premature defeatism. Anyone reading what Socialist Worker says could not avoid the conclusion that the strike is lost. Socialist Worker’s 2 February issue, for example, has good headline advice for striking miners: “No Surrender”. But the underlying train of thought behind this, is made clear in articles in that issue. For example, under the...

The miners’ strike 1984-5

Christmas and unity Christmas pressures tended to united pit communities. Socialist Organiser of 12 December reported from Kiveton Park: “As television commercials paraded computers and spaceships before children’s eyes, Jenny Dennis had to tell her seven year old son Matthew that Santa Claus was a mere fantasy. “Mathew reassured his parents that the sacrifice was worthwhile to preserve future hopes. “Soon, though, sackfuls of toys and games arrived from trade unions like ASLEF at Derby and Labour Parties as far away as Bethnal Green and Stepney in East London. “Jenny recently appealed for...

The miners’ strike 1984-5

Read on for a look at the events of October and the scabs and the law. The events 8 October: the NUM and the National Coal Board agree to meet at ACAS under an independent Chair on 11 October. 10 October: the NUM fined £200,000 and found in contempt of a High Court ruling which states the strike is unlawful because of the lack of a national ballot. 12 October: Restrictive bail conditions on striking members are upheld in the Divisional Courts. 15 October: NCB walk out of ACAS talks. 25 October: ACAS prepare a formula which both NACODS and NUM accept and which includes provision for an...

The Miners' Strike 1984-5: The events

Continuing our timeline of the events of the strike... 26 September: National Coal Board offers pit deputies, NACODS, a compromise package. 28 September: High Court rules NUM strike was “unlawful” because there has been no national ballot. The action has been brought by two scab miners. The legal action parallels the new Tory anti-union law which have come into force in the course of the strike, requiring ballots for all strikes, but that law is not actually used. The court took it upon itself to interpret the NUM’s rule book, and declared the strike unlawful. NACODS ballot result announced...

The Miners' Strike 1984-5: Kinnock's Role

The Labour Party conference opened at Blackpool on 1 October. It overturned and overruled the platform line on the miners’ strike. Arthur Scargill got a tremendous reception. The conference rejected Labour leader Neil Kinnock’s “statesmanlike”, even-handed condemnation of violence, by which primarily he meant pickets’ violence. Conference condemned police violence, called for police to be removed from the coalfields, and thus implicitly sided with the pickets. (Members of the Socialist Organiser Alliance, forerunner of the AWL, originated the crucial clauses.) Albert Bowns (Kiveton Park NUM)...

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