liery in Yorkshire and spread spontaneously through the bulk of the coalfields. Only Nottinghamshire split off and became a scab area. Although the right wing argued that there should have been a ballot, this would simply have headed off the spontaneous momentum of the strike, giving the advantage to a hostile media, and probably ensur
Miners voted with their feet, by far the most effective response. It was clear to them that Corton Wood was the test case for the whole industry - a message that Arthur Scargill put forward with great force.
By the mid-1990s it was already clear how right Scargill had been when he said that the strike was a battle for the existence of the industry, for there was no coal industry left and only remnants of the NUM in a few priAt the time of the strike the NUM had 210,000 members in 170 pits. Then came the privatisation of power generation, the dash for gas, and the rigging of the market. These developments meant that the NUM suffered the fastest decline of any union in the history of the British labour movement. This was the union that was rightly seen as the movement's praetorian guard, having shaken British capitalism to its foundations in two great strikes over wages in 1972 and
n 1972 when the miners took strike
had been a major centre of militancy. They displayed a formidable solidarity and after a face-saving inquiry the government caved in and they won their full demands. 1974 was no less spectacular. As the coun try came to a standstill, Edward Heath famously called a general election with the slogan "Who runs Britain?' and received the equally famous answer. The strikes were a powerful force in generating militancy across the trade union movement in the
The defeat of the 1984/5 strike - in the biggest confrontation between the trade union movement and the British state since the general strike of 1926 - was a huge blow to the whole trade union movement. Twenty years on the movement has been reduced to half its size, and much of Britain's productive industry closed down.
The Thatcher government had come to power following a massive upsurge in trade union struggle that culminated in the winter of discontent in 1978/9. Twenty eight million working days were lost in strike action that year. Labour failed to hold on to office because it was attacking the wages of those
New Year 1980 saw the start of the 15week national strike by 100,000 steel workers over wage rates and jobs. It was a precursor of the miners strike in that it deployed mass pickets as part of the struggle but while the steel workers won a big wage increase they were unable to stop closures in the
The Tories, meanwhile, were developing a plan of action known as the 'Ridley Plan. This involved making unlimited sums of money available to defeat strikes and to use the police as effectively a paramilitary force. The plan also involved a decision not to take on the miners straight away, but to confront other sectors first in order to ensure that the
The attack on the miners was therefore preceded by an attack on the printers. The centrepiece of this was the NGAs battle of Warrington - a major confrontation between the police and pickets. This bitter dispute ended with the betrayal of the NGA through collapse of the TUC in front of the anti-union laws brought in by Norman Tebbit two years earlier, and which the TUC had initially
These events were followed by the defeat of other militant defensive actions such as the printers at Wapping and the seafarers' strike. But the defeat of the miners was by far the most important victory for the Tories during
The smashing of the mining industry and the defeat of the NUM were far from inevitable, notwithstanding the preparations the Tories had made. In fact the line was only just held by the government despite the strikebreaking operation in Nottinghamshire mounted by the scab UDM. Even Thatcher thought she might lose, particularly when the pit deputies' union NACODS voted to join the strike. If NACODS had stuck to its guns, the scab pits in Nottinghamshire could have
Arthur Scargill was the most determined leader the British trade union movement had ever produced. The strike itself, however, faced a serious and potentially fatal danger from the outset, being left in isolation by the rest of the official trade union movement.
The trade union leaders had moved to the right since the high point of struggle in 1979 and new realism - the idea that strikes were a bad thing because they prejudiced Labour's chances at the ballot box - was gaining an increasing hold. The danger from this was never adequately recognised by the leaderIn fact the unspoken but unmistakable strategy of the Scargill leadership was to follow the model of the 1972 and 1974 strikes when the miners were able win by their own strength through solidarity and mass picket ing. In these strikes the lights went out after few weeks and the government was force to negotiate.
The striking miners in 1984,
course, showed no lack of solidarit
and determination but this time was far more difficult. Not only was there scab coalfield was producing coal Nottinghamshire but government had pre pared the ground more thoroughly an coal stocks were high.
This time the key to the strike was solidal ity with the miners - breaking the isolatio into which they were drifting. The opening a second front was needed: other unior coming into struggle alongside the miner not necessarily in direct solidarity with ther (which was possible but difficult) but b unions pursuing their own claims or defen ing their own jobs alongside the miners. Th was exactly what the government was out 1 avoid. The mass picketing was important, fact in many ways it was the life-blood of th strike, but it was not in itself an adequat strategy for the conditions the miners face in the spring of 1984. and achievable strategy, given the level strikes and militancy of the working class numerous opportunities for other unions join the miners in action through pursui their own wage claims. Yet not a single uni stood firm and compromise after compr The smashing of the mining industry and the defeat of the NUM were far from inevitable ... even Thatcher though she might lose
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to recruit and win recognition of the Teamsters' Union in 1934, and the wave of militant sit-down strikes throughout the car
socalst reststance April 2004 21 There was no lack of class struggle, but even pitched battles like this between pickets and police in Minneapolis in the fight industry in the 1930s did not generate a political voice for the US labour movement.