Miners Strike (1984 – 1985)

This British strike against pit closures – arguably the most bitter industrial dispute in British history – lasted almost a year from April 1984.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), led by its Marxist president, Arthur Scargill (pictured), called the strike in April 1984 – without a ballot – in protest against pit closures and as part of a campaign gainst the National Coal Board (NCB) for a better basic wage.

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.

Support was strong in South Wales, Scotland, Yorkshire and Kent, but – without a national ballot – pits in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, South Derbyshire, North Wales and the West Midlands continued to operate.

The strike was almost universally observed in South Wales, Yorkshire, Scotland, North East England and Kent.

Some NUM members left the union and founded the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM), which was eventually de facto recognised when the NCB included it in wage negotiations.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was determined to make a stand against the miners, and in April 1985, members of the NUM returned to work.

Violent confrontations between flying pickets and police characterised the year-long strike. The government mobilised police forces from around Britain – including the London-based Metropolitan Police – in an attempt to stop pickets preventing strikebreakers from working.

The “Battle of Orgreave” took place on 18 June 1984 at the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham in South Yorkshire, which striking miners were attempting to blockade.

The confrontation – between about 5,000 miners and the same number of police – descended into violence after police on horseback charged with truncheons drawn. 51 picketers and 72 policemen were injured.

Television cameras on the scene caught a policeman repeatedly hitting a picket in his head with a truncheon, but no charges were made against the officer, identified as a member of Northumbria Police.

Other less well-known but equally bloody battles between pickets and police took place – for example, in Maltby, South Yorkshire. Taxi driver, David Wilkie, was killed on 30 November 1984 while driving a non-striking miner to Merthyr Vale Colliery in South Wales. Two striking miners dropped a concrete post onto his car from a road bridge, and he died at the scene. The miners served a prison sentence for manslaughter.

The number of strikebreakers – referred to pejoratively as “scabs” – increased from the start of January 1985, as the strikers struggled to pay for food as union pay ran out. 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

During the strike, 11,291 people were arrested, mostly for breach of the peace or obstructing roads whilst picketing. 8,392 of them were charged, and between 150 and 200 were imprisoned. At least 9,000 miners were dismissed after being arrested whilst picketing, even when no charges were brought.

The strike ended on 3 March 1985 with a decisive victory for the Conservative government and allowed the closure of most of Britain’s collieries.

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.