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Account for the different outcomes of the miners strikes of 1971-2, 1973-4 and 1984-5. opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfg hjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxc vbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfg hjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxc vbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfg hjklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas
18/04/2011 Peter Marshall Student ID: 413242

SSCHI2048: Account for the different outcomes of the miners strikes of 1971-2, 1973-4 and 1984-5.
This essay will examine the outcomes of the miners strikes and show a number of reasons as to why they had different results. It intends to show that the miners had great strength and solidarity in the early 1970s but over the decade that followed their strength was diminished by the Ridley report, Prime Minister Margaret Thatchers heavy-handed approach and the miners lack of unity. In brief the two strikes in the 1970s were a success for the miners whilst the strike in 1984-1985 was disastrous not only for the miners but for trade unions as a whole. All three strikes were a dispute between the government, who were fronted by the National Coal Board (NCB), and the National Union for Mineworkers (NUM) and to fully understand the outcomes one has to appreciate the position the government was in following World War Two and also the strength of the Unions. The position of the government and the strength of the unions can be seen when looking at Walter Moncktons secret cabinet memorandum from 1955 in which he considers proposals to deal with industrial relations problems facing Britain.1 The document highlights how the unions held a large amount of influence within government and were considered to be an integral part of business and policy making decisions. It also reveals the fear that Monckton had of the unions joining together and rising up against the government which led to a hands off approach by Monckton as he did not want to antagonise the unions. This relationship between the unions and government was questioned by Prime Minister Edward Heath in 1974 when he asked Who governs Britain? and this arguably led to his downfall; whether it was this one incident alone or other factors has been debated but it was a definite contributor.2 The way that Heath was deposed by the unions shows the power they wielded at the time, which is a key factor in the outcomes of the strikes; this power worried the Conservatives who consequently produced the Ridley report, but that shall be looked at in greater detail later. The two strikes in the 1970s came about over the same issue, money, but there were still differences in the outcomes. The first strike occurred because inflation had been rising rapidly and the miners wages had not increased accordingly. In November 1971 negotiations began between the NCB and the TUC with the miners asking for a forty-three percent pay rise, equivalent to 9 per week, however the NCB were only offering eight percent. The pay offer was rejected on the 5th January 1972 and four days later the miners walked out on strike leaving all 289 pits closed. The timing of the strike is important as obviously more electricity and therefore more coal was required in the cold and dark winter months. The miners proceeded to picket the most important users or suppliers of coal, such as power stations, ports and coal depots which proved to be very effective as a three day working week was introduced across the country to save electricity. One of the most successful picket lines, led by Arthur Scargill, was at Saltley coke works in Birmingham where approximately 15,000

1 2

Walter Monckton, Secret cabinet memorandum, Current Industrial Relations Problems, 2nd June 1955. Bogdanor, Vernon, The Fall of Heath and the End of the Postwar Settlement, in Ball, Stuart and Seldon, Anthony, (eds.), The Heath Government 1970-1974, Addison Wesley Longman Group Limited, Essex, (1996), pp 371-389.

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SSCHI2048: Account for the different outcomes of the miners strikes of 1971-2, 1973-4 and 1984-5.
workers forced the closure of the site.3 This victory for the NUM highlights two key points, firstly the rise of Scargill and the fundamental role he played and secondly, not only the solidarity of the miners, but of the working class as a whole; many of the 15,000 were not miners but local workers who were members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) who had called sympathy strikes.4 Industry felt the pressure with claims by the Times newspaper that 1.2 million people were out of work, also that large firms such as ICI had given one week notice to 60,000 employees, albeit as a precautionary measure.5 The successful picketing which led to the power shortage was crippling the country and left the government in an awkward position of giving in to the miners demands or fighting it out. On the 25th February the NUM and Heath reached an agreement for the miners to return to work on the 28th in return for a pay rise of between 5 and 6 per week, approximately twenty-one percent and an extra five days holiday per year.6 In summary, the miners had brought themselves into the publics view and made the nation aware of just how important coal was to the economy and the smooth running of the country. Furthermore, Scargill had gained huge support from the miners by ensuring they had become the highest paid industrial workers in the country and the government had shown their weakness by giving in to the miners demands. However, being top of the table of wage earners did not last long for the miners who fell to eighteenth by 1973, but with the price of oil quadrupling due to the Yom Kippur war, the miners once again saw their chance to increase their income by taking industrial action.7 In early 1973 the government were trying to control inflation and cap wage rises at seven percent which resulted in many unions calling for strike action. When the oil prices increased and coal became a priority again, the NUM thought that they could influence the government, through the threat of another strike, into giving them a higher wage increase as they had done the previous year. Again the dispute started over the winter months and on the 12th November the NUM began an overtime ban. The following day the government declared a state of emergency but it was not until the 9th February that the miners actually walked out on strike. That is not to say that the intervening period was without its problems, a 50 mph speed limit and three day working week were introduced by the government while on the other side, although he later retracted his request, the vice president of the NUM called for troops to disobey orders and assist the miners.8 Negotiations continued but all offers were rejected with neither side willing to back down; as Robert Taylor points out many MPs
3

Taylor, Robert, The Heath Government and the Industrial Relations: Myth and reality in Ball, Stuart and Seldon, Anthony, (eds.), The Heath Government 1970-1974, Addison Wesley Longman Group Limited, Essex, (1996), p177. 4 Crick, Michael, Scargill and the Miners, Penguin Books Limited, Middlesex, (1985), p 60. 5 http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/253/748/151920773w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS17135184&dyn=6! xrn_13_0_CS17135184&hst_2?sw_aep=livjm Accessed 10/05/11. 6 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_2516000/2516687.stm Accessed 10/05/11. 7 http://www.agor.org.uk/cwm/themes/events/1972_1974_strikes.asp Accessed 10/05/11 8 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2005/nyo/politics.htm Accessed 10/05/11

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SSCHI2048: Account for the different outcomes of the miners strikes of 1971-2, 1973-4 and 1984-5.
believed that the NUMs actions were political and an ideological attempt by communists and other extremists to destroy an elected government; a belief no doubt which was not helped by the request made by the vice president of the NUM.9 On the 7th February Heath called for a snap election thinking that the public would back him as opposed to the miners but as mentioned earlier this led to his downfall and he lost the election on the 28th February.10 The NUM and the labour government agreed to a thirty-five percent pay rise and production restarted on the 11th March.11 To sum up it can be seen that there was another major victory for the miners and it shows the strength of the unions who were arguably able to topple a government. In addition it confirms the vulnerability of the government who suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the unions which led to the Conservatives investigating the best way to deal with the unions in the future; the Ridley Plan. Although the miners strike of 1974 is remembered as the strike which brought down a government, it has been said that it was not as important as the earlier strike.12 However it would seem that the consequences of it were far more serious and resulted in the harsh tactics employed by Thatcher in 1984. The first thing to note about the strike in 1984-1985 is that it was not a strike over pay as in the 1970s but a strike over pit closures and job losses. On the 1st March 1984 Ian Macgregor the chairman of the NCB announced that 20 uneconomic pits were to close, starting with Cortonwood colliery in Yorkshire; this sparked a reaction from Scargill and the miners who walked out on the 9th March. Because the strike was over jobs and not pay it split the miners, those who were working in productive mines such as Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire had very little support for the strike, whilst others in Yorkshire and SouthWales had over 97 percent of its miners in support of the strike.13 This fragmentation was foreseen in the Ridley Plan and shows how Thatcher was ready for a long term fight with the miners.14 Another point this brings to light is the timing of the strike, it was no accident that the closures were announced in March when the government had a stockpile of coal and summer was on the way; Thatcher realised that to begin a strike in spring was an undesirable tactic for the NUM.15 As mentioned the Ridley Plan was a key factor in the outcome of the strike of 19841985 and there were a number of suggested measures, for instance: choose where the problem arose by provoking a dispute in a non-essential industry where the government could win and thereby discourage attacks from more vulnerable industries; build up coal stocks at power stations to prevent a repeat of the power cuts in the early 1970s; get haulage companies to employ non-union drivers who could then cross picket lines with a police
9

Taylor, Robert, The Heath Government and the Industrial Relations: Myth and reality in Ball, Stuart and Seldon, Anthony, (eds.), The Heath Government 1970-1974, Addison Wesley Longman Group Limited, Essex, (1996), p185. 10 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/7/newsid_4054000/4054793.stm Accessed 10/05/11 11 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/6/newsid_4207000/4207111.stm Accessed 10/05/11 12 Crick, Michael, Scargill and the Miners, Penguin Books Limited, Middlesex, (1985), p 65. 13 Richards, Andrew J, Miners on strike: Class Solidarity and Division in Britain, Berg Publishers, (1997) 14 The Ridley Report, 1974, p26. 15 Thatcher, Margaret, Margaret Thatcher The Downing Street Years, Harper Collins Publishers, London, (1995), p 343.

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SSCHI2048: Account for the different outcomes of the miners strikes of 1971-2, 1973-4 and 1984-5.
escort; make plans to import coal from overseas; install dual coal/oil fired generators as the price of oil was now falling; cut off strikers money and benefits so that the Unions had to financially support them; and train a large, mobile squad of police to control violent picketers. Apart from provoking a dispute in a non-essential industry the Plan was followed by Thatcher who, unlike Heath before her, had no intention of giving in to the miners. A further key factor was the lack of a national ballot and when Scargill called for a national strike on the 12th March it was seen by many as not just morally wrong but illegal. Scargill argued that a national ballot would not give a fair representation as miners who worked in productive mines would not vote for a strike meaning that there would be miners whose jobs were safe, deciding the fate of miners in non-productive mines. Another argument of Scargills was that by the time the vote had been organised the mines would already be closed with 20,000 miners out of work. The government saw what Scargill had done as illegal and the NUM were tried in the courts and eventually had all 8 million of their assets sequestered.16 In conclusion it can be seen that the strikes in the 1970s had positive outcomes for the miners due to their solidarity, no doubt due to the fact they were striking over pay, plus because the strikes began in winter with no stockpile of coal it put the government in a difficult position. The oil crisis of 1973 was also beneficial to the miners and the influence that Scargill held over the working class man and the way he connected with the people was vital. In addition the weakness and mistakes of the government and the poor decision by Heath to call an election all played a part in the miners victory. However 1984-1985 was the total polar opposite, Thatcher not only defeated the miners but crushed the trade unions and the influence they held within government. There were many factors and events contributing to this, but the Ridley Plan and the way that Thatcher adhered to it was crucial. Likewise the mistake that Scargill made by not calling a national ballot before a national strike ruined any chance of a victory as it split the miners. In many respects the miners were doomed from the start, although Scargill was fighting for the miners and communities, coal was a business and one that was losing money through uneconomic mines, whether that was because of working practices or the natural resources running out is questionable but the fact remains something had to change. To Thatcher the miners strike was more about the Unions and their interference and she was willing to fight until the end to overthrow them and restore management to the managers.

16

Adeney, Martin and Lloyd, John, The Miners Strike 1984-1985 Loss Without Limit, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, (1988), p 173.

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SSCHI2048: Account for the different outcomes of the miners strikes of 1971-2, 1973-4 and 1984-5. Bibliography
Adeney, Martin and Lloyd, John, The Miners Strike 1984-1985 Loss Without Limit, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, (1988) Beynon, Huw, Digging Deeper, Issues in the Miners Strike, Verso, London (1985) Bogdanor, Vernon, The Fall of Heath and the End of the Postwar Settlement, in Ball, Stuart and Seldon, Anthony, (eds.), The Heath Government 1970-1974, Addison Wesley Longman Group Limited, Essex, (1996) Crick, Michael, Scargill and the Miners, Penguin Books Limited, Middlesex, (1985) Lloyd, John, Understanding the Miners Strike, Fabian Society, London, (1985) Richards, Andrew J, Miners on strike: Class Solidarity and Division in Britain, Berg Publishers, (1997) Ridley Report, 1974 Taylor, Robert, The Heath Government and the Industrial Relations: Myth and reality in Ball, Stuart and Seldon, Anthony, (eds.), The Heath Government 1970-1974, Addison Wesley Longman Group Limited, Essex, (1996) Thatcher, Margaret, Margaret Thatcher The Downing Street Years, Harper Collins Publishers, London, (1995) Walter Monckton, Secret cabinet memorandum, Current Industrial Relations Problems, 2nd June 1955. http://www.agor.org.uk/cwm/themes/events/1972_1974_strikes.asp http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/7/newsid_4054000/4054793.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_2516000/2516687.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/6/newsid_4207000/4207111.stm http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/253/748/151920773w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS1 7135184&dyn=6!xrn_13_0_CS17135184&hst_2?sw_aep=livjm http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2005/nyo/politics.htm

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