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History > UK, British empire, England
Early 21st century, 20th century
UK > Margaret Thatcher (PM 1979-1990)
The Miners' strike 1984-1985
An arrested and injured miner being taken to an ambulance during the 1984 Battle of Orgreave.
Photograph: Rex Shutterstock
Miners' strike: IPCC considers unredacted Orgreave report G Wednesday 4 May 2016 08.54 BST Last modified on Thursday 5 May 2016 23.11 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/04/
1985
The aftermath of the miners' strike
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jul/01/
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/15/
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/may/07/
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/07/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/28/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/03/
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-22068640 - 8 April 2013
The Battle of Orgreave South Yorkshire 1984-1985
The battle of Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
‘What I remember, and what I discussed with my students, was that the early evening BBC news coverage was filmed from behind police lines,’ writes Michael Weller.
Photograph: Photofusion/Rex
The BBC and its coverage of the battle of Orgreave G Thursday 23 July 2015 19.24 BST Last modified on Friday 6 May 2016 00.27 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/23/
National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill in front of riot police during clashes at the Orgreave coking plant in Yorkshire in 1984.
Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian
G Thursday 15 October 2015 23.00 BST Last modified on Friday 6 May 2016 00.08 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/15/
Arthur Scargill is arrested at the Orgreave picket line.
Photograph: Daily Mail/Rex Shuttershock / Alam
Theresa May to heed campaigners' call for inquiry into battle of Orgreave G Tuesday 15 December 2015 09.00 GMT Last modified on Thursday 5 May 2016 23.52 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/15/
‘Following the battle, 95 miners were charged with riot, an offence which can carry a life sentence.’
Photograph: Mike Forster Associated News/Rex
The lies binding Hillsborough to the battle of Orgreave G Thursday 5 May 2016 19.59 BST Last modified on Thursday 5 May 2016 23.08 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/05/
Police and pickets at Orgreave, South Yorkshire during the miners strike in 1984
Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian
G Tuesday 24 February 2015 16.25 GMT Last modified on Thursday 26 February 2015 12.54 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/24/
Related
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/06/
Maerdy Womens’ support group marching to Maerdy Colliery after the strike ended on 5 March 1985
Photograph: John Barnes for the Guardian
UK miners' strike 30 years on: share your photos and stories G Tuesday 24 February 2015 16.25 GMT Last modified on Thursday 26 February 2015 12.54 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/24/
Protests outside the NUM headquarters in Sheffield during the miners’ strike of 1984.
Photograph: Tony Prime The Observer G Wed 10 Jul 2019 13.36 BST Last modified on Wed 10 Jul 2019 13.42 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/10/
30 years since the pit crisis of 1984 Channel 4
Miners' strike - 30 years since the pit crisis of 1984 Video Channel 4 News
Thirty years ago today, miners at Cortonwood colliery in Yorkshire walked out in protest at plans to close their pit.
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA-76QeiuSQ
1984-1985
The miners' strike
The Battle of Orgreave, South Yorkshire
What happened at the 'Battle of Orgreave'? – video explainer G Tuesday 1 November 2016 17.46 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2016/nov/01/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/miners-strike-1984-85 http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/industry_coal06.shtml
https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/12/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3494024.stm - 4 March 2004 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/arthur-scargill
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/07/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/07/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/21/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/04/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/10/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/16/
https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2016/nov/01/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/14/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/05/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/23/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/22/
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/may/03/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/the-northerner/2015/mar/06/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/guardianwitness-blog/2015/mar/05/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/24/uk-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/03/
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/15/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA-76QeiuSQ - Channel 4 - 6 March 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/women-miners-strike-1984-85-
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-25549596 - 3 January 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2013/apr/09/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/09/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/dec/01/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/gallery/2010/sep/12/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/12/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/29/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/29/
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/jun/03/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/04/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/oct/28/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2009/feb/23/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/from-the-archive-blog/2014/jun/17/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/18/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/
Against (the) backdrop of high unemployment, the Coal Board announced in early 1984 that 20 uneconomic pits would have to close, putting 20,000 miners out of work.
It was the government's second attempt to close these pits, after a climb-down in 1981.
Miners at the endangered Cortonwood colliery in Yorkshire walked out on 5 March 1984 in protest at the plans.
Within a week, more than half the country's miners were on strike.
The dispute lasted a year and led to conflict not only with police but between miners who supported the strike and those who did not.
When the miners returned to work, the pit closure programme continued. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-22070491
The trigger for Britain's most bitter industrial dispute of recent times was the announcement that one Yorkshire pit, Cortonwood near Barnsley, was to close.
On 5 March 1984 the men at that pit and those all over Yorkshire walked out, not realising that it would be a year before they returned.
The next day the unions were told that Cortonwood was only the first of a wide-ranging programme of closures that would see 20 pits shut and 20,000 miners lose their jobs.
Scottish miners joined the action and by 12 March, half Britain's 187,000 miners had downed tools.
But the kindling for the strike was laid long before the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers jointly lit the match that spring.
A coal strike in 1974 had brought down Ted Heath's Conservative government.
Five years into her stride as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher was not about to let the same thing happen to her.
a nationalised coal industry requiring massive subsidies was anathema to the Thatcher government's long term economic goals.
Mrs Thatcher knew that confrontation with the powerful and militant NUM would come about sooner or later and she had appointed Ian MacGregor, who had a reputation as an industrial hatchet man, as head of the Coal Board.
She also made sure to stockpile coal at power stations so that the miners would have to wait many months before they came close to holding the country's energy supply to ransom. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3494024.stm - 4 March 2004
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-22070491
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/12/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3494024.stm - 4 March 2004
John Lyons 1926-2016
John Lyons (...) was a moderate and influential trade unionist who virulently opposed Arthur Scargill’s handling of the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
As general secretary of the Electrical Power Engineers Association (EPEA) at the time of the action, he was in a position to call out junior managers and effectively close down power stations.
But he steadfastly refused to back the strike because he thought Scargill was misleading his members.
As Lyons wrote in an incomplete book that he was working on after his retirement: “The EPEA could have won the dispute for Scargill without lifting a finger if we had decided to back him.
All we would have had to do [was] announce cuts in the power supplies if a settlement had not been reached by a certain date.”
Lyons’s defiance put him in a minority on the Trades Union Congress general council, on which he sat.
While many other members also disagreed with Scargill’s tactics, in particular his decision to strike without holding a national ballot, they decided to back him nonetheless.
After the strike ended in failure in 1985, Lyons was angry that the TUC did not apologise to the working miners and their communities in the Midlands for the way they were treated by those in the National Union of Mineworkers who backed Scargill.
His opposition to aspects of the strike won him respect from people who opposed him politically, but also made him the focus of much vitriol.
Years later, Scargill characterised the actions of Lyons – and other like-minded union leaders such as Eric Hammond – as “class collaboration”.
Although Lyons won himself fame and notoriety for his stance during the miners’ strike, he believed his greatest achievement lay in another area – saving the pension rights of power workers and managers when Cecil Parkinson, energy secretary, prepared to privatise the industry in 1988. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/14/john-lyons-obituary
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/14/
The demise of UK deep coal mining: decades of decline
We chart the decline of the industry from 1960
The Guardian 18 December 2015
Start of the decline 1960-69
The industry produced 177m tonnes of coal a year from deep mines and employed over 500,000 miners at 483 facilities in the mid-century.
But coal was under threat as railways were cut back and moved to diesel and electric power.
Strikes and blackouts 1970-79
Deep mine output had slumped to 114m tonnes by the mid-1970s with only 240 deep mines and 300,000 workers.
The industry was hit by two damaging disputes in the early years:
the 1972 walkout ended in electricity blackouts, factory closures and industry on a three day week.
Miners v Margaret Thatcher 1980-89
The steady decline in the industry’s fortunes continued into the 1980s and reached a low point in 1984/5 when the most bitter confrontation took place over wages and pit closures.
At this stage there were only 133 deep mines left which produced 133m tonnes of coal with 180,000 workers.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/dec/18/
http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/dec/18/
The miners’ strike > other resources
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/09/
Martin Jenkinson 1947-2012
former steelworker whose love of photography combined with his politics and his belief in social justice, fairness and equality.
He was responsible for some of the most striking images to have emerged from political and industrial struggle in Britain over the last 30 years.
Martin captured steelworkers as they fought for survival, and was the official photographer on the People's March for Jobs, in 1981.
He was commissioned by the National Union of Mineworkers' newspapers the Miner and the Yorkshire Miner, and was at the heart of the epic strike against pit closures of 1984-85.
His enduring images include the arrest of Arthur Scargill; the launch of the Women Against Pit Closures movement; and a smiling pit striker named Geordie Brealey wearing a toy policeman's helmet as he "inspects" battalions of police officers ined up against pickets at Orgreave cokeworks.
He was also commissioned by many other unions, notably the National Union of Teachers, to cover their conferences, galas and other events.
An active member of the National Union of Journalists, he served on its national executive committee. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/01/martin-jenkinson-obituary
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/06/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/nov/27/
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/01/
http://www.epuk.org/news/
The Newton Neurotics
In the 1980s the Neurotics recorded John Peel sessions for BBC Radio 1, released a critically lauded debut album, Beggars Can Be Choosers, and saw their third single, become an anthem as they played an exhausting schedule of benefit gigs throughout the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/24/
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/24/
1984
Ken Loach's Which Side Are You On?
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/530268/
Related > Anglonautes > History > 21st, 20th century > UK
Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) (PM 1979-1990)
England, United Kingdom, British Empire
20th century > Northern Ireland
Related > Anglonautes > Vocapedia
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