There is no alternative: Exploring the options in the 1984-5 miners' strike

Abstract

This article critically reassesses the predominant argument that the 1984-5 miners' strike was inevitably doomed, and examines the potential for alternative courses of action and a different outcome.

Canonical Generations and the British Left: The Narrative Construction of the Miners’ Strike 1984–85

“…The year-long strike ended in defeat for the miners, its aftermath saw mass closures, and following its privatisation in the 1990s, the near disappearance of coal mining in the UK. Why it failed is a much debated question: whether the lack of a national ballot affected the unity of or delegitimised the action; to what extent it was possible to win when regional variations in participation in the strike undermined the action – most starkly demonstrated in Nottinghamshire where a majority continued to work throughout the strike (see Peter, 1988; Richards, 1996); or whether it lacked the solidarity of the wider labour movement seen in 1972 (Darlington, 2005). Despite such questions, the miners’ strike of 1984–85 has come to epitomise political struggle and unity in the 1980s, the collective fight against Thatcherite economic and social policies and, in its defeat, the subsequent fate of both organised labour and the working class more broadly.…”

The state, the police and the judiciary in the miners’ strike: Observations and discussions, thirty years on

“…Within this troubled trajectory, the union had consistently retained its federal nature; each area of the union was relatively autonomous and, before 1972, there had been numerous unofficial and localised strikes that never became official (Crick 1984). The strikes of the early 1970s had reflected a hiatus in this situation, as national pay parity was achieved via the National Power Loading Agreement (NPLA) of 1966; but unity was all but obliterated following the Area Incentive Scheme of 1977 (Darlington 2005; Taylor 2005) The union’s failed ballot efforts to mobilise grassroots support for national action, in 1982 and 1983, support this view (Darlington 2005).…”

“…The 1980s presented a profoundly different context of economic insecurity, mass unemployment and recession. In this context, the NUM’s 1983 Annual Conference formally rejected pit closures, other than on the grounds of exhaustion, and this led to an overtime ban from 31 October 1983 (NUM Annual Conference 1983; NUM Special Conference 1983; Darlington 2005). Yet despite this apparent show of unity across the leadership of the union, the NCB’s pit closure programme impacted on areas to various extents: this would lead to insurmountable divisions (Allen 2009: 281).…”

“…There was political change within the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) by 1984, as the broad-left culture became synonymous with ‘Scargillism’, the particular brand of leadership of its president, Arthur Scargill. This ensured that the union was a different beast than in 1972 and 1974, when on both occasions it had triumphed over Edward Heath’s Conservative government (Taylor 2005; Beckett & Hencke 2009; Darlington 2005). The attention scholars have given to the 1984 strike reflects its exceptional nature.…”

A reappraisal of the rank-and-file versus bureaucracy debate

“…One graphic example of this was the way the miners won their greatest victories in the national strikes of 1972 and 1974, despite the leadership of a right-wing president (Joe Gormley), essentially because the independent initiative and momentum from below (combined with the active solidarity received by other workers) was so powerful. By contrast, the miners suffered their greatest defeats under the left-wing presidency of Arthur Scargill, arising from the relative weakness of rank-and-file organisation within the NUM (and among trade unionists generally) by the early 1980s (Callinicos and Simons, 1984;Darlington, 2005).…”