vufindString = {bulk_email_success: "Your item(s) were e-mailed",bulk_save_success: "Your item(s) were saved successfully",close: "close",loading: "Loading",sms_success: "Message sent. Wilsher, Peter, Donald Macintyre, and Michael CE Jones, eds. Thereafter Scargill led the NUM through the 19841985 miners' strike. Back in 1983 (even before the great miners strike) the forunner of Solidarity (Socialist Organiser) condemned Scargills attacks on the independent Polish union movement Solidarnosc, but also identified the root cause of Scargills tragic error (nationalism) and denounced the hypocrisy of many of his critics within the labour movement: Its no news that Scargill has a scandalous attitude to Solidarnosc. "Goodbye to all that? Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world . Accessed October 10, 2018. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/37592/How the Miners Strike could have won. The coal stocks at power stations held out[20]. If being ignored is the ultimate retribution forscargill, then he is a lucky man, for if he had espoused his views in some of the countrieswith which he wanted to align us, his best outcome would have been breaking rocks but more likely he would have disappeared never to be heard of again. The Guardian. His policy alienated most of the Nottinghamshire miners, undermined his position with the leaders of the trade union movement, hurt the union's reputation in British public opinion, and led to violence along the picket line. The strike ended on 3 March 1985 following an NUM vote to return to work. Chris Kitchen said: "I would say it's time to walk away, Mr Scargill. April 23, 2022 the myth of workers' control arthur scargill . Page 39. The names of all incoming telephone callers are recorded on a central log. Yet he still gives credit to Thatcher and her government for their actions during the strike which legitimises his view. However, he does give credit to the harsh tactics taken by the miners that may have cut out any support for the Nottinghamshire miners; The only legitimate question that may be raised about the tactics of the NUM nationally was whether the Yorkshire miners, by picketing Nottinghamshire so early and so vigorously, alienated those they were seeking to influence. [29] Thatcher, Margaret. However, one of the most important factors in the failure of the miners strike has to be the lack of support especially from the Nottinghamshire miners and the falling through of the NACODs strike. McIlroy, J. you only have to look at the current state of our country after Cov19torealise that we have noindustry left! RewriteRule . Another controversial action that Thatcher took was giving the police ultimate power during the strike. Thatcher, herself, advances this view in her memoirs The Downing Street Years and echoed by many other Thatcherites such as Nigel Lawson, Shirley Letwin and historians such as John Campbell. The Enemy Within", Verso 2014. His comments followed a question in the Commons from Labour MP Lisa Nandy, who said the miners and their families deserved an apology for the mine closures. The movement faced a huge confrontation from the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, and the union was eventually defeated. Arthur Scargill. (1983), Restructuring the employment relationship, Gallie, Duncan, He used the NUM for his own advancement, and ended up thinking he was bigger than the Union and everything else. A History of Modern Britain. March 10, 2004. Logger.logCoid("61c4e44a-8d58-45d2-8bc5-5fc2bd749aae"); In 1958, he attended the World Federation of Trade Unions youth congress in Prague. However, many people argue that there was a lot of support for the strike so therefore it couldnt have been such an important factor in its failure in 1985. However, Scargill was well known for being a formidable organiser and conference-hall speaker[6]. The myth of workers' control: We are fighting for the survival of our culture: Selected Co-authors Countries and Regions of . Downing Street Years. The Alliance for Workers' Liberty is an organisation fighting as part of the labour movement for a socialist alternative to both capitalism and Stalinism, based on common ownership and democracy. The strike became a symbolic struggle, as the NUM was one of the strongest unions in the country, viewed by many, including Conservatives in power, as having brought down the Heath government in the union's 1974 strike. (2004) "Al Richardson (19412003): An Appreciation", David Howell, et al. The View from No. Woods, Alan. Before you do anything, it is suggested that you backup your website so that you can revert back to a previous version if something goes wrong. Can you add one ? /index.php [L] Page 341. Arrow, 1994. Accessed January 06, 2019. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3503545.stm. After the miners' strike in 1984, there were accusations that Arthur Scargill had misappropriated National Union of Mineworkers funds and that money which sh. This Mainstream media view holds that the strike failed because of Scargills extreme beliefs and bad decisions. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; the executive was described as dominated by "Gormley's rotten boroughs", since every region even quite small ones had one delegate, and the larger regions had only a few more (Scotland and South Wales had two delegates each, Yorkshire had three). He did not take the Eleven-Plus exam and went to Worsbrough Dale School (now called the Elmhirst School). However, it can be argued that the government limited its role in upholding law and order in a dispute between the NUM and the NCB. Carrying the Fire in The Road T he dystopian world of Cormac McCarthy's The Road is best summarized by the following lines from the novella: "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. This was to begin the argument of whether the actions of Thatcher and the state during the strike led to its failure. Therefore, government preparations are more important than other factors, such as Arthur Scargills leadership and support for the strike, in the failure of the miners strike. On March 6, 1984, the National Coal Board announced its plan to cut the nation's coal output by 4 million tons, in an effort to stem a $340 million annual loss. If anyone of them has any cause for complaint they are simply showing the door because they have no unions to speak for to stand up for the rights of any working man or woman in this country. [14] Benn, Tony. [15] However, Scargill's statements in the years after becoming NUM president divided left-wing opinion with his support of the Soviet Union, most notably when he refused to support the TUC's positions on the Solidarity union in Poland or on the Soviet shooting down of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007. Edit the file on your computer and upload it to the server via FTP. Many people also argue that the police werent as brutal as some other accounts made them out to be and that they were just doing their jobs in maintaining law and order. "Goodbye to all that? If like me you lived through that period of the early seventies, constant strike action, the mid seventies when Britain effectively went bust aided by constant strikes and was branded sick man of Europe going through the winter of discontent where it seemed everybody was on strike, building up to the miners strike in 84/85, you look back and struggle to convince even yourself that we allowed such selfish destructive idealism to ruin the lives of so many in this country. The Miners Strike Day by Day: The Illustrated 1984-85 Diary of Yorkshire Miner Arthur Wakefield. Page 342. (1988), Trade unions and politics : thatchers assault on the unions ; the unions response, Kahn, Peggy, Margaret Thatcher: From Grocers Daughter to Iron Lady. The miners had already built up a fearsome reputation as the shock troops for organised labour and during his time as leader of the Yorkshire coalfield, Mr Scargill had rarely been out of the news. ",viewBookBag: "View clipboard",addBookBag: "Add to clipboard",removeBookBag: "Remove from clipboard",itemsAddBag: "item(s) added to your clipboard",itemsInBag: "item(s) are either already in your clipboard or could not be added",bookbagMax: "100",bookbagFull: "Your clipboard is Full",bookbagStatusFull: "Full",no_tags: "No Tags"}; Look for the .htaccess file in the list of files. Accessed January 06, 2019. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3503545.stm. (1998), Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10000684676, Occasional papers in industrial relations. Page 161. [34] Scargill accepted Lightman's statement that many of his actions suffered from a lack of professional advice, which he was unwilling to be bound by. For more information, see The National Review (June 15, 1984 and April 5 . He led an unofficial strike in 1969, and played a key organising role during strikes of 1972 and 1974, the latter of which played a part in the downfall of Edward Heath's Conservative government. Another important factor in the failure of the miners strike is the amount of support that it had. [12] Evans, Eric J. Thatcher and Thatcherism. [58][59] Scargill's appearance on the picket line was alluded to by Prime Minister Boris Johnson the next day at Prime Minister's Questions, accusing the Labour Party of "literally holding hands with Arthur Scargill". Read online at https://workersliberty.org/node/34498, Submitted by AWL on 18 September, 2019 - 11:48, Letters: Hands off Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg, Holodomor: the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, Tubeworker (London Underground) (bulletin), Off the Rails (national rail workers) (bulletin), Off the Rails (national rail workers) (blog), Notts Off the Rails (Nottingham rail workers) (bulletin), On Guard (Sheffield rail workers) (bulletin). No plagiarism, guaranteed! March 10, 2004. [9] He had challenged Sam Bullough, the President of the Yorkshire area NUM, to act on the working hours of surface workers, given that the union's conference had passed a resolution that their hours be shortened the previous year. Copyright 2003 - 2023 - UKEssays is a trading name of Business Bliss Consultants FZE, a company registered in United Arab Emirates. Lawson also takes the mainstream media view that everything Thatcher did during the strike was to maintain law and order. A motion from the Kent area was passed by the NUM conference to move the head office to a coalfield. [32] The documentary suggests that the claims against Scargill were untrue. The authorities must be using the army[32]. [40] Tony Benn. Wikipedia. [31] In addition, it was alleged that he had taken 1,000,000 of cash donated by the Soviet Union for the Welsh miners and placed it in a Dublin bank account for the "International Miners' Organisation", where it stayed until a year after the strike had finished. [37] The prosecution brought by the Certification Officer was rejected in July 1991 on the grounds that it would be inappropriate to use the material provided in confidence to Lightman's enquiry. So that was my initial introduction into socialism and into political militancy. The two men had been convicted of the murder of David Wilkie, a taxi driver, by throwing a block of concrete from a bridge onto his car. His legacy is one of shame and ignominy. ." It is a world of despair, of ashes, and coldness, and darkness, and the setting acts as a . John Campbell argues that It was the job of the police to protect the freedom to work, and the job of the government to support the police[37]. He also represented the Barnsley Co-op at Cooperative congresses. [21] Many politicians, including the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock, believed Scargill had made a huge mistake in calling the strike in the summer rather than in the winter. [27] Thatcher, Margaret. Amazingly the electorate resent being told they're either racist or stupid or both, if the remain campaign had been more mature in it's approach, almost certainly a different decision would have been reached. However, Wakefield also mentions the betrayal he felt by the Nottinghamshire miners who continued to work by saying The lads are in good spirits even if the majority of scabs are working. Parcourez la librairie en ligne la plus vaste au monde et commencez ds aujourd'hui votre lecture sur le Web, votre tablette, votre tlphone ou un lecteur d'e-books. This is unfair as after the NCB accidently announced pit closures, the strike gained momentum very quickly forcing Scargill to just go along with it. : S.n., 1996. However, Thatcher, herself, has discredited this view saying He (Arthur Scargill) was making wild claims that the CEGB had only eight weeks of coal stocks. Routledge, 1997. The .htaccess file contains directives (instructions) that tell the server how to behave in certain scenarios and directly affect how your website functions. [33] Milne, Seumas. [19] The NUM had previously held three ballots on a national strike, all of which rejected the proposal: 55% voted against in January 1982, and 61% voted against in both October 1982 and March 1983.[20]. Page 346. Scargill recalled how after becoming a miner, the poor working conditions and "people who should never have been working, having to work to live on that first day I promised myself I would try one day to get things changed". Downing Street Years. If you have already uploaded the file then the name may be misspelled or it is in a different folder. Many people argue that government preparations led to the failure of the strike. References to this book. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/37592/How the Miners Strike could have won. When you encounter a 404 error in WordPress, you have two options for correcting it. He did not. Vast majority of people work retail or asBarristersselling fancycoffee to people on the way to work in offices, most of them on single hour contracts working in retail parks or business parks built on the ground of old mine, steelworks and potteries that used to employ tens of thousands of men and now employ the best part of 100. Nevertheless, Government intervention such as the use of police and the actions of Ian McGregor was not the most important factor in the failure of the strike as many people openly criticised McGregor, including Thatcher herself. Year of publication: 1980. 404 means the file is not found. However, Lawson then goes on to say The violent tactics used by the NUM pickets reopened the issue of Who governs Britain?. On the 20th of July 1984, Thatcher gave a speech to the 1922 committee where she deemed the miners as the enemy within going on to say We had to fight the enemy without, in the Falklands. The strike gained momentum quickly and calling a ballot may have broken down this early support. [9][11], A few months later, the president of the Yorkshire NUM died unexpectedly, and Scargill won the election for his replacement; the two posts were then combined and he held them until 1981. . Here you can choose which regional hub you wish to view, providing you with the most relevant information we have for your specific region. //