Harrison Context: Miners Strike

Question 1

What events led to the Miner’s Strike taking place?

Answer 1

• The National Coal Board (NCB) ran the country’s collieries - coal mines or pits and their buildings- and distributed coal.
• It wanted to close 20 pits it said were unprofitable.
• This would be 20,000 job losses.

Question 2

How was the Miner’s Strike resolved?

Answer 2

• The Miners’ eventual defeat the end of an era for Britian’s trade union movement and helped cemnent Mrs Thatcher’s reputation as the Iron lady.
• Union funds were running low by early 1985 and striking miners had endured almost a year of hardship, with only donations to support their families.
• With some miners still working and police protecting coal deliveries, the union’s position was weakened.
• When the NUM held a special conference on 3 March 1985, coalfield delegates narrowly voted to the end the strike.
• Miners returned to work 5 March.

Question 3

Who was Arthur Scargill and what was the NUM?

Answer 3

• Former miner Arthur Scargill, then president of the National Union of Minerworkers (NUM), believed no pit should close if it had coal reserves.
• He claimed there was a plan for more than 70 closures.

Question 4

What impacts did the Miner’s Strikes have on families, the economy and society?

Answer 4

• The defeat of the strike led very quickly to the closure of most coal mines, a general deindustrialistation of the economy, the rapid privatisation of nationalied industries, the shattering of organised labour, growing unemploymentm the hollowing-out of mining and other working class communities, and a steady increase in social inequality in British Society.

Question 5

What lasting effect did the Miner’s Strike have on the country, even decades later?

Answer 5

• A wave of pit closures followed the strike and almost all of the UK’s deep coal mines were shut within the next 20 years.
• It caused a lasting unemployment and poverty in former mining areas, just as the workers had warned with their slogan “Close a pit, kill a community”.
• In 2019, Sheffield Hallam University researchers said the former coalfield areas - with a combined population of 5.7 million people - continue to be dogged by deprivation and poor health.