In February 1981, the Tories had provoked a premature confrontation with the miners. The then NCB chairman, Derek Ezra, announced the closure of up to fifty pits on “uneconomic” grounds, twenty-three immediately. Miners in South Wales immediately struck and sent flying pickets calling on other areas to follow suit. Kent struck followed by Scotland, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Totally unprepared for a miners’ strike, the Tories beat a hasty retreat. Tory John Biffen remarked at the time: “I did not come into politics in order to be a Kamikaze pilot.” In the words of Mick McGahey, the NUM’s vice-president, the government’s action was “not so much a U-turn, more a body swerve.” It was only a temporary truce in the war, similar to “Red Friday” 1925, when the miners were granted a subsidy, giving Baldwin time to prepare for a showdown.

Joe Gormley, the right-wing president of the NUM, who had been working closely with MI5, retired in December 1981. By this time, miners were sick and tired of decades of right-wing leadership, which had resulted in massive closures and declining relative pay. As a consequence, Arthur Scargill, the Left candidate, was elected as president with 70 per cent of the vote – the biggest vote for such a position in the union’s history. It was regarded as an historic victory for the Left generally. Scargill, who liked to model himself on Arthur Cook, was by far the most militant of the trade union leaders. At the following year’s union conference in Inverness, the Left clearly revealed its increased strength. Within two years, the Left had won an overall majority on the executive for the first time in NUM history.

The union was certainly in a strong position to face any attempt to introduce a new closure package. However, the left leadership experienced a succession of setbacks. Misjudging the mood, they lost no less than three national strike ballots in just over a year. In January 1982, the call for strike action over a national pay claim was turned down with 45 per cent in favour. Again the October 1982 ballot on pay and jobs was defeated, this time with only 39 per cent support. In February 1983 the NCB announced the closure of two South Wales’ pits, Lewis Merthyr and Blaengwrach. The Lewis Merthyr men occupied their pit and miners struck elsewhere in the coalfield in solidarity. Nonetheless, in a national ballot, while 68 per cent in South Wales voted in favour of action, disastrously only 39 per cent overall voted to support the strike.

It was a bitter pill to swallow and had a disheartening effect on the confidence of many of the union’s activists. In Nottinghamshire only 19 per cent voted for strike action, in South Derbyshire a mere 12 per cent. Many union activists in Scotland, South Wales and the North East, increasingly believed they had been marginalised. Scargill had argued on the executive committee that a national strike could have been called under Rule 41, allowing Area strikes on which national support could be built. However, as the Left was still in a minority at this stage, he was over-ruled by the right-wing majority.

A deep-seated feeling developed amongst a layer of activists that a national ballot on pit closures was unwinnable. They were convinced (wrongly) that the younger miners in Yorkshire, never mind Nottinghamshire, would never be prepared to strike again. Clearly there were difficulties. In particular, the area incentive scheme of 1977, which was forced through by the right wing although it had been thrown out in a national ballot, served to sow divisions within the workforce. There were big disparities between different pits and different areas, which could only be overcome with a continuous campaign of explanation and agitation. The Left wanted to fight in 1982, but with the right wing still in a majority at the top of the union, this was not to be.

Workers, whether they are miners or any other section, do not go on strike at the drop of a hat. Not only must there be a strong reason, but a strike needs to be well prepared. This is particularly the case where workers are challenging a hostile government. This is even more the case over the issue of pit closures when miners were under varying degrees of threat. A campaign would have to be waged to reach to every worker to explain all the issues so that essential unity could be built from below. Given the results of previous ballots, a lot of work had still to be done in the field of propaganda and organisation.

The Tories had introduced anti-trade union legislation to curb the power of the unions. The Trade Union Act of 1980 provided finance for secret ballots, limited picketing to six people, outlawed secondary picketing and removed the immunity for certain types of secondary actions. The 1982 Act exposed union funds to damages for “unlawful acts” (unless explicitly repudiated) and removed trade union immunity from political strikes. This legislation placed restrictions on the closed shop: “The Conservative Party is not prepared to get itself into a position of trying to pass laws which employers ask us to pass and then don’t use”, remarked Employment secretary James Prior.

Under pressure from below, the TUC Congresses of 1982 and 1983 passed motions of opposition to these laws and promised to mobilise the movement in the event of any legal attacks. However, the leaders of the trade unions were constantly looking to avoid confrontation with the Tory government, preferring the road of “dialogue”. By 1985, with the engineering and electricians unions voting to accept Tory government funds for secret ballots, any semblance of united trade union opposition to government legislation finally crumbled.

In 1982 the Left’s advance in the Labour movement appeared to have come to a halt. This was partly a reflection of the objective situation. Following the slump of 1979-81, the growth of mass unemployment sapped the strength of the working class. Unemployment had risen to well over three million, three times the figure of 1979. Under these conditions, industrial militancy began to ebb away, although a number of bitter strikes still occurred even during these years. These involved civil servants, oil tanker drivers, water workers, carworkers, printworkers, teachers, bank workers, prison officers, bakers, civil servants, ambulance workers, seafarers, miners, railworkers, and steelworkers. Despite this long list of disputes, the number of days actually lost through strikes in 1983 – a general election year – was the lowest since the war.

There were other factors in this industrial ebb, such as the defeat of the train drivers in July 1982 over the question of “flexible rostering”. British Rail saw flexible rostering as part of the previous summer’s deal on pay and productivity. Determined to increase “efficiency” (cut costs), management had sought to impose a productivity deal on the industry involving a flexible roster that would eventually lead to 4,000 job losses. “The isolation of the ASLEF executive and its militant stupidity was going to be crucial to my strategy”, wrote Sir Peter Parker, Chairman of British Rail.[3]

  1. Parker, For Starters, p.254, London 1989

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