The miners' strike of 1984–1985 was a major industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is a trade union for coal miners in Great Britain, formed in 1945 from the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The NUM took part in three national miners' strikes, in 1972, 1974 and 1984–85. Following the 1984–85 strike, and the subsequent closure of most of Britain's coal mines, it became a much smaller union. It had around 170,000 members when Arthur Scargill became leader in 1981, a figure which had fallen in 2023 to an active membership of 82.
Spennymoor is a town and civil parish in County Durham, England. It is south of the River Wear and is 7 mi (11 km) south of Durham. The civil parish includes the villages of Kirk Merrington, Middlestone Moor, Byers Green and Tudhoe.
Murton is a village in County Durham, England. Lying eight miles (13 km) east of the city of Durham and six miles (9.7 km) south of Sunderland, it has a population of 4,534, increasing to 7,676 at the 2011 Census.
Michael McGahey was a Scottish miners' leader and Communist. He had a distinctive gravelly voice, and described himself as "a product of my class and my movement".
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' unions in England, Scotland and Wales whose associations remained largely autonomous. At its peak, the federation represented nearly one million workers. It was reorganised into the National Union of Mineworkers in 1945.
Robert Edward Woof was a British coal miner, trade unionist, and Labour Party politician from Chopwell in County Durham. He sat in the House of Commons from 1956 to 1979 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Blaydon.
The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.
Tyrone O'Sullivan was a Welsh trade unionist who was Branch Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Chairman of Goitre Tower Anthracite Ltd., the owners of Tower Colliery.
David John Douglass, sometimes known as Dave or "Danny the Red", is a political activist in Tyneside and Yorkshire. He is a member of the IWW, the NUM and Class War, and was formerly in the Revolutionary Workers' Party (Trotskyist) and the Socialist Union (Internationalist), of which he was a leading member. He is a regular contributor to the Weekly Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He has also written Pit Talk in County Durham (1973), a book about the dialect Pitmatic.
Ian Lavery is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wansbeck since 2010. He served as the Chair of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn from 2017 to 2020 and was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 2002 to 2010. He is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group parliamentary caucus.
People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic role as a primary fuel, coal miners have figured strongly in labor and political movements since that time.
Arthur Scargill is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (1984–85), a major event in the history of the British labour movement.
Steve Kemp is a British trade unionist.
William Hammond Patterson, known as W. H. Patterson, was a British trade unionist.
The UK miners' strike of 1969 was an unofficial strike that involved 140 of the 307 collieries owned by the National Coal Board, including all collieries in the Yorkshire area. The strike began on 13 October 1969 and lasted for roughly two weeks, with some pits returning to work before others. The NCB lost £15 million and 2.5 million tonnes of coal as a result of the strike.
The history of trade unions in the United Kingdom covers British trade union organisation, activity, ideas, politics, and impact, from the early 19th century to the present.
The Durham Colliery Mechanics' Association was a trade union representing mechanics working at coal mines in County Durham, in England.
Several British members of Parliament have been sponsored by mining trade unions. Many were sponsored by the National Union of Mineworkers, its predecessor the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, and the local trade unions which preceded it.
Anne Harper is a British community organiser, activist and co-founder of the National Women Against Pit Closures (NWAPC) movement from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. She was politically active during the 1984–85 miners' strike as an activist, community organiser and wife of the then President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Arthur Scargill. The couple divorced in 2001.
