1972 United Kingdom miners' strike

Industrial action in British coal mining August 2023 August 2023 1972 UK Miners' Strike UK miners' strikes 9 January 1972 – 28 February 1972 Nationwide Increased pay for miners Strike action, including flying pickets Civil disobedience Pay increase for miners Battle of Saltley Gate State of emergency (declared 9 February 1972) Creation of COBR National Union of Mineworkers British Government represented by the National Coal Board Joe Gormley Arthur Scargill Sam Bullough Edward Heath Derek Ezra 15 injured + 56 arrested (Battle of Saltley Gate) 1 death 17 police officers injured (Battle of Saltley Gate) Casualties A miners' strike took place in the United Kingdom in 1972 as a result of a dispute over pay between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Conservative Edward Heath government. Miners' wages had not kept pace with those of other industrial workers since 1960. The strike began on 9 January 1972 and ended on 28 February 1972, when the miners returned to work. The strike was called by the National Executive Committee of the NUM and ended when the miners accepted an improved pay offer in a ballot. It was the first time since 1926 that British miners had been on official strike, but there had been a widespread unofficial strike in 1969. Background Competition from cheap oil imports arrived in the late 1950s and the coal industry began to suffer from increasing losses.https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1960/dec/05/national-coal-board-losses National Coal Board (Losses) (Hansard, 5 December 1960) In 1960 Alf Robens became the chairman of the National Coal Board (NCB), and he introduced a policy concentrating on the most productive pits. During his ten-year tenure, productivity increased by 70%, but with far fewer pits and a much reduced workforce.Hill Alan The South Yorkshire Coalfield A history and Development Tempus Publishing 2001 978-0-7524-1747-9 44 In 1956, 700,000 men produced 207 million tons of coal; by 1971, fewer than 290,000 workers were producing 133 million tons at 292 collieries.Hill 2001 43http://mininghistory.thehumanjourney.net/edu/UndergroundCoalProductionPost1947.shtml Underground coal production and manpower from 1947 Access to Mineral Heritage 5 June 2014 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20140714165303/http://mininghistory.thehumanjourney.net/edu/UndergroundCoalProductionPost1947.shtml 14 July 2014 dmy-all Despite this, the NCB's coal activities were still running at a loss in 1970,https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1970/dec/03/coal-industry-bill COAL INDUSTRY BILL (Hansard, 3 December 1970) putting pressure on the board to hold down pay increases. The strike occurred because wage negotiations between the NUM and the National Coal Board of the United Kingdom had broken down. In 1960, according to one study, "miners, of whom there were still half a million in 1960, enjoyed historically unprecedented standards of living."https://books.google.com/books?id=AtYj5rI0MvUC&q=britain+miners+affluent+workers+consumer+goods&pg=PA8 The Labour Governments 1964-70, Volume 1: Labour and Cultural Change Steven Fielding 9 July 2018 Manchester University Press 9780719043642 9 July 2018 Google Books According to another study, while the real net income of an average miner in 1957 with a wife and two children was approximately 22% above that of his male counterpart in manufacturing, that fell to approximately 2% below the manufacturing figure in 1969.https://books.google.com/books?id=zxU9AAAAIAAJ&q=wales+miners+high+wages+1957&pg=PA230 Wages Policy in the British Coalmining Industry: A Study of National Wage Bargaining L. J. Handy 26 March 1981 CUP Archive 9780521235358 9 July 2018 Google Books During the 1950s, the wages of miners went up from a prewar position of 84th to near the top in the league table of the wages earned by industrial workers,https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/charlton/1973/03/miners.htm John Charlton: The Miners Since Nationalisation (March 1973) John Charlton www.marxists.org 9 July 2018 and by 1960, miners' wages were 7.4% above the average pay of workers in manufacturing industries. During the 1960s, however, their pay fell behind other workers, and by 1970 miners were earning 3.1% less than the average worker in manufacturing.https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1985/patterns/part3.htm Patterns of mass strike (Part 3) Tony Cliff www.marxists.org 9 July 2018 By the early 1970s, hundreds of miners had left the industry in search of higher-paying factory jobs.‘U.K. miners claim Heath is biggest extremist of them all’ by Ben Tierney, published in The Calgary Herald 26 Feb 1974 It was the first time since 1926 that British miners had officially gone on strike (although there had been unofficial strikes, as recently as 1969).http://www.agor.org.uk/cwm/themes/events/1972_1974_strikes.asp 1972 and 1974 Miners' Strikes www.agor.org.uk 9 July 2018 Strike During a parliamentary debate on the strike in its second week, both Labour and Conservative MPs praised the miners for the forbearance shown during the mass pit closures in the 1960s.Routledge Paul 1994 Scargill: the unauthorized biography London Harper Collins 65 0-00-638077-8 Mine foremen and supervisors, represented by the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers, did not strike. Following some confrontations with NUM pickets, the National Coal Board adopted a policy of giving leave on full pay to any members of NACODS who faced aggressive intimidation on the way to work. Strike: 358 Days that Shook the Nation 1985 London Sunday Times 161–162 0-340-38445-X The strike was characterised by the miners sending flying pickets to other industrial sites to persuade other workers to strike in solidarity, which led to railway workers' refusing to transport coal and power station workers' refusing to handle coal.Adeney Martin Lloyd John 1988 The Miners' Strike 1984-5: Loss without limit London Routledge & Kegan Paul 15–16 0-7102-1371-9 Power shortages emerged, and a state of emergency was declared on 9 February, after the weather had turned cold unexpectedly and voltage had been reduced across the entire national grid.Routledge Paul 1994 Scargill: the unauthorized biography London Harper Collins 66 0-00-638077-8 A miner from Hatfield Colliery, near Doncaster, Freddie Matthews, was killed by a lorry while he was picketing on 3 February 1972, and a huge crowd attended his funeral.http://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/end-of-an-era-for-num-branch-1-529472 David Jones END OF AN ERA FOR NUM BRANCH Doncaster Free Press 2014-12-19 The non-union lorry driver had mounted the pavement to pass the picket line and struck Matthews in the process.Routledge Paul 1994 Scargill: the unauthorized biography London Harper Collins 66–67 0-00-638077-8 In the aftermath of the death, the picketing in the Doncaster area became more violent, with clashes reported with the NACODS members at Markham Main and Kilnhurst. Tom Swain, Labour MP to Derbyshire North East, remarked, "This could be the start of another Ulster in the Yorkshire coalfield." He threatened to "advocate violence" if an immediate government statement were not made on Matthews's death. The strike lasted seven weeks, with NUM leaders agreeing to a pay deal on 19 February, which the union claimed to have wrung about 15 extra pay concessions from the Coal Board - over and above the Wilberforce inquiry recommendations. Rank-and-file NUM miners agreed to the pay offer on 25 February, returning to work on 28 February, which officially ended the strike.https://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/9/newsid_2515000/2515917.stm 1972: Miners strike against government 9 January 1972 BBC 2012-04-17 The pay concessions from the Coal Board came more than a week after the Battle of Saltley Gate, when around 2,000 NUM pickets descended on a coke works in Birmingham and were later joined by thousands of workers from other industries in Birmingham.https://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9694000/9694645.stm The Battle of Saltley Gate recalled 10 February 2012 9 July 2018 news.bbc.co.uk The result was characterised as a "victory for violence" by the Conservative Cabinet at the time, in reference to some clashes between miners and police and to some throwing of stones and bottles at lorries trying to pass the pickets.Kellaway Robert Re-examining the Battle of Saltley Gate: interpretations of leadership, violence and legacy University of Bristol 2010 20 http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/media/docs/ug-dissertations/2010kellaway.pdf 13 March 2015 Planned strikebreaking force A volunteer force was planned in Scotland to break the miners' pickets during the strike. After release of government papers under the thirty-year rule, it has been revealed that civil servants, police, local authorities and other organisations worked on a secret project to gather hundreds of drivers to supply the country's power stations during the strike. https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2617565.stm BBC Scotland Striking miners faced 'volunteer force' January 2003 2015-09-29 A Royal Air Force base was to be used for the unit. They were to have between 400 and 600 trucks and drivers. Fire brigades were also contacted to provide off-duty staff and volunteer groups to cater for the coal convoys. The role of the volunteers was to drive in convoys to break the picketlines blocking the supply of coal to the Scottish power plants. The plans were never put into place because the dispute was brought to a close. Wilberforce Inquiry An inquiry into miners' pay, chaired by Lord Wilberforce, was set up by the government in February 1972, as the strike was drawing to a close. It reported a week later. It recommended pay increases of between £4.50 and £6 per week.Obituaries: Lord Wilberforce https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1422358/Lord-Wilberforce.html 21 July 2019 The Telegraph 18 February 2003 Lord Wilberforce defended the increases, which represented a 27% pay rise,Travis Alan Flying pickets paralysed Heath cabinet https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jan/01/past.politics1 21 July 2019 The Guardian 1 January 2003 by saying that "we know of no other job in which there is such a combination of danger, health hazard, discomfort in working conditions, social inconvenience and community isolation." Mine workers held out for an extra £1 per week, but eventually settled for a package of "fringe benefits" worth a total of £10 million. Creation of COBR The inadequacy of the government's response to the strike provoked re-evaluation of emergency planning. The Cabinet Office Briefing Room (known as COBR) was created to co-ordinate responses to national and regional crises, and is still used to respond to terrorism and other national emergencies by British Government today.Winterton Jonathan Winterton Ruth Coal, Crisis, and Conflict: The 1984–85 Miners' Strike in Yorkshire 1989 Manchester University Press 145 9780719025488 See also UK miners' strike (disambiguation) Citations 28em Further reading Ackers, Peter, and Jonathan Payne. "Before the storm: The experience of nationalization and the prospects for industrial relations partnership in the British coal industry, 1947-1972-rethinking the militant narrative." Social History 27#2 (2002): 184-209. Ashworth, William. The History of the British Coal Industry, 1946-1982: The Nationalized Industry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) Ball, Stuart, and Anthony Seldon, eds. The Heath Government 1970-74: A Reappraisal (Longman, 1996) excerpt; pp 177-89 Barnes, Denis and Eileen Reid. Governments and Trade Unions: The British Experience, 1964-79 (Heinemann, 1980) Campbell, John. Edward Heath: A Biography (1993) Hughes, Rosaleen Anne. "‘Governing in hard times’: the Heath government and civil emergencies–the 1972 and the 1974 miners’ strikes" (phD dissertation, Queen Mary University of London; 2012.) online; bibliography pp 268-78 Phillips, Jim. "The 1972 miners' strike: popular agency and industrial politics in Britain." Contemporary British History 20#2 (2006): 187-207. online Phillips, Jim. "Industrial relations, historical contingencies and political economy: Britain in the 1960s and 1970s." Labour History Review 72#3 (2007): 215-233. Sandbrook, Dominic. State of Emergency The Way We Were Britain 1970-1974 (2010) pp 113-33. collapsed Category:1972 in the United Kingdom Category:1972 labor disputes and strikes Category:Miners' labour disputes in the United Kingdom Category:National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain) Category:Power outages in the United Kingdom Category:January 1972 in the United Kingdom Category:February 1972 in the United Kingdom Category:Labour disputes in the United Kingdom