A year of class war - the British Miners Strike of 1984
Channel: Workers Solidarity Movement
Date: 2014-05-02

This video is Dave Douglass talk's about his experiences of 1984 - the year the British mines almost defeated Thatcher. "That fight in 84-85 involved the whole community, it was not only about unions. It was partly about unions but it was about an industry, it was about a way of life. The miners were almost an ethnicity, with father to son for hundreds and hundreds of years in the same miner family. And we had a very strong revolutionary and radical tradition. So, all of the politics of power, fuel power was about political power and not just about energy. It was about more than that. It was about "Who rules ?""

About the speaker: Dave has been a member of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) since 1963 and an official of the Miner's Union, a Branch Official and also an executive member for about 24 years. He is a retired member now after being a full member for 49 years or so. He edited the revolutionary miner's paper called The Mineworker in the 1970's and also a local newspaper called Hot Gossips which lampooned the officials of the mine, the managers, the government, etc. 

This video was recorded at the 2014 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair - for more video from the bookfair see www.wsm.ie/bookfair