page_title: UK miners' strike (1984–85)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: UK miners' strike (1984–85) / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Coal mining employment in the UK, 1880-2012 (DECC data)
context_page_description: The miners' strike of 1984-85 was a major industrial action to shut down the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers against the National Coal Board, 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 NUM was divided over the action and many mineworkers, especially in the Midlands, worked through the dispute. Few major trade unions supported the NUM, primarily because of the absence of a vote at national level. Violent confrontations between flying pickets and police characterised the year-long strike, which ended in a decisive victory for the Conservative government and allowed the closure of most of Britain's collieries. It was "the most bitter industrial dispute in British history". The number of person-days of work lost to the strike was over 26 million, making it the largest since the 1926 general strike. The journalist Seumas Milne said of the strike, "it has no real parallel – in size, duration and impact – anywhere in the world".
context_section_description: While more than 1,000 collieries were working in the UK during the first half of the 20th century, by 1984 only 173 were still operating and employment had dropped from its peak of 1 million in 1922, down to 231,000 for the decade to 1982. This long-term decline in coal employment was common across the developed world; in the United States, employment in the coal-mining industry continued to fall from 180,000 in 1985 to 70,000 in the year 2000.
  Coal mining, nationalised by Clement Attlee's Labour government in 1947, was managed by the National Coal Board (NCB) under Ian MacGregor in 1984. As in most of Europe, the industry was heavily subsidised. In 1982–3, the operating loss per tonne was £3.05, and international market prices for coal were about 25% cheaper than that charged by the NCB. The calculation of these operating losses was disputed.
  By 1984, the richest seams of coal had been increasingly worked out and the remaining coal was more and more expensive to reach. The solution was mechanisation and greater efficiency per worker, making many miners redundant due to overcapacity of production. The industry was restructured between 1958 and 1967 in cooperation with the unions, with a halving of the workforce; offset by government and industry initiatives to provide alternative employment. Stabilisation occurred between 1968 and 1977, when closures were minimised with the support of the unions even though the broader economy slowed. The accelerated contraction imposed by Thatcher after 1979 was strenuously opposed by the unions. In the post-war consensus, policy allowed for closures only where agreed to by the workers, who in turn received guaranteed economic security. Consensus did not apply when closures were enforced and redundant miners had severely limited employment alternatives.
  The NUM's strike in 1974 played a major role in bringing down Edward Heath's Conservative government. The party's response was the Ridley Plan, an internal report that was leaked to The Economist magazine and appeared in its 27 May 1978 issue. Ridley described how a future Conservative government could resist and defeat a major strike in a nationalised industry. In Ridley's opinion, trade union power in the UK was interfering with market forces, pushing up inflation, and the unions' undue political power had to be curbed to restore the UK's economy.
caption: Coal mining employment in the UK, 1880–2012 (DECC data)
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