Arthur Scargill

Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British politician who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002, leading the union through the 198485 miners' strike, a key event in British labour and political history. A former Labour Party member, he is now the current leader of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP), which he founded in 1996.

National Union of Mineworkers

Scargill became involved in the Yorkshire Left, a group of left-wing activists involved in the Yorkshire region of the NUM, its largest region. While still a working miner, he played an important role in the miners' strike of 1972, involved in the mass picket at Saltley Gate in Birmingham. Shortly afterward, he was elected to the full-time post of compensation agent in the Yorkshire NUM. Scargill was elected to this post in 1973 and continued in it until 1981. In 1973, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that brought down Edward Heath's Government in March 1974. Scargill was a very vocal opponent of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. He frequently appeared on television attacking the government and eventually led the union in the 19841985 miners' strike. After the miners' strike, he was elected to lifetime Presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority. The media characterised the strike as "Scargill's strike" and most people believed that he had been looking for an excuse for a strike since becoming union president. This portrayal may not be wholly accurate, as the strike began when miners walked out in Yorkshire rather than when Scargill called for action. Scargill's decision to not hold a ballot of members was seen as an erosion of democracy within the union, but the role of ballots in decision-making had been made very unclear after previous leader, Joe Gormley, had ignored two ballots over wage reforms, and his decisions had been upheld after appeals to court were made. On the appointment of Ian MacGregor as head of the NCB in 1983, Scargill stated, "The policies of this government are clear - to destroy the coal industry and the NUM". During the strike itself, Scargill continued to claim that the government had a long-term strategy to destroy the industry by closing unprofitable pits, and that it listed pits it wanted to close each year. This was denied by the government. He stepped down from leadership of the NUM at the end of July 2002, to become the Honorary President. On 25 August 2010, it was reported that Scargill had been told that he no longer qualified for membership of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Margaret Thatcher
Thatcher was committed to reducing the power of the trade unions, whose leadership she accused of undermining parliamentary democracy and economic performance through strike action. Several unions launched strikes in response to legislation introduced to curb their power, but resistance eventually collapsed. Only 39% of union members voted for Labour in the 1983 general election. According to the BBC, Thatcher "managed to destroy the power of the trade unions for almost a generation". The miners' strike was the biggest confrontation between the unions and the Thatcher government. In March 1984 the National Coal Board (NCB) proposed to close 20 of the 174 state-owned mines and cut 20,000 jobs out of 187,000. Two-thirds of the country's miners, led by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) under Arthur Scargill, downed tools in protest. Thatcher refused to meet the union's demands and compared the miners' dispute to the Falklands conflict two years earlier, declaring in a speech in 1984: "We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty." After a year out on strike, in March 1985, the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. The cost to the economy was estimated to be at least 1.5 billion, and the strike was blamed for much of the pound's fall against the US dollar. The government closed 25 unprofitable coal mines in 1985, and by 1992 a total of 97 had been closed; those that remained were privatised in 1994. The eventual closure of 150 coal mines, not all of which were losing money, resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and devastated entire communities. Miners had helped bring down the Heath government, and Thatcher was determined to succeed where he had failed. Her strategy of preparing fuel stocks, appointing a union-busting NCB leader in Ian MacGregor, and ensuring police were adequately trained and equipped with riot gear, contributed to her victory. The number of stoppages across the UK peaked at 4583 in 1979, when more than 29 million working days were lost. In 1984, the year of the miners' strike, there were 1221, resulting in the loss of more than 27 million working days. Stoppages then fell steadily throughout the rest of Thatcher's premiership; in 1990 there were 630 and fewer than 2 million working days lost, and they continued to fall thereafter. Trade union membership also fell, from 13.5 million in 1979 to fewer than 10 million by the time Thatcher left office in 1990.