'We could surrender - or stand and fight'By Arthur Scargill
The Guardian
It has been 25 years since the miners' strike began - now, for the first time, the then president of the NUM writes his account of the most divisive and bitter industrial dispute in living memory
Twenty-five years ago, the Tory government led by Margaret
Thatcher declared war on the National Union of Mineworkers.
The Tories had been preparing for a showdown with the NUM
since before the 1979 general election. They could not
forget the victorious miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974, the
second of which had brought down the Tory government in a
general election.
But the NUM's historic battle did not begin in March 1984,
as so many pundits claim. The seeds of the dispute had been
sown long before. A pit closure plan in 1981 resulted in
miners, including miners in Nottinghamshire, taking
unofficial strike action (without a ballot) and forcing
Thatcher into a U-turn, or in reality a body swerve.
At that time, Britain's coal industry was the most
efficient and technologically advanced in the world, a
result of a tripartite agreement, the Plan For Coal, signed
by a Labour government, the National Coal Board (NCB) and
the mining trade unions in 1974, and endorsed by Thatcher
in 1981. And yet, shortly after I became national president
of the NUM in 1982 I was sent anonymously a copy of a
secret plan prepared by NCB chiefs earmarking 95 pits for
closure, with the loss of 100,000 miners' jobs. This plan
had been prepared on government instructions following the
miners' successful unofficial strike in 1981.
I took this document to the union's National Executive
Committee (NEC) - its contents were not only denied by
government and NCB chiefs, but were disbelieved by militant
NUM leaders who had been assured that their pits had
long-term futures. However, the exposed revelations struck
a chord among our members throughout Britain's coalfields
where colliery managers - clearly acting on instructions
from above - had already begun unilaterally changing agreed
working practices, affecting shift patterns and
supplementary payments.
It became clear that the union would have to take action,
but of a type that would win maximum support and have a
unifying effect. The NEC accepted a report from me
recommending that we call a special national delegate
conference, and link our opposition to the pit closure plan
with a demand that the coal board negotiate the union's
wage claim. The NEC agreed, and the special conference was
held on 21 October 1983. Delegates from all NUM areas were
given a detailed report so that they could vote on what
action - if any - should be taken. Following a full debate,
they agreed to call a national overtime ban from 1 November
- until such time as the NCB withdrew its closure plan and
agreed to negotiate an increase in miners' wages with the
NUM.
Over the next four months, the overtime ban had an
extraordinary impact. It succeeded in reducing coal output
by 30%, or 12m tonnes, thus cutting national coal stocks to
about the same level as they had been during the miners'
unofficial strike in 1981.
Then, on 1 March 1984, acting I believe on national
instruction, NCB directors in four areas announced the
immediate closure of five pits: Cortonwood and Bullcliffe
Wood in Yorkshire, Herrington in Durham, Snowdown in Kent
and Polmaise in Scotland.
Coalfield reaction was electrifying. On Saturday 3 March,
accompanied by the NUM Yorkshire president, Jack Taylor, I
spoke at a packed meeting in South Yorkshire initially
organised to discuss various issues that had already
brought seven Yorkshire pits out on strike. I knew we had
to do everything possible to persuade our members to direct
their rage in a united way at the pit closure plan and its
threat to butcher our industry.
On Sunday evening Taylor and I attended a Yorkshire Brass
Band Festival in Sheffield city hall. By then I had
consulted my fellow national officials, the vice-president,
Michael McGahey, and the national secretary, Peter
Heathfield.
It was essential to present a united response to the NCB
and we agreed that, if the coal board planned to force pit
closures on an area by area basis, then we must respond at
least initially on that same basis. The NUM's rules
permitted areas to take official strike action if
authorised by our national executive committee in
accordance with Rule 41. If the NEC gave Scotland and
Yorkshire authorisation under this rule, it could galvanise
other areas to seek similar support for action against
closures.
During an interval in the concert, I used the back of a
programme to draft a strike resolution which I asked Taylor
to present the following morning to the Yorkshire area
council meeting. I told him that McGahey would be doing the
same thing at the same time in Scotland.
On 6 March, at a consultative meeting at NCB London
headquarters, the coal board chairman, Ian MacGregor, not
only confirmed what we had been expecting, but announced
that in addition to the five pits already earmarked for
immediate closure, a further 20 would be closed during the
coming year, with the loss of more than 20,000 jobs. This,
he said, was being done to take four million tonnes of
"unwanted" capacity out of the industry, and bring supply
into line with demand.
The Scotland and Yorkshire NUM areas did vote to seek
endorsement from the NEC for strike action, and at the NEC
meeting on 8 March were given authorisation under Rule 41.
South Wales and Kent then also asked for authorisation. The
NEC agreed, and confirmed that other areas could, if they
wished, do the same. We realised that the NCB announcement
on 6 March had amounted to a declaration of war. We could
either surrender right now, or stand and fight.
A question that has been raised time and time again over
the past 25 years is: why did the union not hold a national
strike ballot? Those who attack our struggle by vilifying
me usually say: "Scargill rejected calls for a ballot."
The real reason that NUM areas such as Nottinghamshire,
South Derbyshire and Leicestershire wanted a national
strike ballot was that they wanted the strike called off,
believing naively that their pits were safe.
Three years earlier, in 1981, there had been no ballot when
miners' unofficial strike action - involving Notts miners -
had caused Thatcher to retreat from mass closures (nor in
1972 when more than a million workers went on strike in
support of the Pentonville Five dockers who had been jailed
for defying government anti-union legislation).
McGahey argued that the union should not be
"constitutionalised" out of taking action, while the South
Wales area president, Emlyn Williams, told the NEC on 12
April 1984: "To hide behind a ballot is an act of
cowardice. I tell you this now ... decide what you like
about a ballot but our coalfield will be on strike and stay
on strike."
However, NUM areas had a right to ask the NEC to convene a
special national delegate conference (as we had when
calling the overtime ban) to determine whether delegates
mandated by their areas should vote for a national
individual ballot or reaffirm the decision of the NEC to
permit areas such as Scotland, Yorkshire, South Wales and
Kent to take strike action in accordance with Rule 41.
Our special conference was held on 19 April. McGahey,
Heathfield and I were aware from feedback that a slight
majority of areas favoured the demand for a national strike
ballot; therefore, we were expecting and had prepared for
that course of action with posters, ballot papers and
leaflets. A major campaign was ready to go for a "Yes" vote
in a national strike ballot.
At the conference, Heathfield told delegates in his opening
address: "I hope that we are sincere and honest enough to
recognise that a ballot should not be used and exercised as
a veto to prevent people in other areas defending their
jobs." His succinct reminder of the situation we were in
opened up an emotional debate to which speaker after
speaker made passionate and fiercely argued contributions.
Replying to that debate, I said: "This battle is certainly
about more than the miners' union. It is for the right to
work. It is for the right to preserve our pits. It is for
the right to preserve this industry ... We can all make
speeches, but at the end of the day we have got to stand up
and be counted ... We have got to come out and say not only
what we feel should be done, but do it because if we don't
do that, then we fail."
McGahey, Heathfield and I had done the arithmetic
beforehand, and were truly surprised that when the vote was
taken, delegates rejected calls for a national strike
ballot and decided instead to call on all miners to refuse
to cross picket lines - and join the 140,000 already on
strike. We later learned that members of one area
delegation had been so moved by the arguments put forward
in the debate that they'd held an impromptu meeting and
switched their vote in support of the area strikes in
accordance with Rule 41.
During the strike I was also criticised, indeed attacked -
by my own colleagues - for arguing that the NUM's prime
picketing targets should be power stations, ports, cement
works, steelworks and coking plants. But evidence now
available shows my argument was correct.
My passionate conviction that the Orgreave coking plant in
South Yorkshire should be selected as a main target was
rubbished at the time. Yet, it has now been revealed from
official sources that show coal stocks at steel plants -
particularly Scunthorpe in Yorkshire, Ravenscraig in
Scotland and Llanwern in Wales - were so low that these
works could only continue in production for a matter of
weeks, with Scunthorpe - where British Steel had already
laid off 160 workers due to coal shortages - actually
earmarked for closure by 18 June 1984.
The issue of dispensations that would allow provision of
coal supplies created divisions among the most militant
sections of the NUM. I had argued passionately that there
should be no dispensations for power stations, cement
works, steelworks or coking plants, whose coal stocks were
extremely low.
Many on the union's left - particularly those in the
Communist party - argued that the union had a
responsibility to ensure that a minimal amount of coal
could be delivered in order to keep the giant furnaces and
ovens "ticking over". Heathfield and a number of others on
the NUM left agreed with me that there should be no
dispensations and that if steelworks had to close down, as
British Steel's chairman, Bob Haslam, warned was
inevitable, then the responsibility lay firmly at the door
of the government, not the NUM.
Despite the passionate arguments made by Heathfield and
myself, areas did give dispensations. Two months went by
before it dawned on Yorkshire, South Wales and Scotland
that they had been outmanoeuvred by British Steel, and the
leadership of the steelworkers' union, and that British
Steel was moving far more coal than the dispensations
agreed with NUM areas. Yet there was still time to stop all
those giant steelworks, and if the steelworkers' union
would not cooperate with the NUM to stop all deliveries of
coal to the steelworks then the National Union of Seamen
and rail unions Aslef and NUR had already demonstrated that
they would stop all deliveries.
The scene was set for the battle of Orgreave.
Orgreave coking plant was a crucial target for mass
picketing. I knew that its coal supplies could be cut off
as had been the case at the Saltley coke depot in
Birmingham in 1972 - a turning point after which that
strike was soon settled.
Contrary to popular mythology, Orgreave was closed twice:
first on 27 May 1984, when together with dozens of others I
was injured on the picket line. Second, on 18 June, when
10,000 pickets faced 8,500 riot police in a scene
reminiscent of a battle in England's 17th-century civil
war.
So fierce was the conflict on 18 June that dozens of
pickets were hospitalised (including me), but the picketing
resulted in British Steel's chairman sending a telex
closing down Orgreave on a temporary basis - exactly as had
been the case at Saltley coke depot in Birmingham 12 years
before.
The fundamental difference between Saltley in 1972 and
Orgreave in 1984 was that in 1972 following the first
closure at Saltley, picketing on my demand was increased
the following day - while at Orgreave, on 19 June 1984, the
pickets were completely withdrawn by the NUM Yorkshire and
Derbyshire areas and other coalfield leaders, despite my
desperate urging that picketing be stepped up.
Had picketing at Orgreave been increased the day after 18
June, I have no doubt that Orgreave - and Scunthorpe -
would have faced immediate closure, forcing the government
to settle the strike.
For 25 years, I have been accused of refusing to negotiate
a settlement with the NCB, and of "snatching defeat from
the jaws of victory" - a blatant lie. The NUM settled the
strike on five separate occasions in 1984: on 8 June, 8
July, 18 July, 10 September, and 12 October. The first four
settlements were sabotaged or withdrawn following the
intervention of Thatcher.
The most important settlement terms were agreed between
leaders of the pit deputies' union Nacods and the NUM at
the offices of the conciliation service Acas on 12 October
1984 and included a demand that the NCB withdraw its pit
closure plan, give an undertaking that the five collieries
earmarked for immediate closure would be kept open, and
guarantee that no pit would be closed unless by joint
agreement it was deemed to be exhausted or unsafe.
Nacods members had recorded an 82% ballot vote for strike
action, and their leaders made clear to the NCB that unless
the Nacods-NUM terms were accepted, the Nacods strike would
go ahead.
I was later told by a Tory who had been a minister at the
time that when Thatcher was informed of the Nacods-NUM
agreement she announced to the cabinet "special committee"
that the government had no choice but to settle the strike
on the unions' terms.
However, when she learned that Nacods - despite pleas from
the TUC and the NUM - had called off their strike and
accepted a "modified" colliery review procedure, she
immediately withdrew the government's decision to settle.
Nacods' inexplicable decision led to the closure of 164
pits and the loss of 160,000 jobs.
The monumental betrayal by Nacods has never been explained
in a way that makes sense. Even the TUC recognised that the
Nacods settlement was a disaster.
The fact that Nacods leaders ignored pleas from the NUM and
TUC not to call off their strike or resile from their
agreement with the NUM not only adds mystery but poses the
question - whose hand did the moving, and why?
Over the years, I have repeatedly said that we didn't "come
close" to total victory in October 1984 - we had it, and at
the very point of victory we were betrayed. Only the Nacods
leaders know why.
A full account of the strike of 1984/85 is still to be
written. However, we have learned more and more about the
then Labour party leader, Neil Kinnock's treachery, the
betrayals by the TUC and the class collaboration of union
leaders such as Eric Hammond (the electricians' EETPU) and
John Lyons (Engineers and Managers Association), who
instructed their members to cross picket lines and did all
they could to defeat the miners.
We have also seen how many who, like Kinnock, bleated
constantly about the need for a ballot during the miners'
strike didn't call for the British people to have a ballot
in 2003 when Tony Blair took the nation into an unlawful
war and the occupation of Iraq.
During the past 25 years, many who have attacked the NUM,
and me, about the need for a ballot, or argued that we
selected the wrong targets have done so to cover their own
guilt at failing to give the miners a level of support that
would have stopped the Tories' pit closure programme and
thus changed the political direction of the nation. Britain
in 1984 was already a divided and degraded society - it has
become much more so in the 25 years since.
The NUM's struggle remains not only an inspiration for
workers but a warning to today's union leaders of their
responsibility to their members, and the need to challenge
both government and employers over all forms of injustice,
inequality and exploitation.
That is the legacy of the NUM's strike of 1984/85, a truly
historic fight that gave birth to the magnificent Women
Against Pit Closures and the miners' support groups. I have
always said that the greatest victory in the strike was the
struggle itself, a struggle that inspired millions of
people around the world.
• On 12 March, at 7.30pm, Arthur Scargill will be speaking on the lessons of the 1984/85 miners' strike at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, WC1
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The picture you have copied should be bylined "John Sturrock/reportdigital.co.uk"
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