Great Britain – mining strike 1985: nailed on the wall

Under the applause of thousands of supporters and with heads raised, the British miners returned to the pits on March 5, 1985, which had been decorated by their women with red cloves – the flower of the heroes. This scenario, which is translated live in the “BBC”, minutialy prepared by its union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), could not hide the failure. One of the “longest, toughest and probably the most bitter strikes the world has seen,” said Num boss Arthur Scargill later, had ended in a devastating defeat-and not only for the strikers themselves. Unlike the miners, when the miners who had the British class compromise underwriting the conservative government under Edward Heath The start of always new waves of social attacks on wage -dependent in Great Britain.

The last rearing

However, it was not easy for the Tories and her new Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which had been ruling again since 1979. They had needed a year to fight their neoliberal “New Britain” against the traditional most stubborn bastion of the British working class. Her reaction after the triumph was all the more euphoric. That “nailed on the wall”, Thatcher Scargill, Treasury Chancellor Nigel Lawson tuned to that March 5th on behalf of the cabinet. “Every pound”-according to the calculations by the Labor MP and former Minister of Energy Tony Benn, it was 8 billion pounds, more than 30 billion d-marks, “that the strike cost us” was “well invested in the country”. Thatcher himself later described the events as its “most important victory”. “The one -year mining strike was the last rearing of the old union system,” it says in its memories, because since then “Great Britain has no longer experienced significant industrial action”.

The Thatcher government had been preparing for this decision-making battle for a long time.

The Thatcher government had been preparing for this decision-making battle for a long time. Already in the opposition, the first woman at the head of the Tories had plans to implement the program for the revitalization of the economically weakening united Kingdom under the three -step “Freeler Markt, Strong State, Iron Time”. In addition to the privatizations, the “solution to the trade union problem”, according to the title of the memorandum of its pioneer and later Minister of Industrial, Keith Joseph should apply. Nothing less than the “total liberation” of the British economy of unions, tariff bonds and co -determination, it said. Joseph’s future State Secretary Nicholas Ridley, who was commissioned in 1978 with the exact plans, was the “probably most likely battlefield” for this “new Britain” finally the mining, which has been nationalized since 1947, since the general strike from 1926 had always been presented by the spearhead of all social arguments.

Get to power, the conservatives started implementing their projects immediately. In autumn 1979, despite regional solidarity strikes of the NUM real wage losses, the steel workers had to accept over 20 percent and the reduction of around 150,000 jobs and the social benefits were limited. The National Coal Board (NCB), the state mining supervision, then announced the closure of 23 mine in 1981. However, the government did not get a grip on the NUM strikes that immediately started. On the legal basis, however, she created one of the basics of her later victory with the Employment Act: the ban on solidarity strikes, the limitation of the rights of strike posts, the obligation of the unions to pay compensation to strike companies, which should ultimately lead to the attachment of the NUM cash registers, and the cancellation to the principle of the closed shop, i.e. the Vetor law at the setting Union organized workers. These measures made it possible for the government and the later NCB boss, Ian McGregor, to achieve their historical triumph.

Sturm on the “inner enemy”

After the Falkland war won, in a climate of a heated nationalism, it was so far in 1984. Now Thatcher blew to the storm on the “inner enemy”, as she, seconded by almost all mass media, which unions now described. The coal holders were increased from 38 to 57 million tons within a few weeks, additional delivery contracts with the United States, Australia, the Federal Republic and even the People’s Republic of Poland were completed and four nuclear power plants took the network early in order to secure the power supply. On March 1, McGregor finally announced the closure of 25 “unprofitable mines” and the saving of a total of 25,000 jobs. In a further step, another 45,000 jobs should be deleted, privatizations should be carried out and all subsidies in favor of promoting North Sea oil and nuclear energy should be abolished in the long term.

Nd.Diewoche – Our weekly newsletter

With our weekly newsletter . We’re Doing Look at the most important topics of the week and read them Highlights our Saturday edition on Friday. Get the free subscription here.

This time the NUM failed to organize a nationwide strike against it. In Nottinghamshire, the second largest bandage according to Yorkshire, like in 1926, the mostly conservative buddies refused to the solidarity-attracted by the premium systems introduced under the previous Labor government in the more productive mines and additional location guarantees. There were also long -term support strikes beyond short outstanding of the Liverpool Docker, the railroader and the independently organized Steiger. Above all, the refusal of the mighty steel workers ‘union in 1979, which was still tolerated against the MacGregor, which was still at the head of British Steel at the time, reduced the opportunities for the government’s resources, which was cleared by the government’s British workers’ classes. And the Labor Party, whose chairman Neil Kinnock aggressively denounced the “violence of the stream items” at the party congress in autumn, demonstratively opposed the 170,000 strikers.

The hundreds of thousands of supporters from socialist organizations, women’s or environmental initiatives and autonomous groups could not close these gaps all over the country. Because despite the legendary willingness of the miners driven into financial ruin, their relative weakness could hardly be hidden. Her villages were in a constant state of siege due to the newly formed “Riot Squad Police” units, 11,500 were detained, 300 too long-term prison terms were sentenced, thousands were injured, two stream items killed by the police and their children were sometimes even refused to feed.

“Now we’re all ready!«

The circumstances were not only that of the 1.25 million mining workers in Great Britain in the 1920s and the still 700,000 of the post -war period when came to the government of Thatchers were only 270,000 left. Their production power was also reduced because both Labor and the conservatives increasingly rely on an energy supply from oil and nuclear energy. These changed “energy policy concepts” represented the “basis for a determined conservative government”, as Gero Fischer in his still relevant examination “United We Stand – Divided We”, “to force the unions in the coal sector to his knees”. Ultimately, however, it was above all the globalization of production, in response to the falling professional rates that the basis in their “plan for coal” withdrawn from the NUM withdrawn the basis in the Great Britain involved by the IMF.

The British cabbage industry, which was finally privatized in 1994, has almost disappeared, like many other branches of industry. Less than 250 miners are currently still entering the pits. Finally, after the last major battle of the old workers’ movement, railroaders, printer and port workers were led to the slaughterhouse without a fight. Between 1985 and 1988 alone, the wage quota in Great Britain fell by five percent. The “permanent guerrilla war of the working class” announced by Scargill after the defeat, on the other hand, remained only one wish. If there were an average of 12.9 million strike days a year in the 1970s, there were only 660,000 in the 90s. For the ruling class, on the other hand, the festivals did not want to stop. Thanks to the regressive wage policy and generous tax reduction programs that have been operated by that since that and all of their successors, the distribution of assets has continued to shift in its favor. MacGregor had already announced all of this in March 1985 compared to the conservative “Sunday Telegraph”: “Now we’ll all finish them!”