Question about miners strike

[garlictwist]

I've just watched the channel 4 doc on the miners strikes. Very interesting as I wasn't around at the time and didn't know much about it.

What it didn't explain though was why they were striking in the first place - was it that they wanted more money? Or were the mines being closed?

And was this to do with the three day week and the power cuts?

@Yeahrightyouarethen

They're weaker. The 80s also saw huge industrial disputes in the newspaper sector. Whose side do you think the press barons took? The weakening of the unions is and was a political tactic. In other countries, unions are just as strong as ever but their role has changed and they work more collaboratively with management and owners. Like grownups.

Yes.

Our working lives take up a terrifying proportion of our adult lives. Our children spend their childhood preparing for careers - or not. Our jobs determine our life chances, our health, our mental wellbeing. Our communities and relationships are shaped by our working lives.

The strength of our unions influences every facet of our lives.

@Pleasebeafleabite I wish we could return to that era. It would do our society a massive favour if the unions had more clout.

@Pleasebeafleabite yes and now I imagine the average UK voter is very much paying the price for not seeing what the unions did for working people. Far far more than fucking “man of the people” Johnson.

I’m not sure many people would come onto a thread about something as emotive as the miners strike and wax lyrical about Thatcher 🙄.

@soupfiend who is saying it’s ok?

Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway. Those are the countries with the highest union membership today. They are cesspools of stagnation, debt, crippled, failing governments and, wait what? They are the 'best' countries in the world. With high wages, some of the least difference between worker and management wages, good social programs and at least one of them resisted the banking crisis and refused to bail those bastards out.

Seems like union membership is good for workers AND the country.

Thatcher was determined to destroy the unions
She is hated by my family

I think if people are struggling on the impact now you have to remember that something equivalent in terms of action would be the current Government deciding that that doctors and nurses working for the NHS should not strike and there is a need to break their picket lines when there is a strike and the police get involved to enforce government policy on pay and allow non striking staff in by driving them in buses etc.

Of course that doesn't quite work because of class but it's about the only real comparison you could make in terms of impact today.

No the only reason they didn't want to was not their own colleagues. Why would you think that?

Sure, Thatcher was popular enough, and many chose to support her before and after the strikes. She presented a nonsensical account of the economy, and she wanted to foster a new lower middle class in a "greed is good" mentality.

She didn't act alone any more than Donald Trump does. She nurtured and fed on a culture of greed, selfishness, and division, like him.

My DH was a police officer in Kent involved in the miners strike. I also come from a family of NE miners so you can imagine that was an interesting time! I remember DH coming home from being away at one of the pits saying things were fine with the miners, a bit of jostling but nothing more. It got nasty when the Met PSU's arrived.

As for the doubling of a police wages, I am not sure that is true. It certainly wasn't for us. I remember we bought a fridge with DH's overtime and he was away a lot.

@MrsTerryPratchett ah but unions aren’t good for those who want to get rich on the backs of the workers - there’s a name for people like them, um, it’ll come to me . . . Oh yes, Tories 🙄

And the police are charging nurses with batons ...

@Motheranddaughter ditto.

All my family were miners as were my husband's.
My husband was a miner at the time of the strike, our eldest child was six weeks old when it began.
Thatcher wanted to smash the unions, starting with the NUM who she hated the most and close the mines.
If you take a close look at the footage and the photos, you will notice that it was all taken from behind the police lines, making it look like the miners were the violent ones who started on the police.
The Christmas of the strike, we had organised a party for the miners kids, nothing fancy, just a bit of a spread and a small gift each at a local village hall.
The next thing we knew, a shit load of coppers came streaming through the doors and smashed their way round with their fucking batons, arresting anyone who protested.
You can imagine how terrified those kiddies were!!
I'll never forget or forgive for that alone.
That's just one small incident.
She took our livelihoods, wrecked our communities then gave herself and her bully boys a pat on the fucking back!
May that bitch rot in hell!

I do think it contributed to anti police sentiment

@Pleasebeafleabite

Going back to work defeats the purpose of the strike. If they'd have gone back, the closures would have happened anyway - at least the strikers were attempting to maintain their livelihoods and communities. Decades of Tory propaganda has ensured that people are happy with the benefits of union membership but don't understand the notion of collective bargaining and solidarity. Thatcher didn't win because people were fed up of unions; she created a divided society and a selfish culture. She targeted a majority made up of disillusioned and badly informed minorities with axes to grind. Middle class aspirations were the only ones worth pursuing. Selling council houses is an example - all of a sudden folk were homeowners and therefore better than those who weren't. Give someone something to conserve and they'll become conservatives.

I knew one posted with a police uniform and no numbers he put his bag under the bed his mother was devastated when she found it. Off he went to Durham miners Galla

@Motheranddaughter they were known as Thatcher’s Boot Boys in the 80s, not just because of the miners’ strike but also the violent crushing of things like the poll tax demos and the riots in inner cities.

I was thinking 'blood-sucking vampires feeding on the labour of others.' But 'Tories' is pithier.

The interests of the rich are not the same as the interests of the workers. Why people have forgotten this I will never know.

People should also watch Pride. The police also harassed gay men at the time. Pride is a wonderful film. Crying and laughing.

Not as bad as having no job and your father hanging himself after walking miles looking for work to feed his kids because the pits closed

@MrsTerryPratchett 😂 easier to fit on a banner!

This Tory administration since 2010 has done an incredible job of pitting working people against each other - with the phrase hard working families sounding very reminiscent of deserving and undeserving poor from the Victorian error 😢.

It wasn't just paying well there were no other jobs for the majority around the areas so it would as pit or dole

Pride is such an underrated film.

You forgot to add the long term plan to close hospitals etc and send patients abroad in your comparison....the plan was always to close the mines and buy from abroad.