Miners' strike - 30 years since the pit crisis of 1984 

A pivotal point in worker's rights. If you sell your labour for money and not living off tax havens, you are a worker. You are a miner. This is your struggle and it continues.

Randomly watching this video and then my great grandfather(Alan)appears on screen 🤯

I was a 11 years old french boy and I remember that french CGT union sent a truck with clothes blanklets and Xmas gifts for Kids to Uk and a beautiful speaking from the leader. "Their struggle is our, too" Sorry for my bad english....

You ladies from the south of wales are my absolute heroes you are the best of the best.

We are still paying the price today, poverty,deprivation, lack of opportunities. Many coal mining communities are still back on there feet.

Feel so sorry for all coal miners they are the ones who made this country what it is today then treated so badly, respect to all the coal miners 👍

It was the south wales people why my dad joined the strike and my god how they suffered 😢😢it completely breaks my heart.

The communities suffered the most. Villages and towns completely obliterated thanks to the destruction of the coal and steel industries

I well remember the Miners Strike of 1984 as a fourteen year old schoolgirl. Takes me back to adolescence.

2022: Hows your energy security now UK? Thatcher wanted the UK to shift from working to financial services in London. A US senator has just stated that any city, globally, that has pinned itself on financial service will no longer be viable.

Beautifully shot piece. But as far as content this really missed the mark. The focus should have been on the people and what happened to them. You had several people that said they won because they came together and had lots of pride. But what happened to the people? This "story" told very little.

For the women of the working class✊🏻

Channel 4,ask Scargill where the missing money went??, proper journalism please, Scargill pocketed millions from the plight of the miners,and you know that!

Lord Kinnock confirmed in 1993 that Scargill was to blame for the closure of the coal mines.

Absolute salt of the earth each and every one of them God bless 🙏

Coal mining should have been phased out during the 1960s.

It was indeed the best year of my life in heavy industry too. The freinds and sence of union in the coal industry will never be seen again. Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.

The strikers complained about Police brutality, what about the intimidation and attacks aimed at those who wanted to work. To be branded a "scab" because you choose to disagree and provide for your family is morally wrong. To be victims of violence, kids included, was disgraceful. Nothing ever mentioned there from the other side.

Is there any coal industry left in Britain today?

This whole 'Thatcher did it' mindset is really ridiculous. She did no more than any other leader, left or right had been doing for decades. The mining industry was in steady decline from the mid 1920's and It was an pretty even split between labour and conservatives on mine closures. Between 1947 and 1994 around 950 pits were closed. Attlee (Labour) closed 101 pits from 1947-1951 Macmillan (Conservative) closed 246 pits from 1957-1963 Wilson (Labour) closed 253 pits from 1964-1977 Heath (Conservative) closed 26 pits from 1970-1974 Thatcher (Conservative) closed 115 pits from 1979-1990. To blame Thatcher is disingenuous in the extreme. She put the final nail in the coffin, but it was dead and closed long before she came to power. Coal was increasingly not needed, expensive and dirty. Pit closures were a fact of life in an era of modernisation, and though it was painful to lose those jobs, it was also inevitable. Especially given how militant the miners had become in the '70's. They accelerated their own demise by mistakenly believing they were still a vitally important element to British industry and still had the same power they enjoyed when screwing Callaghan over. Their actions were what brought Thatcher to power in a landslide victory. Their efforts were futile and self defeating against her. The public was not on their side. History was not on their side. Economics was not on their side and the miners were never going to win a war that lopsided.

If the Union had met with the board before striking, they could have negotiated telephone numbers for payouts. Increased pension enhancements and other benefits, in exchange for a painless, managed contraction of the industry.

As thy say fighting a loseing battle

I pray the iron maidens limbs withered may she rust in peace

Scargill called a strike without a vote required by NUM rules. He did more damage than any Government. I worked on the coal face but left the industry in 1972. Policemen bought new cars with all the 'overtime' pay and called them "Scargill's wheels".

Literally 1984

Maggie didn’t think this over all mines closed now power cuts 2022

At that time plenty of overtime for the police but not the miners. Some policemen paid off their mortgage and had extra money to pay for extra holidays abroad.

I am an ex-miner in the Nottinghamshire coalfield, I did not strike and worked every day 1984-85, as I believed and still do that it is totally unacceptable to be dictated to by Arthur Scargill. I joined the breakaway union in 1985 the UDM because decisions made must be done in a way that is democratic, vote, act on it and respect that a majority vote should be adhered to. Maybe Arthur Scargill was correct in the sense that coal mines were on the list for closure, and quite right to if they were making a loss, no mine should be subsidised by the rest, he just reacted in the wrong way and did nothing right and made it a whole lot worse. You also cannot try to bring a Government down and get away with it, after that Margret Thatcher dug her heels in and did everything to get rid of the trouble NUM, if anything the strikers accelerated the closures. I am very proud to have been a coal miner, but things change, it was inevitable that we were going to move away from coal. It saddens me that today after a third of a Century the Industry destroyer (strikers, mainly from Yorkshire) can’t move on and still try to cause trouble. I am a member of a coal mining memories Facebook page and get so much abuse from them, I find it quite funny how childish they can be, you would have thought they would have grown up a little.

If the pit lady’s turned there backs on us we would have starved thank you lady’s

Feur

The union went about it the wrong way The union should of recommended strike action and give us a National ballot If the union had got the right result in a ballot for strike we all would have came out Every pit in every area would have been out I don’t know if it would of stopped solid for a full year though

Was to young

I. Was five

🇬🇧 Thatcher forever 🇬🇧

These days we are constantly being told that people should stop using coal and other fossil fuels for environmental reasons, But as the Miners’ strike 35 years ago showed, it will be very difficult, if not impossible to do that, without destroying jobs, Lives and communities in the process. That is why, certainly for the foreseeable, future, most of energy production will Come from fossil fuels, and all this talk of cutting emissions will remain just that - talk.

The victory was the fight, we had no choice but to make a stand, because we all knew what thatcher had in mind for us. I would do it again tomorrow, my pit Darfield Main had 6 NUM Scabs by the end, and i wouldnt even waste piss on them. What could we do ? We had to fight our way of life was under threat, and we knew what was coming if we did nothing. Shame on the Scab Traitors for helping Thatcher destroy our industry. No more Deep Mines in The UK thats why we fought so hard 30 years ago. Im Proud of what we did, I'm proud we stood up and fought the way we did. Respect to all Loyal NUM members who stood firm for 12 months in 84/85 let us all never forget that the cause was just, and that we've all been proved right. NUM 1984/85 Darfield Main Colliery, Barnsley Area

unions get rid of them

EVERYONE HERE SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSH

The thing that baffles me about the striking miners is that they still vote for a Labour Party who's woke, green zero carbon agenda would have had the same result anyway. When Thatcher left office we had a smaller but modern, profitable, coal industry. The reason it became extinct under Labour and the coalition was because of carbon taxes and regulations which meant imported coal from places like Australia was cheaper, with a view to eventually going for wind. They'd have been better accepting the inevitable and lobbying like crazy for retraining the lads made redundant and investment in new jobs, rather than a futile strike. Maybe a few could've been preserved as working museums as well and kept at least some of the miners and engineers employed as guides.

If this happened today the working class would be too obsessed with right wing identity politics and would have called the miners 'woke' or 'snowflakes'

I know it was terrible!, fancy shutting a pit that was not making any money because the workers were paid more money than they were worth

I wish Thatcher was back in charge of the country today...

ill send man straught to jehovah when i send shots like m sharapovah

Scargill destroyed the NUM by starting a fight he could not win.

No pit crisis. Miners overreached - and normal, decent people said no to them holding us to ransom any more. Their defeat still makes me feel good.

Shame on every scab that fell into thatchers hands

I wonder if anyone would do a comparrasing video to the miner strikes in 1984 to the country voting Brexit in 2016 to present. If they did then people who actually know what they had done. Though I don't think they do since they like to vote tories.

hahahahaha rip

enjoy migrants work strikebreakers

I'm a scab and proud! I earned a fortune!

You know nothing Jon Snow!

So glad the coal mines are gone forever.