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Twenty-five years after
DATELINE: 5/3/09
The 1984-85 miners’ strike was the most bitterly contested industrial dispute in twentieth-century British labour history. For the Thatcher government the defeat of the miners meant that a political agenda of privatisation, deregulation and attacks on the trade union movement could move ahead virtually unimpeded.The new political era was summed up well by Joe Owens, a former miner, in his Introduction to Miners 1984-1994: 'These times would come to be characterised by the "management's right to manage"; telephone digit salaries for the chairmen of privatised natural resources and the abolition of wages councils; the return of mass unemployment and the emergence of Guinness as a cure for dementia; the marketing of UK plc as the home of low wages and the strictest anti-trade union legislation outside Turkey…'
It was inevitable that the sheer scale of the struggle would lead to a flow of books, documentaries and plays dealing with the strike, and local newspapers in mining communities producing special supplements recording the occasion. This happened on both the tenth and twentieth anniversaries of the strike, but I sense a great deal more media interest in the twenty-fifth anniversary of the strike, or the 'silver jubilee' as some old stalwarts call it.
It is easy to see why. Thatcherism ushered in the age of excess, and New Labour continued to support the same policies of flexible labour markets and deregulation of financial services. It was Peter Mandelson, after all, who assured us he was 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'.
We witnessed the neglect of industry, so that with the exception of a few tiny pockets, the UK economy, as the political economist F. William Engdahl points out, is 'a hollowed out wreck. It's really a service economy now'.
Now the consequences of those policies are for all to see. We have the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, caused by the rush for easy profits of commercial and investment banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, private equity firms and other financial institutions. Governments give massive bailouts for banks, whilst recession and mass unemployment loom ever larger.
What a contrast with the way the miners were treated. The Thatcher and Major governments rigged the energy market through the dash for gas and nuclear energy and spent billions of pounds destroying the mining industry in an act of political revenge. The consequences for mining communities, in terms of long-term unemployment, ill-health, poverty and crime, have been devastating. But to cap it all we are now near the end of North Sea oil and gas and face the prospect of insecure energy supplies.
On the twenty-fifth anniversary we can re-assess what the strike was about. I think Geoffrey Goodman, then the industrial editor of The Mirror, captured it best in The Miners' Strike (1985). He pointed out the dispute was 'unique in terms of conventional industrial conflict. It was not about the pay packet; it was not about working conditions, hours of work, or even in the normal sense, a traditional conflict with management…the future of work was at the core of it. To remove a pit from a mining community is to snap the lifeline to a job'.
It was certainly not about the absurdity that one man, Arthur Scargill, kept, against their will and in spite of all efforts by the National Coal Board and the government, 100,000 miners and their families out on strike for the best part of a year.
Shafted: The Media, the Miners' Strike and the Aftermath captures a number of different aspects of the strike and the consequences of defeat. Huw Beynon, for example, explores what happened to the South Wales and Durham coalfields after the strike. But the main focus of the book is on the media and the miners. Tony Harcup writes about alternative media in the miners' strike; Nicholas Jones, Peter Lazenby and Paul Routledge reflect on their experiences reporting the strike; and Michael Bailey and Julian Petley analyse an iconic photo from Orgreave of a mounted policeman wielding his baton above a woman's head. They interview both the photographer (John Harris) and the woman (Leslie Boulton) and produce a fascinating account of the subsequent use and abuse of the photo. There is also a thirty-two page insert of photos, cartoons and other images from the strike.
From my point of view it has been a fascinating experience putting the book together, meeting new people, re-reading the literature on the strike, and tracking down the very powerful North Selby NUM banner which is on the cover of the book. We plan to have it on display at the West Yorkshire Playhouse when we have the book launch and public meeting on 12 March.
We also have a website: http://www.cpbf.org.uk/shafted where people can order the book, find out about events planned around it, and view other material on the miners' strike.
CPBF MEMBERS
BOOK OFFER
The book is on sale for £9.99 (£12.50 inc P&P) CPBF members can order the book for £10.00 inc P&P from the National Office. Please send a cheque for £10.00 payable to CPBF with your name and address and mark your order 'CPBF book offer'Book Launch/Public meeting
Thursday 12 March 7.30pm Congreve Room West Yorkshire Playhouse Leeds
Roy Bailey, the acclaimed veteran folk singer, will start the event, followed byPIRHANAS or PROFESSIONALS?
Journalists and the Miners' Strike
Nicholas Jones (Industrial Reporter BBC Radio during the strike)
Peter Lazenby (Industrial Correspondent Yorkshire Evening Post)
Chris Kitching (Secretary, National Union of Mineworkers)
Granville Williams (editor Shafted)
Representative from Women Against Pit ClosuresLINKSYou can buy SHAFTED here
The strike recorded - photos, movies and more
Book launch and public meetingLast modified: Friday, March 6, 2009
Get SHAFTED now...
The strike recorded
REVIEW: Marching to the Fault Line
An untold story?
Miners in the Front Line
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Notices
Events & Announcements
Dire energy predictions
DATELINE: 18/8/09
In the Afterword to Shafted, published by the CPBF for the 25th anniversary of the 1984-85 miners' strike we quote Dave Feickert, previously with the NUM and now an energy consultant: 'Since 1979 the UK has not had an energy policy. And now it is almost too late.'
Seumas Milne speaks to MWAW
DATELINE: 16/7/09Guardian journalist, Seumas Milne addressing a special Media Workers Against the War meeting in London on 13 July.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
The miners' strike & politics today
Media for all? The challenge of convergence
School of Pharmacy
29-39 Brunswick Square
London WC1N 1AXRegistration/networking: 9am
Conference: 10am - 5pm
The Miners’ Strike & Politics Today
DATELINE: 3/7/09Tony Benn, Lee Hall and Ken Loach's 'Which side are you on?'
Pre-conference debate
7pm Friday 30th October£5 book online or pay at the door
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Mr G P Herman T/A Key Words
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Download Freepress (PDF)
DATELINE: 6/7/09We have decided to upload future copies of Freepress as PDFs to the site. They will be available to all users to download. To access the Freepress download page, visit:
http://www.cpbf.org.uk/fpdownload
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