The Miners Strike of 1984 is remembered 25 years on, as thousands fought to save their industry and jobs. They had to battle against Margaret Thatcher, the National Coal Board, police, division and public hatred. What followed was the greatest struggle workers had faced as the year long dispute led to 11,000 miners being arrested, 7,000 injured, 11 people dying and 1,000 men sacked.
The Conservative Government of the day, under Margaret Thatcher destroyed the mining industry in the UK - from 187,000 employees in 1984 to just three and a half thousand today. Coal pits up and down the country eventually closed and now Britain is paying the price for deserting the Miners struggle. Today we import our coal at higher prices and face being 'blackmailed' in the process. At a time of high fuel prices, Britain would have been in a better position if we produced more of our own coal.
Yet while the pits may have been broken down and closed - the 1984 Miners made a stand for what they believed was right. They wanted to defend their livelihood and their communities. I remember watching the news as a teenager at school but not understanding what was happening, but now 25 years later - I can see why they went on strike.
Margaret Thatcher sold them down the river and in doing so tore the whole fabric out of communities where thousands were employed down the pits. Costing the taxpayer £12b in the process as she tried to destroy the NUM. My grand father had worked many years down a coal pit in Wales and would have been horrified to see what had become of the industry.
*Includes BBC archive of miners, their families, former NUM president Arthur Scargill, and former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
*Photographs courtesy PA, Getty Images.
*Slideshow by Paul Kerley. Publication date 5 March 2009.
I can see some similarities in Royal Mail - back in 2004 it employed 189,000 workers, had 16,000 Post Offices and 115,000 post boxes. Now the public service faces huge job losses, part privatisation (leading to a full sell off) and we've seen a massive post office closure programme. Will we eventually see a repeat as postal workers seek to defend their communities, their jobs and the public service we all cherish?
0 comments:
Post a Comment