British miners strike 1984/1985

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Demonstration march in London during the miners' strike (1984)

The one-year British miners 'strike of 1984/1985 ( Miners' Strike , also Coal Strike , March 4-9, 1984 to March 5, 1985) was a major industrial action that reduced the power of the English unions in the long term.

It is considered a serious defeat for the British miners and had an impact far beyond the actual end of the labor dispute: on the one hand, the economic course of the British government under Margaret Thatcher was confirmed, and on the other, the self-confidence of the labor movement was permanently damaged.

The strike marks the culmination of the conflict between the Iron Lady-led Conservative government and the National Union of Mineworkers, led by Arthur Scargill . The strike was remembered not only because of its unusual length, but also because of its strong resistance of the miners against the threatened closings or privatizations of the mines.

The history

Margaret Thatcher's government policies sparked the miners' strike

After the success in the Falklands War , Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the clear winner in 1983 . Even before taking office in 1979, she had shown the unease she was feeling about traditionally strong trade union power in the UK. It can be assumed that driving forces around Thatcher - such as Keith Joseph  - after the experiences of the fall of Edward Heath's government in 1974 wanted to limit the influence of the trade unions to a predictable level, even against strong resistance.

A Conservative Party working group headed by Nicholas Ridley had already come to the conclusion in 1978 that in the event of a government takeover, industrial disputes in the areas of coal and electricity and among dockworkers would be expected. The working group's report, named after the chairman and published in the Economist on May 27, 1978, recommended that suitable countermeasures be considered: in addition to the installation of coal reserves in depots and increased imports for crisis situations, transport must be as far away from the union as possible. In addition, the dual fueling method with oil should be introduced nationwide in order to reduce the one-sided dependence on coal. As a special affront it had to be taken that the report also called for the creation of a mobile police force for labor disputes. With the establishment of the National Reporting Center , this project should, at least in part, be implemented after Thatcher took office.

Thatcher viewed the trade unions disparagingly and in August 1984, during the strike, called them enemy within . It was a natural part of the conservative attitude of the late 1970s and early 1980s to describe the unions as anti-democratic and corporatist. In her autobiography, Thatcher herself spoke almost consistently of "the militants" in relation to the strikers, knowing that the strike is a sanctioned right of the trade unions. After taking office in 1981, Energy Minister Nigel Lawson had expressly recommended that Thatcher build up coal reserves for possible strikes and, in the future, shift to new energy sources. The UK had meanwhile made efforts to supplement coal production with oil from the North Sea and nuclear power plants.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM ) was generally perceived as the spearhead of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) , which in 1974 led to the resignation and subsequent defeat of the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath with an extensive strike . The NUM confidently represented this image to the outside world. Immediately before the strike, Jack Taylor, President of NUM, announced in Yorkshire: “We are treated by the method of eat or die. It's time we got up and show how big we are. ”So the conflict between the Thatcher government and the NUM had a symbolic character that should not be underestimated.

On the face of it, the economic data for the years 1983 to 1986 were quite favorable: during this period the gross national product grew by eight, industrial production by seven and productivity by 13 percent. At the same time, the export quota even increased by 21%.

However, unemployment leveled off at an average of 3.1 million unemployed, and the number of those employed in the manufacturing sector fell from seven to five million between 1979 and 1990.

The previous recession between 1979 and 1982 particularly affected the “union strongholds” in mining, construction, the railways and dock workers. The number of employees with trade union affiliations fell from the record level of 1979 (57% with 13.5 million members) to 43% in 1986 and only 35% in 1992.

The Employment Acts of the Thatcher administration (1980, 1982, 1984, 1989, 1990) and the Trade Union Act 1984 exacerbated this crisis in the trade unions. According to the regulations of 1980, 1982 and 1984, union officials were to be elected every five years ( Arthur Scargill, for example, was the inconsistently elected NUM chairman until 2004), and a secret ballot was necessary for planned strikes. State funding could even be used for the voting.

If the law was violated, strikes could be declared a criminal act, which could result in union coffers being confiscated. The ability to make unions liable for criminal activity under the Second Employment Act was only made possible by the fact that in 1980 they were forced to register as liable advocacy groups.

The supportive means of the sympathy strike ( secondary picketing, including the sending of so-called flying pickets ), which was so effective for the British trade unions , was banned. The number of regular pickets in a factory on strike was limited to six, the heavily criticized union membership in the closed shop was lifted, and protection against dismissal was relaxed. Although not all of the provisions of this legislation should be applied during a strike, it must be emphasized what a serious interference with the spontaneous strike system the Thatcher government's new labor law regulations meant.

The unions were more or less unimaginative and inactive towards the entirety of the government measures: knowing that they had incurred the displeasure of large parts of the population in the Winter of Discontent , they persisted in the hope of improvement and a political change: the members were recommended not to buy shares In the case of an election victory in 1983, Labor expects immediate renationalization to subscribe to firms that have already been privatized.

Apart from a wave of strikes against the restructuring at British Steel in 1981, there were no spectacular industrial disputes.

The special role of British mining

The British mining industry - for a long time an industrial sector that shaped the structure because of the availability of cheap coal - was in crisis and in decline even before the outbreak of the strike: since 1914, the number of employees had fallen from one million to almost 200,000 miners despite the nationalization in 1946, at most the mines in the Midlands and Nottinghamshire could still be considered really profitable. Nonetheless, due to their strong union ties, the miners held the status of comparatively well-paid skilled workers during the first half of the Thatcher era and in 1984 ranked ninth on the British wage scale. A certain group dynamic was also shaped by the fact that the miners and their families often lived in terraced housing estates and thus shared work and leisure time in their everyday life. The miners' strike was not least about fighting for the preservation of these traditional milieus of miners.

Coal as an economic factor - also due to the countermeasures of the Thatcher administration - was no longer as important as it was in 1974, when Scargill and the NUM had contributed to the overthrow of Edward Heath. There was also a miners' strike in 1974; and this at a time when there was a lack of energy in England due to the oil crisis (from autumn 1973). The extraction of crude oil in the North Sea and the expansion of the nuclear industry, whose share of the electricity supply rose to 14% during the strike, were meanwhile considerable and growing alternatives, especially since the mining industry was subject to constant criticism because of the sometimes completely outdated technology in the mines the accusation of inefficiency increased despite comparatively low funding costs (including subsidies).

But 80 percent of the country's electricity remained dependent on coal: this fact and the associated role of the NUM should by no means be underestimated. With the privatization of the electricity supply, however, their previous obligation to purchase coal no longer existed.

In a European comparison, British coal production was relatively cheap. Subsidies were also kept within limits: for each tonne extracted, a subsidy of £ 3.24 was paid, compared to £ 9.48 in Germany, and around five times as much in Belgium and France with £ 16.97 and £ 17.63 respectively. The overview of British mining, however, turns out to be much less homogeneous than these average figures might suggest: in addition to well-equipped and efficiently producing pits, there were outdated and less productive ones. Total government subsidies to the mining industry in 1984 were £ 600 million.

The strike

The immediate trigger for the miners' strike was the publication of the announcement by Ian McGregor, Chairman of the National Coal Board (NCB), on March 6, 1984, that he intended to close a considerable number of inefficient collieries and, in the long term, aim to privatize the others: initially through the Closure of 20 mines will cut 20,000 jobs and reduce coal production by 4 million tons annually. Even the appointment of McGregor, nicknamed Mac the Knife , in September 1983 had been perceived by the miners as a special provocation: he had previously relentlessly modernized British Steel . 80,000 jobs were cut.

In Cortonwood in Yorkshire , where the mine with almost a thousand employees was particularly uneconomical and relied on large grants, the miners went on strike the following day. On March 9, the NUM Board of Directors in Yorkshire voted in favor of a strike. According to the statutes of the NUM, two variants were provided for a nationwide strike: either 55 percent of the membership had to express their consent in a strike vote ( rule 41 / rule 41). Second, there was the possibility that the regional board members decided to strike individually ( rule 43 / rule 43). Arthur Scargill called the strike on March 12, 1984 without having held a nationwide ballot (in some regional votes the strike had been rejected by a clear majority - in the Nottinghamshire region, for example, 68 percent voted against, in Leicestershire as much as 87 and in Cumberland 92 percent) out. He evidently speculated that, in a kind of domino effect, the regional board members would agree to a strike even where no majorities for the strike had been achieved in the strike votes. No strike votes were held in the regions considered militant.

The failure of the strike vote and the closely related fact that the future prospects for buddies were very different, led to a split within the NUM. With a base in Nottingshamshire, where the equipment and productivity of the mines were modern and thus the prospects for the miners were comparatively hopeful, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) was finally founded to compete with the NUM . Ted McKay, NUM President in North Wales, even a proponent of the strike criticized the fact that the miners did not stand united behind Scargill and that Scargill had struck arrogantly.

Also in the TUC as a trade union umbrella organization worriers took the floor: the many organized there, including the market and consensus-oriented wing of the new realists ( new realists ) prepared Scargill's methods and its irreconcilable class struggle rhetoric discomfort. In the end, the TUC did not officially support the strike, and the trade unions for workers in the energy sector, EETPU, and steel workers even opposed it.

Already in the first days of the strike there were violent clashes with the police: by mid-July there were two dead, over a thousand miners were injured and four thousand were temporarily arrested. At Orgreave near Sheffield on June 18, 1984, 10,000 buddies and three thousand police officers clashed in a mass brawl, scenes resembling civil war had taken place. Several talks between Scargill and McGregor (around July 1984) had remained fruitless.

The anger of the strikers was further increased by the fact that the police literally "beat" strike breakers into the factories, even against the active resistance of the picket lines, using mounted units. In the conflict with the NUM, the 20,000 officers on duty received £ 500 "hazard allowance" in addition to their normal salaries.

At the 83rd Labor Congress in Blackpool at the end of September 1984, the hesitant chairman Neil Kinnock was forced, under pressure from the plenary, to show solidarity with the strikers: beyond a resolution in favor of the NUM, however, nothing tangible came out of it. Support from Labor officials remained modest, while many ordinary members - often trade unionists as well - stood by the strikers in solidarity.

In October 1984, 130,000 miners went on strike. On November 3, the Telegraph reported that 45 mines were producing normally and 93 were completely idle due to strikes (36 commuting in between as "not producing significantly").

In a trial by two miners against the strike in November 1984, Scargill was forced to pay £ 1,000 as a person and a NUM of £ 200,000 as an organization for disobeying the court. After the Scargills trust was withdrawn via the NUM, it became clear that the union's funds had been transferred abroad.

Margaret Thatcher complained again - at the height of the strike - in her New Year's address in 1984 that the members of the NUM had been denied the nationwide ballot. In doing so she articulated the democratic deficit that she accused of the NUM and its “Marxist President” Scargill, and dared to attempt to compromise the strike not only as an economic conflict, but even as part of an attack by the left on the basic order as such. “The rule of the mob” should not be given in. The penalty of insisting on rule 43 weighed on the labor dispute throughout the strike, concealing the actual conflict and giving Thatcher the opportunity, as the guardian of democracy, to stand up to an attempted coup. In the context of the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton in October 1984, Scargill was even compared with the National Socialists and claimed that (left) fascism was behind him. Thatcher also spoke of the “fascist left” in her biography. In return, Scargill insulted Thatcher as a “plutonium blonde” and blatantly announced his wish for her extra-parliamentary overthrow.

The miners' strike had meanwhile provoked supply bottlenecks which even the reserves from the depots could not always cover seamlessly. Yet the Thatcher administration's “investment” measures proved to be an overall smart move. The miners themselves suffered most from their strike: instead of being able to hope for government support (apart from £ 15), they were dependent on charitable welfare. Their children were excluded from free school meals, and help with school uniforms was not granted.

Nonetheless, the British media produced an image of the strike that did not fully do justice to its nature and thus led to a distorted formation of opinion among the population: instead of placing the pros and cons of the conflicting parties in the foreground, the news viewers preferred violent rioting and brawls presented and cannibalized. Among the newspapers, the tabloids The Sun and The Daily Mail did an unpleasant job in this area, and even the Daily Mirror, considered to be left-wing liberal, polemicized against the strike. Overall, despite this account, the strike was largely peaceful.

Of course, this did not prevent the anti-strike journalists from personally attacking Arthur Scargill as “Adolf Scargill” ( Fleet Street ) and the “Yorkshire Ripper” ( Sunday Express ).

In spite of this, the strikers experienced sympathy and solidarity of a non-union nature to an unprecedented extent: local authorities, ethnic minorities, feminists, gays and lesbians supported the strikers through collections and fundraising campaigns, because they were also away from Thatcher's reactionary policies felt disadvantaged and threatened. In the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, the miners organized a donation and relief campaign. A total of over a million pounds sterling went into a donation account opened at Christmas 1984 after a call by Neil Kinnock and Ben Kingsley . The Russian Miners Union transferred $ 1.14 million to the NUM hardship fund . The miners in Tuzla ( Yugoslavia ) donated a working day's wages to their British colleagues every month. The NUM sought and found financial support from abroad. The functionaries of the Free German Trade Union Confederation also expressed their support to Scargill. The FDGB and other unions from Eastern Europe donated an estimated £ 1.4 million from the FDGB to the NUM, keeping the support secret and transferring it to the NUM through other sources. The government of the currency-hungry GDR, on the other hand, supplied Great Britain with considerable amounts of lignite, which helped to compensate for the production failures caused by the miners' strike, while the East European solidarity campaigns for the strike in the media were adorned. Despite the perseverance of the miners and despite the economic difficulties they were able to endure, from the turn of the year 1984/1985 more and more of the finally frustrated and disaffected miners ended their strike. They were faced with the choice of either starving and freezing with their families, exposing their children to stigmatization - or, when they returned to work, being called scabs and " yellows " by their colleagues who were still on strike . In mid-December 1984 production had fallen to a quarter of the output before the start of the strike: but there was no power outage during the entire strike and no significant shortages in the supply of coal that had been hoarded as a precaution. Thatcher was delighted when half of the NUM members returned to work on February 27th. The NCB regularly published the numbers of NUM supporters who declared their standout over.

On March 3, 1985, a NUM delegates' conference finally voted to end the labor dispute. Only the Kent region voted for a continuation, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and South Derbyshire had not sent delegates. The strike collapsed - as far as the demands of the miners are concerned - without result.

He had killed a total of ten (six pickets, a taxi driver and three boys collecting coal) and injured over three thousand. 11,291 strikers had been arrested, at least temporarily. The strike would cost a total of £ 3 billion.

The role of Arthur Scargill

Scargill, the chairman of the NUM, must be regarded as a controversial character: his opponents and also specialist authors vilified him as a “fiery demagogue” (burning demagogue) and eccentric, repeatedly rubbing against the political orientation of the avowed Marxist.

The Spiegel portrait of King Arthur characterizes him as an effective, rhetorically gifted populist who also made political polemics during the miners' strike: he cursed McGregor as an “overpaid US mercenary”, he wished the Windsors to “shunt” and “do useful work to want to supply ”. For many NUM members, Scargill still meant something like the last hope and enjoyed respect and trust, not least since the great victory in 1974. The strike of 1984/1985 was a labor dispute for jobs, not for wage increases or shorter working hours. Scargill failed to realize, however, that the importance of coal had declined and that the Thatcher government's labor regulations affected a union movement that was already weakened by the decline in membership.

In the autumn of 1984 the strike threatened to spill over into the previously unstruck mining areas of Nottinghamshire , which meant the final end for coal supplies and thus an economic standstill. Thatcher's administration was ready to compromise for the first time, but Scargill flatly refused. Scargill's deputy Mick McGahey said in a small circle, “Arthur won and he doesn't even know. He will destroy this union ”. In fact, there were no strikes in Nottinghamshire and the NUM's rapid decline began in the following years.

Scargill clashed repeatedly with the so-called “new realists” within the TUC. The relationship was also strained by the fact that Scargill repeatedly made pathetic references to the 1926 general strike, during which the TUC had abandoned the miners. Thanks to the nimbus of victory in 1974, he could count on a house power within the NUM, beyond which solidarity, however, remained within narrow limits. The headquarters of the miners' union had been demonstratively moved from London to Sheffield in 1983, two years after Scargill's election. In Yorkshire, the NUM President was able to rely on the unconditional support of the miners and, in particular, the power of his flying pickets . The humiliating defeat of the NUM in the strike in 1984/1985 and their subsequent decline, after a hopeful start, also severely damaged the reputation of their president. Scargill left Labor in 1996, founded the Socialist Labor Party and has been its chairman ever since. Political successes were not granted to him and his new party.

The consequences of the strike

Political Impact

With her unyielding and uncompromising perseverance in the dispute with the NUM, Thatcher also underlined strength and determination internally after the foreign policy success in the Falklands War. The victory over the miners definitely marks the impressive proof of assertiveness against the radical wing of the trade union movement, to a degree that seemed to be excluded after the events of 1974 and 1978/1979. Thatcher himself emphasized that overcoming the miners' veto is also a signal to moderate union members: not to allow themselves to be blackmailed by “the militants”. She spoke of “a lesson no one should forget”.

Labor under Neil Kinnock had shown little initiative throughout the strike: this not only called into question its role as a political alternative to the conservatives, but also severely damaged relations with the trade union movement. In the June 1983 elections, only 39 percent of union members had voted for Labor. The failure of the strike represented another stage on the way to the profound break between Labor and unions. This had its first climax in the Winter of Discontent 1978/1979 when the unrelenting attitude of the unions to overthrow (by a vote of no confidence) and finally had contributed to the election of Labor Prime Minister James Callaghan . The trend should continue until Labor changed to New Labor.

The disintegration of the NUM also manifested itself as a direct consequence of the failed strike: from 1985 to 1990 it lost 80 percent of its once 182,000 (as of July 1984) members, which was due, among other things, to the fact that 94 of 176 (as of 1984) pits were decommissioned nationwide.

In the 1990s, the UDM, which had deliberately taken an adaptation course to the Tories, was only able to postpone massive mine closings for a short time and with the support of public opinion, but not prevent them once the excitement had subsided. The British miners were never able to get together again for an emotional labor dispute like the one in 1984/1985.

A badge produced by the NUM in Kent in support of the miners' strike in 1984

Social implications of the defeat of NUM

The strike had resulted in many of the miners on strike having exhausted their savings. With the Social Security Act No. 2 By 1980 the family grants had been reduced to £ 15 a week. In principle, the NUM was unable to pay strike fees. Many of the strikers saw no alternative but to take out mortgages or loans and suffered dire straits in the Miners' Strike. On average, each of them - an additional £ 9,000 lost wages - should be in debt of £ 10,000 during the strike.

The massive loss of jobs went hand in hand with the erosion of the traditional miners 'milieu: the rift that already existed during the strike between people who had previously been neighbors was deepened by the fact that in the workers' settlements, where unemployment was already blatantly high, the Miners mingled with the job seekers. This broke particularly well in northern England and south Wales, with unemployment rates rising to 50 percent in some cases. With many people moving away, the mining settlements gradually became deserted, and the suicide rate increased significantly. A columnist from The Spectator wrote that the beaten pals were nothing more than “human dregs” living in “ugly mining villages”.

At the same time, the strike activated the miners' wives: thousands of them demonstrated with their husbands, organized soup kitchens, fundraising campaigns and collections. This form of emancipated affection was met with a mixture of amazement and surprise among the conservative miners.

Research controversy and political instrumentalization

The failure of the miners' strike in 1984/1985 proved that a British government - benefited by labor market reforms and Thatcher's tolerance - was no longer dependent on the consent and goodwill of the unions in reform projects.

Thatcher's stated goal was to limit government spending and thus inflation as an almost traditional British problem. In the government subsidies for coal since 1946, the closure of less profitable mines with overall overproduction therefore seemed urgently necessary, according to her own information.

In addition to the labor law provisions of the Employment Acts, the fact that under her government there were no more consultations in the national economic council NEDC speaks in favor of the claim that Thatcher specifically bet on this card and aggressively sought the conflict with the unions. The tightened tone in dealing with Scargill (and the corresponding replicas) also play a role.

In addition, it is speculated that the conservatives, in view of their debacle in 1974, explicitly wanted to take revenge on the NUM. Recently, some historians have gone so far as to claim that the Thatcher government's conflict with the miners was the decisive step in breaking trade union power in Great Britain in order to create the conditions for the implementation of a neoliberal economic system.

With the Trade Union Act of 1984, the Conservative government had undoubtedly acted politically in self-interest: the stipulation that the political support funds of the trade unions should be voted on every ten years aimed at the financial basis of Labor, which emerged from the trade union movement Support was required in a very special way. Unlike the Conservatives, Labor could not count on substantial business donations.

Margaret Thatcher has indicated in her autobiography that Scargill and the NUM have also received donations from Libya. Reliable evidence on this is not yet available. However, in 2009 it became known that the miners' union NUM received extensive financial and material support from the GDR during the strike .

The British Government and the National Coal Board had offered potential strikers £ 1,400 sterling (1984 equivalent to £ 1 about DM 4 ) extra Christmas bonus in December 1984 if they  returned to work, and in January they promised tax exemption until the end of April.

Reception and presentation in entertainment media

The problem of social upheaval and escalating violence in the environment and aftermath of the strike is addressed in the film Billy Elliot - I Will Dance and partly in Brassed Off - With timpani and trumpets . The film Pride shows the solidarity of the gay and lesbian scene with the striking miners. In the novel GB84, based on meticulous research, David Peace describes the increasing severity and relentlessness of the dispute between the government and the miners' union and its effects on the lives of workers.

When the miners returned to the mines ashamed and demoralized at the end of the strike, their friends in many places decorated them with carnations, the flower of heroes.

literature

  • Stefan Berger, Norman LaPorte: Friendly Enemies - Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990 . 2010, ISBN 978-1-84545-697-9 , e: ISBN 978-1-84545-827-0 , 400 pages.
  • Klaus Bielstein: Trade unions, neo-conservatism and economic structural change. On the strategy and tactics of the unions in Great Britain . Bochum 1988.
  • Henner Joerg Boehl: The British miners' strike of 1984/85: decision of a conflict over law and governability . Bochum 1989.
  • The mirror . 38th & 39th year.
  • Karlheinz Dürr: The miners strike 1984/1985 . In: Politische Vierteljahresschrift , 26, 1985, pp. 400–422.
  • Brendan Evans: Thatcherism and British Politics 1975–1999 . Stroud 1999.
  • Gero Fischer: United we stand - divided we fall. The British miners' strike in 1984/85 . Frankfurt a. M. / New York 1999.
  • Bernd Ital: The policy of privatization in Great Britain under the Margaret Thatcher government . Cologne 1995.
  • Geoffrey Keith Barlow: The Labor Movement in Thatcher's Britain: Conservative Macro- and Microeconomic Strategies and the Associated Labor Relations Legislation: Their Impact on the British Labor Movement during the 1980s . Frankfurt / Berlin / Bern / New York / Paris / Vienna 1996.
  • Ian Mc Gregor: The Enemies Within Fontana Publishers 1986
  • Earl Reitan: The Thatcher Revolution. Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and the Transformation of Modern Britain 1979–2001 . Lanham et al. a. 2003.
  • Dagmar Sakowsky: The Economic Policy of the Thatcher Government . Goettingen 1992.
  • Matthias Seiffert: A strike like no other. The British miners' strike in 1984–85 . In: Holger Marcks, Matthias Seiffert (ed.): The great strikes - episodes from the class struggle . Unrast-Verlag, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-89771-473-1 , pp. 173-177.
  • Paul Willman, Timothy Morris, Beverly Aston: Union Business: Trade Union Organization and Financial Reform in the Thatcher Years . Cambridge / New York 1993.
  • Chris Wrigley: The 1984-85 miners' strike . In: Andrew Charlesworth et al. a. (Ed.): An Atlas of Industrial Protest in Britain 1750–1990 . Pp. 217-225.

Web links

Commons : British Miners Strike 1984/1985  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Bielstein: Trade unions, neo-conservatism and economic structural change. On the strategy and tactics of the unions in Great Britain . Bochum 1988, p. 311f.
  2. ^ Brendan Evans: Thatcherism and British Politics 1975–1999 . Stroud 1999, p. 84
  3. ↑ Dagmar Sakowsky, The Economic Policy of the Thatcher Government . Göttingen 1992, p. 194.
  4. ↑ Eat or die . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1984, pp. 147 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Earl Reitan: The Thatcher Revolution. Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and the Transformation of Modern Britain 1979–2001 . Lanham et al. a. 2003, p. 56f.
  6. ↑ Bernd Ital: The policy of privatization in Great Britain under the Margaret Thatcher government . Cologne 1995, p. 121.
  7. ↑ Sakowsky: The economic policy of the Thatcher government . P. 184.
  8. ^ Ital: The politics of privatization . P. 122f.
  9. ↑ Reitan: The Thatcher Revolution . P. 61.
  10. ↑ Sakowsky: The economic policy of the Thatcher government . P. 188.
  11. ↑ Sakowsky: The economic policy of the Thatcher government . P. 187.
  12. ↑ Margaret Thatcher: Downing Street No. 10 . Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1993, ISBN 3-430-19066-5 , p. 485.
  13. ^ Ital: The politics of privatization . P. 124.
  14. ^ Geoffrey Keith Barlow: The Labor Movement in Thatcher's Britain: Conservative Macro- and Microeconomic Strategies and the Associated Labor Relations Legislation: Their Impact on the British Labor Movement during the 1980s . Frankfurt / Berlin / Bern / New York / Paris / Vienna 1996, p. 145.
  15. ↑ Erich Wiedemann: Revolutionaries don't fight for money . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1984, pp. 178–187 ( online - here p. 187).
  16. ↑ Gero Fischer: United we stand - divided we fall. The British miners' strike in 1984/85 . Frankfurt a. M. / New York 1999, p. 158.
  17. ↑ On the problem of regional divergence in votes between 1971 and 1983 and 1984 cf. Chris Wrigley: The 1984-5 miners' strike . In: Andrew Charlesworth et al. a. (Ed.): An Atlas of Industrial Protest in Britain 1750–1990 . Pp. 217–225, on this p. 219ff.
  18. ↑ Bernd Jürgen Wendt: The British trade unions today: structures and strategies . Berlin 1991, p. 142.
  19. ↑ Fischer: United we stand . P. 187.
  20. ↑ England: Fight to the Knife . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 1984, pp. 72–75 ( online - here p. 72).
  21. ↑ Erich Wiedemann: Revolutionaries don't fight for money . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1984, pp. 178 ( online ).
  22. ↑ Erich Wiedemann: Revolutionaries don't fight for money . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1984, pp. 183 ( online ).
  23. ↑ a b pearl barley and sugar . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1984, pp. 150 ( online ).
  24. ↑ Wrigley: The 1984-5 miners' strike . P. 222.
  25. ↑ a b More expensive than Falklands . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 1984, pp. 119 ( online ).
  26. ↑ Margaret Thatcher: Downing Street No. 10 . Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1993, pp. 339f.
  27. ↑ Dieter Wild: Fascism behind Scargill . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1984, pp. 155–157 ( online - here p. 157).
  28. ^ Thatcher: The Downing Street Years . P. 378.
  29. ↑ Erich Wiedemann: Revolutionaries don't fight for money . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1984, pp. 187 ( online ).
  30. ^ Wendt: The British trade unions . P. 173.
  31. ↑ Henner Joerg Boehl: The British miners strike of 1984/85: Decision of a conflict over law and governability . Bochum 1989, p. 98. Wendt: The British trade unions . P. 173.
  32. ^ Joachim Hoelzgen: Struggle for the People's Republic of South Yorkshire . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1984, pp. 160–166 ( online - here p. 160).
  33. ^ Bielstein: Trade unions, neo-conservatism and economic structural change . P. 316f.
  34. ↑ I'll tell you. Behind the radical miner leader Scargill is his even more radical Vice McGahey . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1985, pp. 180 ( online ).
  35. ↑ During the Bosnian War 1992–1995, British miners organized aid convoys to Tuzla (“International Workers Aid for Bosnia”), cf. T. Pflüger, M. Jung: War in Yugoslavia . 2nd Edition. 1994, ISBN 3-9803269-3-4 , p. 168; see also the article on greenleft.org.au ( memento of the original dated September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.greenleft.org.au
  36. ^ Stefan Berger, Norman LaPorte: Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990 . 2010, ISBN 978-1-84545-697-9 , pp. 236-237, Reference No. 313
  37. ^ Financial aid from the GDR, East Berlin paid for the British miners' strike . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 7, 2010, p. 6, bottom right
  38. ↑ More expensive than Falklands . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 1984, pp. 118 ( online ).
  39. ↑ Margaret Thatcher: Downing Street No. 10 . Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1993, p. 535.
  40. ↑ Scargill was nailed to the wall . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1985, pp. 128-130 ( online ).
  41. ↑ Reitan: The Thatcher Revolution . P. 62.
  42. ↑ King Arthur . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 1984, pp. 124-126 ( online ).
  43. ↑ Enemies within: Thatcher and the unions BBC News, March 5, 2004
  44. ↑ Margaret Thatcher: Downing Street No. 10 . Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1993, p. 537.
  45. ↑ Harder gait . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1984, pp. 133 ( online ).
  46. ↑ Wrigley: The 1984-5 miners' strike . P. 224.
  47. ^ Paul Willman, Timothy Morris, Beverly Aston: Union Business: Trade Union Organization and Financial Reform in the Thatcher Years . Cambridge / New York 1993, p. 124.
  48. ↑ Valeska von Roques: No place for buddies like us . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1984, pp. 144-150 ( online ).
  49. ↑ Each quotation from Scargill was nailed to the wall . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1985, pp. 130 ( online ).
  50. ↑ Valeska von Roques: No place for buddies like us . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1984, pp. 150 ( online ).
  51. ↑ Margaret Thatcher: The Downing Street Years , London 1993, p. 340.
  52. ^ Ital: The politics of privatization . P. 121.
  53. ^ Evans: Thatcherism and British politics . P. 83.
  54. ↑ See e.g. B. Holger Marcks, Matthias Seiffert (eds.): The great strikes - episodes from the class struggle . Unrast-Verlag, Münster 2008, pp. 172–188.
  55. ^ GDR 'finance' for 1984–85 miners' strike BBC News, July 7, 2010
  56. ↑ Scargill was nailed to the wall . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1985, pp. 129 ( online ).
  57. ^ David Peace: GB84 . Liebeskind Verlagbuchhandlung, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-95438-024-4 , 544 pages
  58. ↑ Sylvia Staude: David Peace: "GB84". The great miners' strike . Frankfurter Rundschau , February 11, 2014; Book review