National Union of Mineworkers

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The National Union of Mineworkers ( NUM ) is a UK trade union . The union emerged in 1945 from a reorganization of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain ( MFGB ). It was led by Arthur Scargill for 20 years before Ian Lavery took over in 2002. Scargill was then honorary chairman. Mining in Great Britain (as in the Federal Republic of Germany, for example) has long been making great losses and could only continue to be operated with the help of state subsidies. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher managed during her tenure (May 1979 to November 1990) that mining in Great Britain was almost completely stopped. Since then, the NUM has been almost politically meaningless.

The individual miners' unions that formed the federation were the largest and most powerful unions in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and exerted a significant influence on the union movement in the country. Among other things, they represented the goal of running their own trade union candidates for general election, and in 1874 they won the first seats in the lower house for members of the working class .

Labor disputes

NUM solidarity package for the 1984 strike

In the British miners' strike in 1984/1985 , the NUM was unable to prevail against Thatcher or its policies. The rest of the British unions also realized that they could not.

Important industrial disputes in the history of the union were:

President

Vice President

General Secretaries

Web links

Commons : National Union of Mineworkers  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files