Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ looks at the role played by women during the Miners' Strike.

In recent weeks, writing about the strike which gripped Britain’s coal fields for one year, I have tried to look objectively at the case for and against a national ballot for strike action. 

At a delegates conference held in April of 1984 delegates from every area, including those who wanted a ballot, voted against such a move and adopted Rule 41 of the NUM rule book. The reason trade unions have rule books is to set out the basics of how the union is run and how members are expected to behave in accordance with these rules. It is not for management, be it government or a private employer to write that rule book and whether the bosses approve or not the union decides the rules. Rule 41 was contentious, no doubt, but it was there for a reason and should have been abided by. Those who wanted a ballot, and had every democratic right to propose such a vote, were out voted and were then duty bound to get behind Rule 41 and the strike. They, particularly the Nottinghamshire coalfield where 80% worked, thus assisting Thatcher to destroy their own union and their own industry, including pits in Nottinghamshire refused to abide by the democratic decision.

I then looked at the NACODS overwhelming vote to take strike action along with the NUM to save their industry and the sinister sellout by that unions leadership. Over 80% of the Pit Deputies, without whom no coal mine could open legally, voted to join their brothers in the NUM on strike. Remember it was NAODS industry as well and they realised that fact. When they were given the opportunity to vote on strike action, they took it. Having presented a joint paper of terms to the NCB from both the NUM and NACODS for consideration, terms the NCB would have had no choice but to accept and end the strike saving jobs, pits and communities, the NACODS leadership went behind their own members backs and that of the NUM and signed a separated deal containing a meaningless non-binding piece which the NCB accepted. The solidarity was broken and not one NACODS member got a vote on this pointless piece of crap and not one deputies job was saved! I tried to be objective in both pieces and whether I was successful only TPQ readers can tell.

This week I would like to look at a less contentious issue, but equally important factor, the role played by women during the strike and the rise of the Women’s Support Groups (one on the strongest being in Nottinghamshire where 20% or one fifth of miners were out). Perhaps the best known of these groups was “Women Against Pit Closures” in which Anne Scargill, partner of the NUM President, played, along with other women, a prominent role. One thing is for certain without the WSGs the strike would have crumbled much earlier as these organisations provided invaluable support for the men on strike which was over 75% of Britain’s coalfields.

Most of the Women’s Support Groups preferred to be called “Women’s Action Groups” because it was action they were taking and were involved in and not just support. By this definition these organisations will be referred to as “Women’s Action Groups”. The WAGs were set up by the wives, mothers, daughters and girlfriends of the men on strike, many were trade unionists themselves, others not so simply because they were not working and they came from inside and outside the mining areas. These organisations, some larger than others, with Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) perhaps the best known of them changed the textbook narrative of the strike being exclusively male dominated. The WAGs staffed the soup kitchens in scenes reminiscent of the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout, distributing the much-needed food which had been collected for the strikers and their families. Food contributions came from Britain, Ireland (North and South) the USSR and other countries across the globe. The WAGs set up their own picket lines aimed at discrediting scabs and would be blacklegs a role the Nottinghamshire WAG was heavily involved in.

All the groups had a common aim, victory to the miners, and each had certain remits outside the overall NUM structure. Anne Scargill, along with other women belonging to WAPC took part, along with their male counterparts, in picketing the Nottinghamshire coalfield. The NUM Presidents wife was detained and abused for several hours at a police station in Nottinghamshire (Striking Similarities Kevin Morley P199).

The WAGs were outside the NUM and TUC therefore when they formed their own picket lines, they were not bound by the government's six-person picket line laws, not that anybody took any notice of those laws anyway, but it did mean the police could not attempt to use such laws against the women. Around the Pontefract area WAGs were working tirelessly in their attempts to force the local authority into increasing the clothing grant for striking miner’s children. It was fortunate this money came out of the local authority budget and not directly from the Exchequer which the government and, in particular, Thatcher controlled. Thatcher was already in the process of cutting the meagre benefits miners' families could claim. Striking miners could no longer claim unemployment benefits in accordance with the “Ridley Plan” drawn up by Nicholas Ridley MP on Thatcher’s instructions while the Conservative Party were in opposition during the mid-seventies.

The soup kitchens were used, as well as food distribution centres, points of advice for the men on strike. For example, if a striker had been threatened with having their gas and electricity curtailed by the utilities companies, as was the case on more than one occasion, the WAGs would set up a picket at the home of the miner in question. When the gas and/or electric engineers turned up to cut off the supplies they were prevented from doing so by the women’s picket, which in such circumstances were more effective than men would have been. The NUM had sent letters out to employees of the gas and electric companies asking them to refuse any instructions to curtail the supplies, which were proving insufficient in preventing such power being cut off. The women’s pickets solved this problem!

Before the strike, women were seen through sexist lenses as part of the kitchen utensils like a fridge, oven or kettle. Even in the early days of the WAGs, certain sexist attitudes still prevailed, a situation which would change for the better as the strike continued and everybody became increasingly more politicised. Equality began to become the norm, so to speak, and the women were never going back to their pre-strike status. They had fought and picketed, provided vital services like the soup kitchens and advice centres in scenes reminiscent of the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout (more can be read about these similarities in Striking Similarities by Kevin Morley). 

The media constantly tried to claim the women were not behind the men in the strike which simply was not true. Isabel who played a leading role in the setting up of a group for the wives, mothers, daughters and girlfriends of striking miners at Yorkshire Main Colliery near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, explained how it began:

It started because I couldn’t stand the TV making out the miners' wives were not behind their men. I was so angry and frustrated for a week that in the end Brian (Isabel’s husband) took me round to the wives of other militants at the pit. Ten of us sat up all night talking about what to do and five of us decided to go and picket Thoresby in Nottinghamshire that night. Brian made up my snap for a change and made us up a banner” (Striking Similarities P 201). 

The reader should be made aware that picketing pits in Nottinghamshire, where most miners were working was a dangerous thing to do. Many Nottinghamshire men would not cross a picket line, which was why the “Flying Pickets” had such success in stopping coal production and why the police, on Thatcher’s orders, were eager to close the county down to pickets from elsewhere. Other Notts men were prepared to cross the picket line and would fight to do so. At Ollerton Colliery, in Nottinghamshire, a young picket from Yorkshire, David Gareth Jones was killed on a picket line when a projectile was thrown by persons unknown which hit him on the head. So there were dangers. The WAGs were undeterred by these dangers and Isabel and her comrades set off that night to picket Thoresby.

The British Coal Miners Strike lasted for one year, longer if we include those miners who stayed out after the return to work was announced till local union officials had secured no recrimination agreements with local NCB bosses. Without the Women’s groups, be they Women Against Pit Closures or any other WAGs, the strike would in all probability have crumbled long before the twelve months which it lasted. The women played an invaluable role in maintaining morale and supplying food and clothing. They pressured the local authorities into giving more in terms of hand outs from local authority funds, something which became even more urgent once the fascist Thatcher sequestrated the NUM funds leaving the union without a penny which they could access. The women picketed alongside the men often closing pits, particularly in Nottinghamshire, which would otherwise have been working. 

On the broader front these groups provided much impetus in women’s fight generally for equality, but it will be forever - along with the Greenham Common women who campaigned against US missiles in Britain - for their role in the 1984/85 British Coal Miner’s Strike which these women and their self-organised groups will be remembered most.


Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

The 1984/85 British Coal Miners' Strike ✒ Women’s Support (Action) Groups

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ looks at the role played by women during the Miners' Strike.

In recent weeks, writing about the strike which gripped Britain’s coal fields for one year, I have tried to look objectively at the case for and against a national ballot for strike action. 

At a delegates conference held in April of 1984 delegates from every area, including those who wanted a ballot, voted against such a move and adopted Rule 41 of the NUM rule book. The reason trade unions have rule books is to set out the basics of how the union is run and how members are expected to behave in accordance with these rules. It is not for management, be it government or a private employer to write that rule book and whether the bosses approve or not the union decides the rules. Rule 41 was contentious, no doubt, but it was there for a reason and should have been abided by. Those who wanted a ballot, and had every democratic right to propose such a vote, were out voted and were then duty bound to get behind Rule 41 and the strike. They, particularly the Nottinghamshire coalfield where 80% worked, thus assisting Thatcher to destroy their own union and their own industry, including pits in Nottinghamshire refused to abide by the democratic decision.

I then looked at the NACODS overwhelming vote to take strike action along with the NUM to save their industry and the sinister sellout by that unions leadership. Over 80% of the Pit Deputies, without whom no coal mine could open legally, voted to join their brothers in the NUM on strike. Remember it was NAODS industry as well and they realised that fact. When they were given the opportunity to vote on strike action, they took it. Having presented a joint paper of terms to the NCB from both the NUM and NACODS for consideration, terms the NCB would have had no choice but to accept and end the strike saving jobs, pits and communities, the NACODS leadership went behind their own members backs and that of the NUM and signed a separated deal containing a meaningless non-binding piece which the NCB accepted. The solidarity was broken and not one NACODS member got a vote on this pointless piece of crap and not one deputies job was saved! I tried to be objective in both pieces and whether I was successful only TPQ readers can tell.

This week I would like to look at a less contentious issue, but equally important factor, the role played by women during the strike and the rise of the Women’s Support Groups (one on the strongest being in Nottinghamshire where 20% or one fifth of miners were out). Perhaps the best known of these groups was “Women Against Pit Closures” in which Anne Scargill, partner of the NUM President, played, along with other women, a prominent role. One thing is for certain without the WSGs the strike would have crumbled much earlier as these organisations provided invaluable support for the men on strike which was over 75% of Britain’s coalfields.

Most of the Women’s Support Groups preferred to be called “Women’s Action Groups” because it was action they were taking and were involved in and not just support. By this definition these organisations will be referred to as “Women’s Action Groups”. The WAGs were set up by the wives, mothers, daughters and girlfriends of the men on strike, many were trade unionists themselves, others not so simply because they were not working and they came from inside and outside the mining areas. These organisations, some larger than others, with Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) perhaps the best known of them changed the textbook narrative of the strike being exclusively male dominated. The WAGs staffed the soup kitchens in scenes reminiscent of the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout, distributing the much-needed food which had been collected for the strikers and their families. Food contributions came from Britain, Ireland (North and South) the USSR and other countries across the globe. The WAGs set up their own picket lines aimed at discrediting scabs and would be blacklegs a role the Nottinghamshire WAG was heavily involved in.

All the groups had a common aim, victory to the miners, and each had certain remits outside the overall NUM structure. Anne Scargill, along with other women belonging to WAPC took part, along with their male counterparts, in picketing the Nottinghamshire coalfield. The NUM Presidents wife was detained and abused for several hours at a police station in Nottinghamshire (Striking Similarities Kevin Morley P199).

The WAGs were outside the NUM and TUC therefore when they formed their own picket lines, they were not bound by the government's six-person picket line laws, not that anybody took any notice of those laws anyway, but it did mean the police could not attempt to use such laws against the women. Around the Pontefract area WAGs were working tirelessly in their attempts to force the local authority into increasing the clothing grant for striking miner’s children. It was fortunate this money came out of the local authority budget and not directly from the Exchequer which the government and, in particular, Thatcher controlled. Thatcher was already in the process of cutting the meagre benefits miners' families could claim. Striking miners could no longer claim unemployment benefits in accordance with the “Ridley Plan” drawn up by Nicholas Ridley MP on Thatcher’s instructions while the Conservative Party were in opposition during the mid-seventies.

The soup kitchens were used, as well as food distribution centres, points of advice for the men on strike. For example, if a striker had been threatened with having their gas and electricity curtailed by the utilities companies, as was the case on more than one occasion, the WAGs would set up a picket at the home of the miner in question. When the gas and/or electric engineers turned up to cut off the supplies they were prevented from doing so by the women’s picket, which in such circumstances were more effective than men would have been. The NUM had sent letters out to employees of the gas and electric companies asking them to refuse any instructions to curtail the supplies, which were proving insufficient in preventing such power being cut off. The women’s pickets solved this problem!

Before the strike, women were seen through sexist lenses as part of the kitchen utensils like a fridge, oven or kettle. Even in the early days of the WAGs, certain sexist attitudes still prevailed, a situation which would change for the better as the strike continued and everybody became increasingly more politicised. Equality began to become the norm, so to speak, and the women were never going back to their pre-strike status. They had fought and picketed, provided vital services like the soup kitchens and advice centres in scenes reminiscent of the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout (more can be read about these similarities in Striking Similarities by Kevin Morley). 

The media constantly tried to claim the women were not behind the men in the strike which simply was not true. Isabel who played a leading role in the setting up of a group for the wives, mothers, daughters and girlfriends of striking miners at Yorkshire Main Colliery near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, explained how it began:

It started because I couldn’t stand the TV making out the miners' wives were not behind their men. I was so angry and frustrated for a week that in the end Brian (Isabel’s husband) took me round to the wives of other militants at the pit. Ten of us sat up all night talking about what to do and five of us decided to go and picket Thoresby in Nottinghamshire that night. Brian made up my snap for a change and made us up a banner” (Striking Similarities P 201). 

The reader should be made aware that picketing pits in Nottinghamshire, where most miners were working was a dangerous thing to do. Many Nottinghamshire men would not cross a picket line, which was why the “Flying Pickets” had such success in stopping coal production and why the police, on Thatcher’s orders, were eager to close the county down to pickets from elsewhere. Other Notts men were prepared to cross the picket line and would fight to do so. At Ollerton Colliery, in Nottinghamshire, a young picket from Yorkshire, David Gareth Jones was killed on a picket line when a projectile was thrown by persons unknown which hit him on the head. So there were dangers. The WAGs were undeterred by these dangers and Isabel and her comrades set off that night to picket Thoresby.

The British Coal Miners Strike lasted for one year, longer if we include those miners who stayed out after the return to work was announced till local union officials had secured no recrimination agreements with local NCB bosses. Without the Women’s groups, be they Women Against Pit Closures or any other WAGs, the strike would in all probability have crumbled long before the twelve months which it lasted. The women played an invaluable role in maintaining morale and supplying food and clothing. They pressured the local authorities into giving more in terms of hand outs from local authority funds, something which became even more urgent once the fascist Thatcher sequestrated the NUM funds leaving the union without a penny which they could access. The women picketed alongside the men often closing pits, particularly in Nottinghamshire, which would otherwise have been working. 

On the broader front these groups provided much impetus in women’s fight generally for equality, but it will be forever - along with the Greenham Common women who campaigned against US missiles in Britain - for their role in the 1984/85 British Coal Miner’s Strike which these women and their self-organised groups will be remembered most.


Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

2 comments:

  1. Very interesting Anthony, but I guarantee you she, or any other British PM, particularly
    Conservative and Unionist, would not have used the same force against the loyaists as Thatcher did the NUM. From her para-fascist view point it was personal. Wilson in 1974 along with the TUC tried to broker the Ulster Workers Council Strike without using force. Would the same rule of thumb have been applied to the republican/nationalist side? Thatcher saw loyalism and unionism as allies. Would Blair, given the fact the 26 county Government wete involved in the peace talks have used Thatchers response? Doubtful, the miners strike was unique, certainly in Britain sinse 1926, in the destruction of working-class militancy. Who was PM in 26? None other than anti-union Stanley Baldwin!

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete