On this day – January 9th

Miners' strike 1972

The 1972 UK miners' strike was a major strike involving a dispute between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Conservative Edward Heath government over pay. It began on 9 January 1972 and ended on 28 February 1972, when the miners returned to work. The strike was called by the National Executive Committee of the NUM and ended when the miners accepted an improved pay offer in a ballot. It was the first time since 1926 that British miners had been on official strike, but there had been a widespread unofficial strike in 1969.

During the 1950s, the wages of miners went up from a prewar position of 84th to near the top in the league table of the wages earned by industrial workers, and by 1960, miners' wages were 7.4% above the average pay of workers in manufacturing industries. During the 1960s, however, pay fell behind other workers, and by 1970 were earning 3.1% less than the average worker in manufacturing.

The strike was characterised by the use of flying pickets sent to other industrial sites to persuade other workers to strike in solidarity with the miners, which led to railway workers' refusing to transport coal and power station workers' refusing to handle coal.

Power shortages emerged, and a state of emergency was declared on 9 February, after the weather had turned cold unexpectedly and voltage had been reduced across the entire national grid.

The strike lasted seven weeks and ended after miners agreed to a pay offer on 19 February. The offer came after the Battle of Saltley Gate, when around 2000 NUM pickets descended on a coke works in Birmingham and were later joined by thousands of workers from other industries in Birmingham.

The result was characterised as a "victory for violence" by the Conservative Cabinet at the time in reference to some clashes between miners and police and to some throwing of stones and bottles at lorries trying to pass the pickets.

Planned strikebreaking force

A volunteer force was planned in Scotland to break the miners' pickets during the strike. It has emerged, under the thirty-year rule, that civil servants, police, local authorities and other organisations worked on a secret project to gather hundreds of drivers to supply the country's power stations. The plans were never put into the place because the dispute was brought to a close.

What is the name of the organisation created by the Government to coordinate responses to national and regional crises, largely as a result of this event, and is still used in British Government today?

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