“The miners’ strike was the largest and most consequential industrial dispute of the Thatcher years. Their defeat put rocket boosters under Thatcher’s programme of privatisation and deregulation, from which we can trace a direct line to today’s failed state”
By Ben Chacko, Morning Star
Next month will mark 40 years since the beginning of the 1984-5 miners’ strike. Not only a formative struggle for an entire generation of socialists and trade unionists, but one whose outcome continues to shape British society today.
But when we meet this weekend for the Morning Star conference — Fightback: 40 Years On From the Miners’ Strike we will be looking forward, not back.
The miners’ strike was the largest and most consequential industrial dispute of the Thatcher years. Their defeat put rocket boosters under Thatcher’s programme of privatisation and deregulation, from which we can trace a direct line to today’s failed state of collapsing services, enfeebled workplace rights and threadbare social security.
But are we recovering? Last year saw the greatest number of strike days since the 1980s. Union conferences may no longer routinely make headline news (except in the Morning Star) but the media and political focus on unions has risen sharply.
The government’s retreat on public-sector pay last year, raising its offer to workers across the board, represented a significant victory for unions. Wage increases catching up with CPI inflation (yes, a flawed measurement) in the summer also reflected the achievements of the strike wave and a new mood of militancy among workers.
“The past we inherit, the future we build” is an oft-quoted maxim of the labour movement. This weekend’s is a then-and-now conference, a debating ground for the left on how we fight and win today informed by the experiences of that titanic struggle.
Its hosting by the Morning Star is appropriate, the labour movement’s “paper of record.” The Star not only gave full-throated support to the strike throughout, as an agitating and organising paper it was right at the heart of the action. As then news editor Roger Bagley told me in 2020, “that was the busiest time of my life. The phones were red hot on the news desk, you had Scargill on the line, Dennis Skinner, Mick McGahey. You had miners coming to the office, saying they were down in London for solidarity events and could we find them accommodation. We did a huge amount of work to collect money and food…”
Veterans from that struggle, including National Union of Mineworkers general secretary Chris Kitchen, Heather Wood of Women Against Pit Closures and miner-turned MP Ian Lavery, will be among those leading discussion — as will our northern reporter Peter Lazenby, who reported on the strike for the Yorkshire Evening Post.
But the purpose is to build working-class consciousness and militancy today, and it is the dilemmas facing today’s left which will dominate most of the day.
While we have a stellar cast of labour movement leaders, socialist MPs and peace campaigners to lead sessions, each will also make time for audience participation and debate. Just as our paper provides a platform for people to put forward various political and industrial strategies for fighting capitalism, it’s our hope the Morning Star conference will become an annual debating ground for the left.
So let’s talk about how we get there. Join us on Saturday, tickets available online but you can also buy them on the door. It’s a fiver to get in, and you can always pop by for just one or two sessions if you have other stuff on. We at the Morning Star are looking forward to seeing you.
- ‘Fightback: The Movement 40 years on from the miners on‘ is hosted by the Morning Star and takes place at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8EP, 10.30am-5pm. Book your tickets and find out more here.
- This article was originally published by the Morning Star on February 8th, 2024.
- Ben Chacko is the Editor of the Morning Star.
