Research
The UK miners' strike was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trade union movement. The strike became a symbolic struggle, since the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was one of the strongest unions in the country, viewed by many, including Conservatives in power, as having brought down the Heath government in the union's 1974 strike. The later strike ended with the miners' defeat and the Thatcher government able to consolidate its fiscally conservative programme. The political power of the NUM was broken permanently. The dispute exposed deep divisions in British society and caused considerable bitterness, especially in Northern England and in Wales. Ten deaths resulted from events around the strike: six picketers, three teenagers searching for coal, and a taxi driver taking a non-striking miner to work.
A miner's strike picket taking place in South Yorkshire, circa 1984–1985 Notes 1. 2.
^ Coal production ^ Benyon, Huw (1985). "Introduction". In Benyon, Huw. Digging Deeper: Issues in the Miners' Strike. London: Verso. pp. 1–25. ISBN 0-86091-820-3.
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^ In October 1984, The Economist published big advertisements in which it proudly recalled that six years earlier, it had told its readers everything about the Conservative preparations for the miners' strike.
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^ "On This Day, 18 February – 1981: Thatcher gives in to miners". BBC News. 18 February 1981. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/18/newsid_2550000/255099 1.stm. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
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^ Slavin, Barbara; Freudenheim, Milt; Rhoden, William C. (24 January 1982). "The World; British Miners Settle for Less". The New York Times: p. 3. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? sec=health&res=9E01E1DB1E38F937A15752C0A964948260. Retrieved 2009-0306.