the myth of workers' control arthur scargill

The Miners Strike Day by Day: The Illustrated 1984-85 Diary of Yorkshire Miner Arthur Wakefield. (1980), Scargill, Arthur, London: Vintage, 2008. Accessed October 11, 2018. This was denied by the government at the time, although papers released in 2014 under the thirty-year rule suggest that Scargill was right. The End of an Era Diaries 1980-90. John Campbell sums up the mainstream media view by saying The Governments only role was to uphold the liberty of those miners and others who wanted to work[31]. He then went on to say: The deep disillusion of the mining communitywas spontaneous and genuine. His post-1985 decision to try and build a political organisation the so-called Socialist Labour Party turned out to be a disaster and created nothing more than a pathetic, personal bandwagon which spluttered briefly before the wheels fell off. I suggest to this Conference that we have coal mines with us but they did something about this problem: they closed them down. Looking for a flexible role? He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (198485), a major event in the history of the British labour movement. My mother was strictly non-political. [9] At the subsequent enquiry, he used notebooks of underground working from the 19th century, retrieved from the Institute of Geological Sciences in Leeds, to argue that the National Coal Board could have prevented the disaster had they acted on the information available. At the time, Britain had 170 working. His policy alienated most of the Nottinghamshire miners, undermined his position with the leaders of the trade union movement, hurt the union's reputation in British public opinion, and led to violence along the picket line. On the other hand, the Marxist/Left Wing view suggests that the strike was part of Thatchers wider attack on political consensus and suggest that the miners could have won the strike had it not been for the concerted, illegal government campaign to smash the miners union, something they had been planning for some time. [36] In September 1990, the Certification Officer brought criminal charges against Scargill and Heathfield for wilfully neglecting to perform the union's duty to keep proper accounting records. Eric Evans described him as aggressive and charismatic, but vain and politically limited[42], therefore showing his limitations as the head of NCB. Chris Kitchen said: "I would say it's time to walk away, Mr Scargill. After the miners' strike, Scargill was elected to lifetime presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority, in a controversial election in which some[who?] Following these results, Thatcher urged Ian McGregor to fix the problem, she describes how time and time again he (Ian McGregor) and his colleagues were outmanoeuvred by Arthur Scargill and the NUM leadership[36]. Right click on the X and choose Properties. March 10, 2004. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. Margaret Thatcher. Year of publication: 1980. Seumas Milne portrays the Marxist view that the government went over the top with the preparations in order to see the miners strike fail and bring down the unions altogether. In 1973, Scargill was elected to the full-time post of compensation agent in the Yorkshire NUM. Nevertheless, this shows that the strike didnt fail from the lack of support in general, but rather the lack of support from key figures such as the Neil Kinnock from the Labour Party, as well as the Nottinghamshire miners who, if they had supported the miners, would have guaranteed a different outcome for the strike. [41], In 1993, Scargill tried to use Thatcher's flagship Right to Buy scheme to buy a flat on the Barbican estate in central London. I could write a million words and not be able to adequately describe the misery,hardship and dispare these leaders bought upon the people of this nation. One source described them as the iron ladies of the coal fields[17]. Robert Taylor depicts Scargill as an 'industrial Napoleon' who called a strike 'at the wrong time' on the 'wrong issue', and adopted strategies and tactics that were 'impossibilist', with 'an inflexible list of extravagant non-negotiable demands' that amounted to 'reckless adventurism' that was 'a dangerous, self-defeating delusion'. (1998), Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10000684676, Occasional papers in industrial relations. Nigel Lawson describes how the government were able to persuade the working miners to cross the violent picket lines; Those who continued to work were portrayed as heroes (and behind the scenes a considerable amount of private money was raised to help them resist the Scargillite intimidation)[30]. According to the Morning Star Scargill said that every single MP who wants us to go back into Europe should be opposed. That would be the majority of Labour MPs, then, Arthur? Please click on a checkbox next to an item and try again. [10] Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. He was succeeded by Ian Lavery. The Myth of Workers' Control Arthur Scargill Snippet view - 1980. : S.n., 1996. Having read the above (barely, dont like reading lies) I felt the immediate need to respond, if anything to comfort myself. Assess the view that the main reason for the failure of the miners strike in 1984 was the leadership of Arthur Scargill. The staff at headquarters issued a press statement in January 1983 to deny this and to list twelve grievances against Scargill's treatment of his staff. Accessed October 12, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn. Accessed October 11, 2018. This varies by browser, if you do not see a box on your page with a red X try right clicking on the page, then select View Page Info, and goto the Media Tab. Thatcher deliberately chose to make the miners who continued to work look like heroes and make the striking miners look like the public enemy. He called for the cotton mills, steel plants and mines to be re-opened and that under EU rules, the government had not been able to subsidise the coal mines. London: Vintage, 2008. Just click. In fact, stocks were much higher[27]. Some scholars have concluded that Scargill's decisive tactical error was to substitute his famous flying picket for the holding of a national strike ballot. Page 341. [37], The South Wales area leader, Des Dutfield, moved that Scargill should stand down and face re-election, but the motion was defeated. John Campbell argues that It was the job of the police to protect the freedom to work, and the job of the government to support the police[37]. [20] Ridley, Nicholas. Scargill admitted there was 'bad blood' between him and the NUM general secretary Chris Kitchen, who said, "I honestly do believe that Arthur, in his own world, believes that the NUM is here to afford him the lifestyle that he's become accustomed to. Yet he was a decisive figure in the great strike of 1984-85. Page 51, [9] Lawson, Nigel. London: Verso, 2014. Lawson takes an objective view of the events as his book was published in 1993 after a very public dispute with Thatcher where he eventually resigned. McIlroy, J. [15] How the Miners Strike Could Have Won. Socialist Worker (Britain). We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Some historians have provided interpretations and explanations of the defeat. Change the settings back to the previous configuration (before you selected Default). January 26. It only demonstrates the individual and threat he was. [33], In July 1990, the NUM executive voted unanimously to sue Scargill and general secretary Peter Heathfield. [39], During the media controversy, the antiperspirant Mitchum used Scargill's image, without his consent, under the slogan "Mitchum, for when you're really sweating! [43] Marr, Andrew. Thereafter Scargill led the NUM through the 19841985 miners' strike. Arrow, 1994. It turned into a confrontation with the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in which the miners' union was defeated. However, they have conflicting views on to what extent these preparations were made in order to bring down the unions. [21] Ridley, Nicholas. He left school in 1953 at fifteen years old to work as a coal miner at Woolley Colliery, where he worked for nineteen years.[2][3]. Arthur Scargill. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Accessed September 16, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3815426/. Page 345. When working with WordPress, 404 Page Not Found errors can often occur when a new theme has been activated or when the rewrite rules in the .htaccess file have been altered. Page 316, [3] Harris, Robert. In May 2009, he was a candidate for the Socialist Labour Party for one of London's seats in the European Parliament. At the risk of paraphrasing, Karl Marx once wrote that the great figures of history appear first as tragedy and then as farce. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the trade union movement. [15] However, Scargill's statements in the years after becoming NUM president divided left-wing opinion with his support of the Soviet Union, most notably when he refused to support the TUC's positions on the Solidarity union in Poland or on the Soviet shooting down of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007. The striking miners didnt have the support of the Nottinghamshire miners, dock workers or even the Labour Party, including Neil Kinnock, and many historians believe that the strikes failure was down to the fact that it was so poorly supported; such as Eric Evans who takes the mainstream media view and believed the appearance of a much more conciliatory breakaway union representing the profitable East Midlands mining arealed to collapse of the strike[12] This we know to be true as the Nottinghamshire miners alone produced 25% of the Nations coal. of the other candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare. His father, Harold, was a miner and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. ARTHUR SCARGILL AND PEGGY KAHN - "THE MYTH OF WORKERS' CONTROL" - 1st . An example of this is the NACODs strike whereby Ian McGregor ordered colliery overmen to cross violent picket lines if they were to get paid. ",confirmDelete: "Are you sure you want to delete this? In 1965 he was elected Branch Delegate from Woolley to the Yorkshire NUM Area Council, and in 1969 was elected a member of the Yorkshire NUM Area Executive Committee. Scargill led the union in the 19841985 miners' strike. This sparked an individual ballot of members, in the autumn of 1984, whereby the ballot obtained an 80% plus vote for strike action, a decision which, if implemented, would have been sufficient to save pits and jobs, and win the dispute which had been brought by the National Coal Board[35]. "The strike wasn't just about Arthur Scargill or Margaret Thatcher, it was about a way of life. (You may need to consult other articles and resources for that information.). Arguably, one of the most important factors in the failure of the Miners Strike in 1984 was the leadership of the head of NUM, Arthur Scargill. The same nationalism explains why Arthur Scargill, alongside his industrial militancy, supports a not-at-all-militant programme of import controls, withdrawal from the EEC, and siege economy. Disclaimer: This is an example of a student written essay.Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers. ", Gildart, Keith. Seumas Milne, who takes the Marxist view, supports Thatchers argument that government preparations werent sufficient enough to cause the failure of the strike. The Enemy Within", Verso 2014. London: Pan Books, an Imprint of Pan Macmillan, 2017. Scargill has so burnt his bridges with the NUM and the broad left of the labour movement that his name is never mentioned at Durham miners' gala or at other miners' strike commemorations. This view is supported to some extent by Labour minister Tony Benn, one of Thatchers fiercest critics, and historian, Seumas Milne who argued that the governments extensive preparations and actions during the strike led to its failure in 1984. It is also possible that you have inadvertently deleted your document root or the your account may need to be recreated. Another important factor in the failure of the miners strike is the amount of support that it had. Yet he was a trade union leader who helped lead a strike that brought down a Tory government (1974) and correctly understood that Thatcher was out to smash the unions and that they needed to fight back. Scargill, along with veteran left-wing Labour MP Tony Benn, campaigned to free strikers Russell Shankland and Dean Hancock from prison. [49], After stepping down from leadership of the NUM, Scargill became active in the UK's Stalin Society[50] saying that the "ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin explain the real world". Arrow, 1994. [31] There was much criticism of Scargill within the NUM from the Welsh and Scottish areas, who briefly considered splitting from the NUM. [29] Thatcher, Margaret. # End WordPress. [14] Benn, Tony. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3815426/. You can try renaming that file to .htaccess-backup and refreshing the site to see if that resolves the issue. The most notable of these being the Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) mainly made up of miners wives or women that grew up in mining communities. He was also on the hard-left of the Labour Party, often disagreeing with Neil Kinnock who couldnt support the strike due to its illegitimacy after Scargills failure to call a ballot. Therefore, the argument that the government limited its role to upholding law and order in the dispute is faulty as many of the people who were downplaying the governments actions are known Thatcherites and consequently had ulterior motives. //