workingclasshistory:

On this day, 3 March 1985, after just short of a year on strike and some of the most bitter and open class warfare in British history, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) voted to end their stoppage.
The NUM executive voted 98 to 91 to return to work, after an unsuccessful protracted conflict with Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government over pit closures.
The miners had been the most powerful group of organised workers in the country, who had successfully won better pay and conditions, and even brought down the Conservative government in 1974.
In 1984, the Tories were determined to break the miners, as part of an effort to radically transform the country, effectively ending the significant power ordinary people wielded and ushering in a new era of individualism and right-wing neoliberal policies.
These policies set the scene for rising unemployment, falling real wages, reduced workers’ rights and job security, a diminishing social safety net, widespread privatisation of public services and huge increases in wealth for capitalists: all of which have largely continued to this day under successive Conservative and Labour governments.
This iconic strike, with its pitched battles with police, and militarisation of mining communities, came to define the 1980s in Britain.
Learn more about the dispute in our podcast series: https://workingclasshistory.com/tag/1984-5-miners-strike/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1933511056834035/?type=3