Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.5.12
Object Name
letter
Place
Wigan, Lancashire, England, UK
People
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), National Coal Board, Ian MacGregor
Events
1984-85 Miners' Strike
Description
This is a typed letter from the National Coal Board (NCB) chairman Ian MacGregor to striker Lenny Jones, dated August 1984.
The letter discusses the conclusion of negotiations between the NCB and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in August 1984 where the NCB decided they had "no alternative proposals to make" to meet the NUM's demands and end the strike. MacGregor urges NUM members to lobby their Union delegates to accept the proposals.
While the public's main view of a strike is that of picket lines and news reporting, internal organisation letters like this give important insight into the ways mines and unions worked behind the scenes to strengthen strikers resolve, or in the case of the employers and strikebreakers, attempt to undermine it entirely.
The 1984-85 Miners' Strike was called after the government announced plans to close 20 pits, at a cost of twenty thousand miners jobs, which the miners accurately saw as the beginning of the closure of all the pits in the UK. The strike lasted for over a year before ending unsuccessfully in March 1985. While letters from the NCB to strikers claimed that it was "absolutely untrue" that the government planned to ultimately close 85 pits, the NUM's speculation was correct. A second round of closures was announced in 1992 closing almost all the mines in the UK, leaving former pit towns with extremely high rates of unemployment and deprivation that last to this day.
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