Thatcher, Power and the Lessons of Confrontation
Many words have been written in the past few days since the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, some reflect her perceived greatness and others portray her as a class enemy. I cannot hope to emulate the lyrical heights to which some have soared in the press. I can, however, look back and reflect on the way she dealt with trade unions and specifically the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1980s. During that time I was an Industrial Relations Officer in a manufacturing factory situated in the middle of the South Yorkshire coalfield. Friends and neighbors were involved both practically and emotionally in all of the events of that memorable year from March 1984 to March 1985.
I can remember the time when trade unions waged a seemingly continuous guerrilla war with the elected government of the country. In the early 1970s, the miners came out on strike for the first time in almost 50 years. They were led at that time by the avuncular Joe Gormley – later to gain respectability in the ermine of the House of Lords. However, the name on everyone’s lips at the time was that of Arthur Scargill. It was Scargill who devised the strike-winning strategy of the “Flying Picket”. Highly organized groups of NUM members were bussed from power station to power station preventing the delivery of coal and occasionally other fuels. This precipitated a governmental panic and the national sharing of misery brought about by power cuts arranged by the government to save precious electricity for industry. In 1974, the governing Conservative Party lost the election in humiliating fashion. The party changed its leader and elected one Margaret Hilda Thatcher. Recent TV reminiscences have highlighted some of her personal qualities of which determination and clarity of will were both evident.