The Tory anti-union laws have finally been used against the miners.
We report from a meeting last Sunday of Socialist Workers Party members from 15 pits across the country. They discussed the present stage of the miners' strike, and how to combat scabbing.
The police and the media have spent the twenty eighth week of the miners' strike engaging in an orgy of lies about 'picket line violence'.
'Miners once the salt of the earth, are now the scum of the earth'. That would have been the Sun's front page on Saturday morning had action by the print unions not kept this filth off the streets.
The NUM is facing an attack on union rights more serious than anything we have seen in a lifetime. Never before have our rulers had the nerve to hand over a trade union lock, stock and barrel to a Tory lawyer.
Three power stations - West Thurrock, Didcot and Tilbury - have in the last week all seen action in support of the miners. Workers at each station have refused to accept scab coal and oil.
Christmas on the picket line is something that Margaret Thatcher has admitted she thought she'd never see.
Most of the miners’ leaders have refused to call for mass picketing as the only way to guarantee victory for the strike. But there is one notable exception – Arthur Scargill.
Women from Sunnyhill village in South Yorkshire last week smashed police and Coal Board plans to demoralise strikers at Silverwood colliery.
Even in pits where there is a high level of scabbing it is still possible to hold the strike together.
Mike Simons, who was Socialist Worker's journalist covering the dispute, takes issue with those who say the fight was doomed—and explains how Thatcher could have been beaten
How women got a taste of their power during the First World War by Judith Orr
