The Miners’ Strike 1984-85: 40 years on

Police confront pickets at Cortonwood during the Miners’ Strike (Picture: John Sturrock)

• Miners’ Strike 1984-85: timeline of class struggle 
• 40 years ago miners fought the Tories—and could have won
• How the Miners’ Strike changed women’s lives
• Why it was right to fight for fossil fuel jobs in the Miners’ Strike
• ‘There’s got to be defiance today’ says former striking miner

Buy our new pamphlet on the Miners’ Strike 

1984, the Miners and the Strike that could have won by Ian Taylor (£3) 

Forty years ago more than 160,000 miners went on strike in defence of their jobs. They stayed out for a year, sustained by solidarity from millions of people across Britain who had never previously been near a coal mine.

This was society at war, with Thatcher and cronies engaged in a vicious assault on the working class. It was a struggle that shaped a generation and showed how much people’s ideas can change through collective struggle. 

Ian Taylor gives a narrative of the dispute and the key turning points that could have forced the Tories and the Coal Board to their knees. This is a struggle that could have won.

Buy it from the Socialist Worker shop