Arthur Scargill, former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), spoke at a rally celebrating the strike that lasted a year 40 years ago. Scargill was involved in significant industrial action aimed at stopping the closures of coal mines in Yorkshire and the rest of the UK in the mid-1980s. Although Scargill stepped down as President of the NUM in 2002, he remains an important figure in the trade union movement and gave a 40-minute speech at Dodworth Miners Welfare near Barnsley, where he urged trade unionists to “fight like we did”.
86-year-old Scargill began his work as a miner at Woolley Colliery when he was 15 years old, joining the NUM when he was 19. He became an activist and grew to national prominence after leading an initial group of 400 Yorkshire miners on a picket of the Saltley Gate coal depot in Birmingham, at the so-called ‘Battle of Saltley Gate’, which resulted in a victory for the miners over the conservative government of the time.
Hundreds of people gathered by Dodworth mining memorial earlier in the day to commemorate the strike and pay tribute to those who lost their lives to the industry. Bagpipes were played, and The Reverend Canon Keith Farrow led the service. Scargill told reporters outside the rally that coming together to remember the strike was important because people had stood together, all over Britain, and all over the world, and that it was an essential part of history that took its place in the pantheon of the trade union movement.
Scargill emphasized the importance of fighting consistently, “not in bits and pieces” and urged trade unionists not to give in. “I’ve missed two medical appointments because I’m just not prepared to cross a picket line,” he told reporters, “that’s called class consciousness.
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