Search

In this study the author focuses on the activities of the National Union of Mineworkers at Frickley Colliery during ten years of industrial conflict prior to the pit's closure in November 1993. While the initial part of this period, the 1984-85 miners' strike, has been well documented by scholars, the conflict in the following years has received scant attention. Following the miners' defeat, the NUM members at Frickley played an important part in sustaining the tradition of militant trade unionism in the Yorkshire coalfield at a time of general retreat for the British labour movement. Other studies have concentrated mainly on the activities of union leaders and management figures when chronicling the confrontation in the coalfields. In contrast, a substantial part of the present author's account is based on the oral testimonies of pit level activists, thus aspects of the conflict that have been otherwise ignored or overlooked are brought to light. At the core of the study is the contention that the labour movement had become disabled by the defeatist notion of 'new realism'. Moreover, it is illustrated how the NUM leadership in Yorkshire, conventionally portrayed as being militant, was often instrumental in suffocating the resistance of the NUM rank and file as they challenged the authoritarian working practices being imposed by the management of the industry.