Arthur Scargill

The first 200 words of this essay...

Arthur Scargill and Orgreave Coking Plant

Arthur Scargill was the head of the National Union of Miners (NUM). He started strike action by the miners over increased pit closures. This was Britain's most bitter and bloody industrial dispute of the 20th century.

Arthur Scargill was a Marxist Yorkshireman and anticipated that the government may start closing more and more pits. So three years earlier in 1981 Arthur Scargill held a ballot in which its 66,000 members of the Yorkshire NUM were asked if they would take strike action if any pit was threatened with closure "unless on the grounds of exhaustion" This was the foundation for a countrywide strike without the need for National Ballot.

The final push for the strike to take place was when it was announced that the Yorkshire pit, Cortonwood, was only the first in a wide ranging programme that would result in 20 pit closures and job losses for over 20,000 miners.

And so on 5th March 1984 miners all over Yorkshire took strike action.

The bloodiest battle between the police and the pickets happened at the Orgreave coking plant in May 1984.

Arthur