This was the most bitterly contested dispute, in modern history. Following the defeat of the miners, the goverment embarked on the systematic, destruction of british industry, which made us what we are today.

A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS

THE NATIONAL Justice for Mineworkers Campaign was formed at the 1985 Labour Conference in the aftermath of the 1984/85 Miners' strike and was launched at the Albert Hall, London, in October 1986.
During the strike 20,000 people were injured or hospitalised (including NUM President Arthur Scargill). 200 served time in prison or custody. Two were killed on picket lines, three died digging for coal during the winter and 966 were sacked.
The objectives of the campaign from its beginning were to keep the issue of those victimised miners to the forefront of the labour and trade union movement and to raise money to alleviate hardship among the families of the victimised.
The Justice Campaign is supported by Labour Party and TUC conferences and many national & regional unions.
Remember, 966 men were originally sacked for no more than honouring picket lines, defending their jobs and pit communities, their class and the future of their children. Only a small number of miners had been dismissed for offenses against the person or damage to property. Indeed, many miners since cleared by the courts were not re-instated and neither were many more who successfully won their cases for unfair dismissal at industrial tribunals. Of those who were classified as sacked, few had their jobs back with British Coal. Many were even blacklisted from getting any work outside the coal industry.
Many of those sacked were active branch officials and, we contend, were clear victims of British Coal's attempts to stifle them, to remove them from the industry and thereby reduce the effectiveness of the NUM as a trade union. Some branch activists were even sacked after the return to work on March 5th 1985. Those they couldn't get during the strike they made certain they got afterwards.
After the return to work on March 5th 1985 the Tories wreaked havoc, not just on the on the mining industry, but also on the civil rights of the 966 miners who had been sacked during the strike by refusing to let them return to their rightful place of work.
Many of the men were sacked simply for being union activists. Yet this was one of the most principled strike ever, a strike not for money, but for jobs, in which 55 year old men went without their livelihood for a year so that a 25 year old and his family might have a job with a future to look forward to. Remember, the 966 men who were sacked during that strike set off a chain reaction of similar victimization of trades unionists after a deliberately provoked strike. Wapping with 6,000, P&O with 1,000 were just the most notable and matters culminated with the sacking of Civil Service trade union members at GCHQ, Cheltenham, for merely belonging to a trade union.
If any one has forgotten what the 1984/85 miners' strike was all about, let just one sobering fact sink in for a moment or two – at the beginning of the strike there were 170 coal mines in Britain. By the end of 2003 there were just 15 pits left – no, that's not a misprint: there are just 15 pits left in the whole of Britain!


VICTIMISATION FACTS (1)
Statistics on victimisation by NUM Area
(numbers dismissed in the dispute)
Cokemen 11
COSA (NCB staff employees) 0
Durham 150
Kent 48
Leicestershire 0
Midlands 22
North Derbyshire 76
Northumberland 29
North Wales 0
North Western 2
Nottingham 31
Power Group 2
Scotland 206
South Derbyshire 0
South Wales 74
Yorkshire 306
Total 966

The following died during the strike:

Joe Green died during picket duty. Ferry Bridge, Yorkshire
Darren Holmes, aged 15, died picking coal. Yorkshire
Paul Holmes, aged 14, died picking coal. Yorkshire
David Jones died during picket duty. Ollerton, Notts
Jimmy Jones died on his way to a picket. South Wales
Terry Leaves died on his way to a picket. South Wales
Mike Rice died in a safety accident. South Wales
David Wilkie, died taking a miner back to work. South Wales
Paul Womersley, aged 14, died picking coal. Yorkshire





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The aftermath of the Strike was plain to see
Before and after Only 17 years between these photos