The National Union of Mineworkers is a trade union for coal miners in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1945 as a reorganisation of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). From 1981 to 2000 it was led by Arthur Scargill. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Wyoming coal mine Coal mining is the mining of coal. ... Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill (born January 11, 1938) was the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1981 to 2000 and is presently (2003) the leader of the Socialist Labour Party, a political party he founded in 1996. ...

The MFGB was involved in many serious trade disputes, including the National Miners' Strike of 1912 and the General Strike in 1926. The NUM is best known for its role in the 1984-85 Miners' Strike, and for a number of other major disputes in which it participated in the 1970s. On the political front, miners' unions were pioneers of independent working class representation in Parliament. The UK General Strike of 1926 lasted nine days, from 3 May to 12 May 1926, and was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for coal miners. ... The miners strike of 1984-5 was a major piece of industrial action affecting the British coal industry. ...

Origins of the NUM

The Miners' Federation of Great Britain was established in 1888. As its title suggests, it was not a unified, centralised trade union. It represented and co-ordinated the affairs of the various existing local and regional miners' unions, but those associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation did not join until 1898, followed by Northumberland in 1907 and Durham in 1908. Its membership in the latter year was 600,000. Approximate extent of South Wales South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the East and South, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the North and West. ... Northumberland is a traditional, ceremonial and administrative county in northern England. ... Durham (IPA: locally, in RP) is a small city and main settlement of the City of Durham district of County Durham in North East England. ...

In January 1945 the MFGB was superseded by the National Union of Mineworkers. Within that organisation, each coalfield continued to exercise a degree of autonomy, having its own District Association and its own President, General Secretary, and headquarters. Originally, a national strike required a two-thirds majority in a ballot of members. This proved near impossible to achieve and the majority was reduced to 55% in 1970 and then to 50% in 1984. In addition, regions of the union could call their own strikes. Different areas of the country varied greatly in how militant they were and it was not uncommon for animosity to exist between areas.

The miners' unions were the largest and most powerful industrial combinations of their day, and exercised a great influence on the rest of the British labour movement. The first working class Members of Parliament, Thomas Burt and Alexander Macdonald, elected in 1874, represented mining constituencies and were funded by miners' associations. Miners' unions continued to enlarge labour representation in the House of Commons in the years which followed, although they took little part in the founding of the Labour Party. Many miners' MPs sat with the Liberals and the MFGB did not affiliate to the Labour Party until 1909. The three letter acronym MPS can refer to: Memory Pool System, a computer memory management system Marginal propensity to save, the rate at which a population saves money Moruya Public School, a small primary school in Moruya, NSW Australia Milwaukee Public Schools, the largest public education district in the State... Categories: Stub ... British House of Commons Canadian House of Commons In some bicameral parliaments of a Westminster System, the House of Commons has historically been the name of the elected lower house. ... The Labour Party has since its formation in the early 20th century been the principal left wing political party of the United Kingdom (see British politics). ... The Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party (the SDP) to form a new party which would become...

Landmark events in NUM history

• National Miners' Strike, 1912
• Formation of the Triple Alliance, 1914
• Strikes in South Wales, 1915
• Black Friday, 1921
• The General Strike, 1926
• The Miners' strike, 1984-85

The Triple Alliance brought together British trade unions representing miners, railwaymen and transport workers. ... Black Friday, in British labour history, refers to 15 April 1921, when the leaders of transport and rail unions announced a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners. ... The UK General Strike of 1926 lasted nine days, from 3 May to 12 May 1926, and was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for coal miners. ... The miners strike of 1984-5 was a major piece of industrial action affecting the British coal industry. ...

The Miners' Strike, 1984-85

Main article: UK miners' strike (1984-1985)

In 1984, under the leadership of Arthur Scargill, a Marxist, the NUM went on strike in response to the decision by the National Coal Board to close twenty allegedly unproductive pits. The strike lasted a full year, during which there were violent clashes between police and miners, before workers were forced back to work without a deal and was an era-defining moment in British politics. The British coal-mining industry never recovered. Today there are very few mines still left and it is alleged by some that it is only a matter of time before they too are closed. The miners strike of 1984-5 was a major piece of industrial action affecting the British coal industry. ... Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill (born January 11, 1938) was the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1981 to 2000 and is presently (2003) the leader of the Socialist Labour Party, a political party he founded in 1996. ... The National Coal Board (NCB) was the nationalised British coal mining company. ... The United Kingdom is a unitary state and a democratic constitutional monarchy. ...

The effectiveness of the strike was reduced because of over its legal position and the difficulty of measuring miners' support for the action. The membership of the NUM were not formally balloted on strike action. The union had a history of voting by public meeting and an open show of hands, and the leadership presented the law requiring a private ballot as an attack on its right to conduct internal affairs. Critics claimed that a ballot was not taken because the union could not be certain of support for the strike and that the action was illegimate. The lack of a ballot also had implications for the government's powers to counter the strike.