The Strike (part one)
The first national stoppage since 1926 began on the 9th January 1972. In south Wales, all 50 collieries and 85 private mines came to a standstill, and district strike committees were established to organise picketing, coordinated by the NUM Area office.
Aside from maintaining the cessation of production at the collieries, a principal aim of picketing was to intercept the general movement of coal around the country and to interrupt its flow to certain major coal users. Miners picketed sites such as docks, coal depots, opencast mines, power stations and steelworks. As such, the strike was notable for the widespread use of ‘flying pickets’, whereby striking miners frequently travelled to different sites across the country to support different actions.
Another decisive feature of the strike was the high level of solidarity displayed by workers in other industries. In Wales, for example, actions by the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) restricted the movement of coal and oil; Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) lorry drivers refused to deliver fuel to opencast sites; while dockers in Newport, Cardiff and Swansea refused to unload coal from ships. Local coal merchants also agreed to miners’ requests to restrict their deliveries to key services such as hospitals, schools and residential homes. At the national level, a noteworthy episode unfolded at the Saltley Marsh coke depot outside Birmingham, when some 40,000 workers downed tools in factories across Birmingham and around 10,000, mainly engineers, marched to join the 2,000 miners at the Saltley Marsh picket, successfully closing its gates.
"...I think, probably, the lessons that I learned in ‘72 was the strength the working people of this country or any country have got, provided they are prepared to be united. Because make no mistake about it, the struggles of the miners in ‘72 would have been made a hell of a lot harder had it not been for the support they had from sections of workers throughout industry. And of course, the culmination of that was the episode of Saltley when the workers in Birmingham came out in such massive numbers that they just could not possibly control the crowds that were there. But whilst Saltley has been put down as a landmark, I think we’ve got to remember mind that there were literally hundreds of little Saltleys all over the country, where workers were coming out of the factories and standing on the picket lines with us to indicate where they stood..." - Terry Thomas, former Lodge Secretary Brynlliw Colliery
The miners also received significant levels of support from the general public, especially in south Wales. Some shopkeepers offered food to the miners during the seven weeks of the strike, while local authorities began to set up miners’ relief funds. The NUM endeavoured to foster good relations by addressing meetings of workers in other industries, distributing literature to explain their cause, and by enabling fuel to be delivered to areas of the community where it was especially needed. Some miners also made additional efforts to provide fuel to more vulnerable members of the community. In Glynneath, for instance, they chopped firewood, while in Merthyr they gathered coal from NCB yards, to hand out locally to pensioners and those in need.
"That’s the big mistake the Tory government made, you see, in 1972 and 1974; they were not only taking on a trade union, they were taking on communities. Communities who had their links all over Britain. The son or the daughter of a miner may have been a school teacher in Slough, or he may have been an ex-miner that had been compelled to leave his homeland because there was no work there. But when the Tories said you've got to accept these terms, these people who are united in their voices said the miners must have justice. And these people, along with their communities, fought. And they fought and won. So, they were not only taking on a trade union as we've seen trade union struggles, they were taking the whole of south Wales on. They were taking on the whole of Yorkshire, Nottingham, Lancashire, Kent. They were taking on whole counties and communities. And the people of Britain said the miners must have justice." - Dai Francis, former General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (South Wales Area)
On the 27th January, around 20,000 miners and their families took part in a march through Cardiff alongside workers from various other sectors, including 1,000 from the Baglan Bay petrochemicals site who downed tools to join the event and present the miners with a cheque in aid of their cause.
