heathcote wrote:
The vote to strike was taken quite awhile before the record coal stocks as you put it,most of the coal that was stock piled was imported.
I can tell you our pit (and most others) had record output when the NPLA came in, bonuses shot off the scale...you dont remember? I do..
As for the vote
Quote:
1984: Scargill vetoes national ballot on strike
Miners' leader Arthur Scargill has ruled out a national ballot of miners on whether to continue their five-week strike.
The miners' dispute began on 6 March after the head of the National Coal Board, Ian McGregor, announced plans to cut production, the equivalent of 20 pits or 20,000 jobs.
Mr Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers called on miners to strike as they had done - successfully - in 1972 and 1974.
A veto on a national ballot marks a serious escalation of the dispute, as well as a growing rift between hardline unionists and moderates representing miners in the North West who want to work.
Only Yorkshire got to vote
In early March many miners in the affected areas began strike action, taking the initiative were the miners at the Manvers complex in Yorkshire, who were organised into the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) as were most miners in the country. A local ballot for strike action was held on March 5th in response to the Coal Board's announcement that a further five pits were to undergo a program of 'accelerated closure' within just five weeks, this leading to workers at the Cortonwood Colliery at Brampton in North Yorkshire, and at Bullcliffe Wood colliery near Osset to join the strike. However it is worth noting that there were already 6000 miners on 'unofficial' strike action before the ballot was taken. The announcement of more closures by the government was also to affect the collieries at Herrington in County Durham and Polmaise in Scotland and by the next day pickets from Yorkshire began appearing at pits in Nottinghamshire, the county that was to be least affected by pit closures.
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