Workers Solidarity Movement

At this session at the Dublin anarchist bookfair Dave Douglass talked about his experiences of 1984 - the year the British mines almost defeated Thatcher. "That fight in 84-85 involved the whole community, it was not only about unions. It was partly about unions but it was about an industry, it was about a way of life. The miners were almost an ethnicity, with father to son for hundreds and hundreds of years in the same miner family. And we had a very strong revolutionary and radical tradition. So, all of the politics of power, fuel power was about political power and not just about energy. It was about more than that. It was about "Who rules ?""

The British Miners strike of 1984-85 -Dave Douglass on a year of class war by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

About the speaker: Dave has been a member of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) since 1963 and an official of the Miner’s Union, a Branch Official and also an executive member for about 24 years. He is a retired member now after being a full member for 49 years or so. He edited the revolutionary miner’s paper called The Mineworker in the 1970’s and also a local newspaper called Hot Gossips which lampooned the officials of the mine, the managers, the government, etc.

Dave says "I’ve been in all of the fights. In 1969 was a national unofficial miners strike which our tendency was very active in. In 1972, I was a picket organizer in the Midlands and then in 1974. And, in 1984, I was the picket coordinator for Doncaster. I was coordinating all the pickets in Doncaster area of the Yorkshire coalfield. And we were involved in 1992-93 and quite a few hundred local rag ups, and pit and coalfield walkouts until 1992."
 

For more audio and video from the bookfair see www.wsm.ie/bookfair