Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [232]
By this time, the NUM leadership could have no doubt about how far events had swung against them since the NACODS dispute the previous autumn. The NACODS leaders now began to press the NCB to resume negotiations and so assist the NUM. But, learning from past mistakes, the NCB avoided giving NACODS any excuse for a renewed threat of industrial action.
The TUC leaders also remained anxious to save the militants from humiliating defeat. But Mr Scargill clearly had no intention of budging: indeed he had already stated publicly that he would prefer a return to work without an agreement to acceptance of the NCB’s proposals. For its part, the NCB had told the TUC that there was no basis for negotiation on the terms still demanded by the NUM. I recognized that, although their motives were decidedly mixed, the TUC leaders and particularly the General Secretary had been acting in good faith. They must have realized by now that there was no possibility of doing business with Mr Scargill. Consequently, when a delegation from the TUC asked to see me, I agreed.
I met Norman Willis and other union leaders at No. 10 on the morning of Tuesday 19 February. Willie Whitelaw, Peter Walker and Tom King joined me on the Government side. The meeting was good natured. Norman Willis put as fair a construction on the NUM’s negotiating stance as anyone could. In reply I said that I appreciated the TUC’s efforts. I too wanted to see the strike settled as soon as possible. But this required a clear resolution of the central issues of the dispute. It was in no one’s interest to end the strike with an unclear formula: arguments about interpretation and accusations of bad faith could provide the basis for another dispute. I could not agree with Mr Willis that there was evidence of a significant shift in the NUM executive’s position. I gave an assurance that the NACODS agreement would be fully honoured and that I saw no difficulties about implementing it. An effective settlement of the dispute required clear understandings about procedures for closure, acknowledgement of the NCB’s right to manage and to make the final decisions, and an acknowledgement that the Board would take the economic performance of pits into account when those decisions were made.
THE END OF THE STRIKE
It was now evident to the miners and to the public that the TUC were neither willing nor able to stop events taking their course. Large numbers of miners were going back to work and the rate of return was increasing. On Wednesday 27 February the magic figure was reached: more than half the members of the NUM were now not on strike. On Sunday 3 March an NUM Delegates’ Conference voted for a return to work, against Mr Scargill’s advice, and over the next few days even the most militant areas returned. That Sunday I gave an interview to reporters outside No. 10. I was asked who if anyone had won. I replied:
If anyone has won, it has been the miners who stayed at work, the dockers who stayed at work, the power workers who stayed at work, the lorry drivers who stayed at work, the railwaymen who stayed at work, the managers who stayed at work. In other words, all of those people who kept the wheels of Britain turning and who, in spite of a strike, actually produced a record output in Britain last year. It is the whole working people of Britain who kept Britain going.
And so the strike ended. It had lasted almost exactly a year. Even now we could not be sure that the militants would not find some new excuse to call a strike the following winter. So we took steps to rebuild coal and oil stocks and continued to watch events in the coal industry with the closest attention. I was particularly concerned about the dangers faced by the working miners and their families now that the spotlight had moved away from the pithead villages. In May I met Ian MacGregor to emphasize how vital it was that they should receive the necessary consideration and support.
As an industrial dispute the coal strike had been wholly unnecessary. The NUM