How successfully did Thatcher deal with industrial relations?

Question 1

What did Thatcher knew she would have to do?

Answer 1

Tackle the power of the trade unions

Question 2

What did she believe?

Answer 2

Existing laws had been used to protect restrictive workers and to coerce workers into joining unions

Union power made firms uncompetitive because of high labour costs

Jobs would become available once unions lost their power to control labour conditions

Question 3

What did Thatcher benefit from?

Answer 3

The lessons of the Industrial Relations Act, which made it easy for unions to mobilise opposition

Question 4

Instead, whar did Thatcher do?

Answer 4

Introduce restrictive measures stage by stage

Question 5

What act was passed in 1980?

Answer 5

Employment Act which outlawed secondary picketing, increased the rights of employees who refused to join unions, and made money available to encourage unions to hold secret ballots

Question 6

What act was passed in 1982?

Answer 6

Employment Act which restricted sympathy strikes and allowed closed shops only if a ballot showed 85% support. Anyone sacked for not joining a union were entitled to compensation

Question 7

What act was passed in 1984?

Answer 7

The Trade Union Act which required unions to hold ballots

Question 8

How many days were lost to strikes in 1979, 1981, 1984, and 1990?

Answer 8

1979: 29.5mn
1981: 4.3mn
1984: 27.1mn
1990: 1.9mn

Question 9

What happened to union membership?

Answer 9

Fell from 12 million in 1979 to 8.4 million in 1990

Question 10

What factors influenced the fall in industrial action?

Answer 10

High levels of unemployment deterred strike action as there was a large replacement pool

Economic policies accelerated the socioeconomic changes that had affected union membership since the 1960s

Difficult to mobilise effective action

Question 11

What happened to the National Coal Board?

Answer 11

They were facing a loss of £250 million for 1983 - 84 alone

Question 12

What did the government have to do and what was this bound to do?

Answer 12

Establish a pit closure programme to demonstrate that the government was serious about refusing to support loss-making industries

Provoke opposition

Question 13

What happened in 1984 and why?

Answer 13

Miner’s strike began after an announcement that 20 uneconomic pits were to close, with the loss of 20k jobs

Question 14

What did the dispute become?

Answer 14

Exceptionally bitter and violent because neither side was prepared to compromise

Question 15

What was set up in 1981?

Answer 15

A secret Whitehall committee to organise the stockpiling of enough coal to keep the power stations running through a long dispute

Question 16

What did the Central Electricity Generating Board do?

Answer 16

Built up large stocks of coal and oil in the power stations

Question 17

What did the Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, do?

Answer 17

Set up a National Reporting Centre to ensure central control of policing, the coordination of intelligence, and the movement of officers to trouble spots

Question 18

What was formed in December 1984 and what did it demonstrate?

Answer 18

The Union of Democratic Mineworkers

That the miners weren’t united

Question 19

Why was the timing of the strike important?

Answer 19

Held in spring and summer, depriving the miners of a key weapon

Question 20

What was the position of Labour?

Answer 20

Reluctant to support Scargill who received little public sympathy and was widely seen as an extremist

Question 21

What undermined public support?

Answer 21

Violent incidents on the picket lines

Question 22

Why was the miner’s strike defeated (economic change)?

Answer 22

Mining suffered from falling demand and many saw it as impossible to continue to subsidise the industry

Question 23

What was the government prepared to do?

Answer 23

Use considerable force, not being swayed by the scale of violence and unrest

Question 24

What happened in April 1984?

Answer 24

Scargill refused to hold a national ballot, depriving the strike of legal legitimacy and alienating many workers

Question 25

What happened to NUM membership?

Answer 25

Dropped from 250k in 1979 to under 100k by 1987

Question 26

How did the union end the strike?

Answer 26

Virtually bankrupt

Question 27

What did the strike do?

Answer 27

Divide opinion about Thatcher

Question 28

To her supporters, how was she successful?

Answer 28

Forced the miners to come to terms with the fact that their industry was sustainable

Demonstrated that union power couldn’t be used to defeat the government

Question 29

What did Thatcher’s enemies believe?

Answer 29

That she had wantonly destroyed livelihoods and historic communities