From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938)^[1] is a former president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and is the current leader of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP). He was the NUM president from 1981 to 2000, leading the union through the 1984-85 miners' strike, a key event in British labour and political history. He founded the SLP in 1996.

Early life

Scargill was born in Worsbrough Dale, Barnsley, Yorkshire. His father, Harold, was a miner and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. His mother Alice (née Pickering) was a professional cook. Arthur was much doted on by his parents as a result of being an only child. He did not take the Eleven plus exam, and went to Worsbrough Dale School (now called the Elmhirst School) leaving school at 15 to become a coal miner at Woolley Colliery from 1953, where he became the pit delegate ten years later.^[2] Scargill was a member of the Young Communist League from 1955 to 1962, and joined the Labour Party in 1962.

National Union of Mineworkers

Scargill became the NUM Yorkshire President in 1973 and continued in the post until 1981. During his tenure he became popular with sections of the left and with his members who saw him as honest, hard-working and genuinely concerned with their welfare.^[3] In 1973, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that brought down Edward Heath's Government in March 1974.

In the 1981 election for NUM President, Scargill secured around 70% of the vote. One of the main planks of his platform was to give more power to union conferences than to executive meetings, on the grounds that the former was more democratic. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; executive committees gave the same number of votes to a large region such as Yorkshire as it did to a small region such as North Wales.

His stand both for the future of the mining industry and the communities dependent on it and against the policies of the Margaret Thatcher Conservative government led to his leadership of the 1984–1985 miners' strike. This ended in a shattering defeat for the miners and saw a split in the union (see Union of Democratic Mineworkers). After the miners' strike, he was elected to lifetime Presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority, in a very controversial election where some of the alternative candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare.

The media characterised the strike as "Scargill's strike" and made people believe that he had been looking for an excuse for a strike since becoming union president. This portrayal may not be wholly accurate, as the strike began when miners walked out in Yorkshire rather than when Scargill called for action. Scargill's decision not to hold a ballot of members was seen as an erosion of democracy within the union, but the role of ballots in decision-making had been made very unclear after previous leader, Joe Gormley, had ignored two ballots over wage reforms, and his decisions had been upheld after appeals to court were made.^{[citation needed]}

On the appointment of Ian MacGregor as head of the NCB in 1983, Scargill stated, "The policies of this government are clear - to destroy the coal industry and the NUM".^[4] During the strike itself, Scargill continued to claim that the government had a long-term strategy to destroy the industry, and that it listed pits it wanted to close each year. This was, however, denied by the government.

He stepped down from the £67,000 per annum leadership of the NUM at the end of July 2002, to become the Honorary President, on a £41,600 per annum pension. He was succeeded by Ian Lavery.

Socialist Labour Party

Scargill founded the Socialist Labour Party on 13 January 1996, although the party officially launched on 4 May 1996, after the Labour Party abandoned the original wording of Clause IV in its constitution. His breakaway party has had little success in the polls. He has contested two parliamentary elections. In the 1997 general election, he ran against Alan Howarth, a defector from the Conservative Party to Labour, who had been given the safe seat of Newport East to contest. In the 2001 general election, he ran against Peter Mandelson in Hartlepool. He lost on both occasions, winning just 2.4% of the vote in the Hartlepool election. In May 2009, he was the number one candidate for the Socialist Labour Party for one of London's seats in the European Parliament.^[5]

Scargill has become more politically outspoken since stepping down from the NUM presidency.^[6] Scargill had long criticised Poland's Solidarity trade union movement for its promotion of workers rights at the expense of international communism.

Television

Scargill was portrayed by Peter Richardson, as Scargill in the 1988 comedy film The Strike.

References

External links

• National Union of Mineworkers
• Socialist Labour Party website
• History of the Scargill family name
• Barnsley Hall of Fame
• Remembering the strike in 2009
• Scargill is sent to hospital by a suitcase - The Guardian, 19 March 2004
• Arthur, king of coal, has abdicated from his shrinking empire - Independent August 2002
• Arthur Scargill: At the court of King Arthur - Independent May 2001
• Review of BBC Radio Play: "The Duel", by Michael Samuels - the struggle for control of the UK coal industry in 1984

From Wikiquote

Arthur Scargill (born January 11, 1938) was the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1981 to 2000 and is presently (2006) the leader of the Socialist Labour Party, a political party he founded in 1996.

Sourced

• We need action not words. For the first time we are facing the prospect of seeing legislation introduced which denies the right of trade unionists to come to the assistance of other unionists and denies the right of trade unionists to seek the support of others in their disputes. There is only one response. Faced with this legislation we should say we will defy the law. It is the only action we can take and it is the only response this movement can give. If there is an attempt to use this legislation then you defy it not as an individual union but as a movement.
  • Speech to the Trades Union Congress at Brighton on the Emplyoment Act 1982 (7 September, 1982).
  • Alan Wood, John Winder and Gordon Wellman, 'Overwhelming vote to defy 'anti-union laws' ', The Times (8 September, 1982), p. 4.

Unsourced

• We want to make it clear that we can no longer tolerate a situation where sponsored MPs oppose official union policy. The miners are entitled by virtue of their sponsorship to tell their MPs which way to vote.
  • Unspecified article, The Daily Telegraph, 26 June 1975

• My father still reads the dictionary everyday. He says your life depends on your power to master words.
  • Unspecified article, The Sunday Times (ambiguous title), 10 January 1982

• The strike...offered a challenge against the heart of the capitalist system...what I am thinking about...is the influence exercised by the strike on British society.
  • Unspecified article, Nepsava (Hungarian newspaper), 14 May 1985

• As far as I can see, the loss is without limit.
  • When asked by a Parliamentary Select Committee on how much of a loss a pit needed to be running at before it was closed

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Arthur Scargill