Steelworkers in struggle
An oral history of the 1980 national steel strike
By Charlie McGuire
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- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 272
- Price: £66.67
- Published Date: May 2025
Description
Using oral histories gathered from trade unionists, this book explores the national steelworkers strike of 1980 and asserts its significance as a key turning point in modern British history. The strike was nominally a response to a 2% pay offer made by British Steel Corporation (BSC), at a time when inflation was 17%, but was generated by the widespread works closures that characterised the British steel industry at this time. The outcome of the strike was a much higher pay increase but no change to the deindustrialisation strategy of BSC and the government. The book explores the strike from the perspective of those who fought it and reveals the short and longer-term consequences it had on the industry, the unions and the workers themselves.
Contents
Introduction
1 A 'dirty, dangerous and hazardous' industry
2 'You only get knighthoods for being obedient'
3 'Its got to be a people's war'
4 'You can't have half a union out and half a union working'
5 'The dead hand of the state'
6 'The solidarity was amazing'
7 'We won the battle, we lost the war'
Conclusion
Author
Charlie McGuire is a Senior Lecturer in History at Teesside University