Striking Parallels: A Comparison of the Geographies of the 1926 and 1984–85 Coalmining Disputes

The author compares the coalmining disputes of 1926 and 1984–85 and concentrates on the similarity shown by the spatial patterns of support for both actions. It is argued that the failure of the recent strike was not the result of the disappearance of a traditional solidarity but involved the reproduction of regional traditions of industrial relations. The geography of the 1926 dispute is not satisfactorily explained by economic coercion. It was also related to the coalowners' determination to end national wage bargaining and produced by varying degrees of commitment across the coalfields. In Nottinghamshire a group of internal contractors, who saw the strike as a denial of individual liberty and as a political abuse of mining unionism, organised a return to work. A sense of a violation of individual rights, which centred on the lack of a national ballot, was also fundamental to the failure of the recent strike in this coalfield. The cultural inheritance which shaped this response should be set within the context of the restructuring of the industry and of a decentralisation of wage bargaining. The conclusion drawn is that understanding economic change is not furthered by exaggerating the simplicity and homogeneity of past geographies.