British Miners Go Back to Work Minus Concessions

Marching with clenched fists and behind brass bands, most striking miners returned to work today after their leaders called off a nearly yearlong walkout without gaining concessions from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Holdouts from Scotland and the southeast English county of Kent prevented a return to work at some coal mines as workers demanded amnesty for 718 miners fired for alleged criminal offenses during Britain’s longest and most violent national walkout.

Thatcher hailed the end of the strike but reiterated that there will be no amnesty for many convicted miners.

Hopes for ‘Normal Working’

“I hope they (miners) will soon get back to normal working. That is the way to build a highly competitive industry,” she told the House of Commons today.

But she insisted that there will be no amnesty for those convicted of “serious criminal offenses,” including attacks on working miners and vandalism of industry property.

Union leader Arthur Scargill, the fiery Marxist who led the unsuccessful campaign in an effort to halt mine closures, headed a miners’ parade to the gates of Barrow Colliery near his home in Yorkshire.

But the march was turned back by a picket of Kent miners. “I don’t cross picket lines,” Scargill declared, turning and walking away from the mine. No miners went inside.

Pickets had similar success at another Yorkshire mine, Cortonwood, whose planned closure sparked the walkout last March 12.

Heeded Work Order

But the large majority of the National Union of Mineworkers’ 186,000 members heeded the national leadership’s back-to-work order, approved Sunday in the face of a back-to-work surge that followed the collapse of negotiations.

As dawn broke on a cold, clear day, phalanxes of miners bearing the banners of their local union chapters walked to the mine gates to the sound of church bells and bands.

Hard-liners in Yorkshire marched back to work wearing badges reading: “I backed my union, I didn’t scab.”