Unions need to join forces says Scargill
ARTHUR Scargill has urged union leaders to learn lessons in solidarity from his first major strike 50 years ago.
The ex-National Union of Miners boss led a group of 400 Yorkshire miners on a picket of the Saltley Gate coal depot in Birmingham in 1972 in a pay row.
Realising the pickets were outnumbered by police, he appealed to nearby factory workers for help and around 30,000 joined the protest.
Speaking to the BBC, Scargill, 84, said: “There was a feeling like I’ve never seen in my life – there were miners with tears in their eyes – tears of pride.”
PM Edward Heath’s Tory government agreed to the miners’ demands after the action at the depot which supplied power stations.