1980s trade unionism
A01=Charlie McGuire
Author_Charlie McGuire
Bill Sirs
Britain in the 1980s
Category=KCF
Category=KNJH
Category=KNXU
Category=NHTD
deindustrialisation
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Iron and Steel Trades Confederation
oral history
picketing
steel industry
steelworkers
strikes
Product details
- ISBN 9781526123206
- Weight: 507g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 20 May 2025
- Publisher: Manchester University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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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.
Charlie McGuire is a Senior Lecturer in History at Teesside University
