ABSTRACT
The outcome of the 1984–1985 British coal dispute has been described as a ‘heroic defeat’ for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). The year-long dispute was undoubtedly a testimony to the spirit and fortitude of the thousands of mining families involved. Capital Cities had forewarned the carrier boys that failure to continue delivering its paper would result in their dismissal. The strike took place in a part of America where wages were low and employment was unstable, making a regular paper route an ‘indispensible component’ of the family budget. The chapter aims to account for the lack of strategic innovation shown by the NUM, outlining the political and cultural obstacles to a more progressive strategic approach. psychologists had made only the most tentative contributions to the strike literature. This situation improved with the introduction of J. Kelly and N. Nicholson’s integrated model of strike causation and process.
