ABSTRACT
Strikes were usually called as part of the struggle to create or join trade unions, to improve safety in a mine or to increase wages. Many strikes might be discussed, then, each of them of great interest and national importance. The strike and the mining communities were also recorded in collections of photographs made in 1984–1985. The emergence of women as active players in the strike was one of the features much commented on at the time. The strikers were also directly supported by filmmakers, artists, writers and photographers. One important cultural output was the Miners’ Campaign Tapes, a project that began at the beginning of the strike. The strike was generally understood to stand for more than the future of the mining industry. It was a fight between competing versions of how the economy should be run, but it also was an overt and dramatic example of class struggle in action.
