Battle of Saltley Gate

The Battle of Saltley Gate is the name given to a confrontation between police, picketing miners and local factory workers at the West Midlands Gas Board coking works in Saltley, Birmingham, during the 1972 UK miners' strike.

Battle

The Saltley coke works had remained open despite the strike. Initially the police had managed to keep them open during the previous week of picketing by 2,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) who were brought to Birmingham to try to close the works. However, Scargill decided to ask local unions to come to help shut down the works and on 10 February 1972 about 10,000 members of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) marched from local factories and joined the picket. The police could not cope with such large numbers and the coke works were closed.[1]

Aftermath

This closure led to the government implementing the three-day week.

Popular Culture

The events are portrayed from the point of view of an AUEW member in Birmingham in the song Saltley Gates by Banner Theatre.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, April 28, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.