The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
BEING a member of Parliament is a huge privilege. As history shows, opportunities for bringing about change through parliamentary means don’t come along very often.
In the coming weeks members of the Scottish Parliament will have the chance, their only chance, to right some of the wrongs of the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
Of course, we cannot turn back the clock. All those lives destroyed because of the brutality of that dispute cannot be restored.
The public inquiry is the result of more than a decade of determined campaigning. Now, those who fought for justice want the full story of government involvement and police conduct to be told, says KATE FLANNERY
Labour movement history in Britain shows workers secured reforms through collective pressure and political representation, rather than being gifted from above, writes KEITH FLETT
A past confrontation permanently shaped the methods the state will use to protect employers against any claims by their employees, writes MATT WRACK, but unions are readying to face the challenge
Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media


