IAN LAVERY MP says an immediate focus on raising wages and reducing costs must be part of a strategy to show Labour can deliver for workers again
THE facts of what happened at Orgreave on June 18 1984 are well known.
Armoured police launched a pre-planned attack on lightly clad striking coalminers at the Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire.
The police violence was probably the most brutal in the history of industrial struggle in Britain.
Ninety-five miners were arrested and dozens were subsequently dragged before the courts to face charges based on falsified police evidence. The trials collapsed.
One hundred years after 1.7m workers shut the country down in defence of the miners, the struggles that sparked the 1926 General Strike are still with us – and will be honoured on London’s May Day march this year, writes MARY ADOSSIDES
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
KIM JOHNSON MP places the campaign in the context of the history of the working-class battles of the 1980s, and explains why, just like Orgreave and the Shrewsbury Pickets before it, justice today is so important for the struggles of tomorrow
The Home Secretary’s recent letter suggests the Labour government may finally deliver on its nine-year manifesto commitment, writes KATE FLANNERY, but we must move quickly: as recently as 2024 Northumbria police destroyed miners’ strike documents


