ILPC 2027

This paper argues that geographical variations in collective understandings of the labour movement can be illuminated by examining the role of collective memory. Our interest lies in collective memory as accomplished through the storytelling of remarkable historical events, and the ways in which oral traditions, and the collective understandings embedded within them, belong to places. Drawing on biographical interviews with trade union activists we examine the contemporary, symbolic presence of the 1984-85 miners’ strike and specifically the ways in which this sensational occurrence is remembered by those active within the labour movement who have connections with the South Wales coalfield. We identify collective memory as a powerful mode for the transmission of collective understandings of trade unionism and consider how remembering and (re)remembering the strike over time, grounds the situated practice and meaning making of the trade union movement in the present. In this context we can detect a moral telling of this pivotal moment in industrial relations history, which acts as a locus for the collective behaviour underpinning trade union activism. This paper emerges from ongoing research on geographical variations in collective understandings of trade unionism in the UK (see Beynon et al, 2012), which considers the question of why people join trade unions. This work established the above average strength of trade union membership in Wales compared with other parts of the UK, with significant support in the service economy, and a strong rate of unionisation among women (Beynon et al 2012). It confirmed the contention of previous analyses that compositional effects are not sufficient to explain the extent of the variation, arguing that the geographical patterning of social, cultural and political factors needs to be incorporated into an explanation. Here, the industrial history of the country is an important factor and this relates to historically received understandings of collective action and support. This paper builds on this work by drawing on forty biographical interviews with people active within the trade union movement in South Wales. When positioning their current commitment to trade unions the people we met and spoke with often refer to the industrial history of the place they were born and bred, acknowledging their ancestral loyalties and inherited beliefs. In this context an oral tradition has emerged around a number of significant events in Welsh industrial relations history. The Chartist Rising in Newport in 1839 is one such focal point. Others include Churchill’s decision to send troops into the Rhondda in 1910 to tackle the coalminers, or the colliery disaster at Senghenydd in 1913. In more recent times it is the 1984-85 miners’ strike that is remembered and re-remembered, drawn upon by trade union activists to situate and account for a present day allegiance to the labour movement. Examining this form of collective memory of the 1984-1985 miners’ strike illuminates the ways in which the collective understandings underpinning trade unionism are formed in the contemporary period and the unionisation process itself.