"Yet what you need is not marches, demonstrations, rallies or wide associations, all of them are important. What you need is direct action. The sooner people understand that, the sooner we'll begin to change things"
About this Quote
Arthur Scargill condenses a hard lesson from the history of labor struggle: symbolic mobilization can rally spirits and attract attention, but power shifts only when ordinary routines are disrupted. Marches and rallies broadcast grievances; direct action changes the cost-benefit calculus of those in charge. The emphasis falls on leverage, not optics.
Scargill forged this view on picket lines long before he became president of the National Union of Mineworkers. At Saltley Gate in 1972 he helped lead a mass picket that shut a critical coke depot, showing how strategic disruption, not mere visibility, could force concessions. As NUM leader during the 1984-85 miners strike against Margaret Thatcher’s pit closures, he carried that conviction into a confrontation that tested the limits of industrial power. For him, direct action meant withdrawing labor, holding the line at colliery gates, and blocking the flows that kept the economy running. Such tactics translate numbers into tangible pressure because they interrupt production and profit rather than appeal to conscience.
He does not dismiss marches; he concedes they are important. The thrust is that they are insufficient. The urgency of his final line is a call for movements to stop mistaking publicity for power and to organize where they can impose real costs. It is an argument about where agency resides: not in persuading elites to be kind, but in making it impossible for them to ignore rank-and-file strength.
The miners strike revealed both the potency and the limits of this approach. Disruption bit hard, yet the state had prepared with stockpiles, policing, legal constraints, and a media narrative that eroded support. Divisions within the labor movement weakened the action. The lesson is not that direct action fails, but that it demands strategy, solidarity, and broad alliances to withstand countermeasures. The debate endures across today’s movements, from unions to climate groups: marches win attention; direct action forces decisions. Scargill plants his flag firmly with the latter.
Scargill forged this view on picket lines long before he became president of the National Union of Mineworkers. At Saltley Gate in 1972 he helped lead a mass picket that shut a critical coke depot, showing how strategic disruption, not mere visibility, could force concessions. As NUM leader during the 1984-85 miners strike against Margaret Thatcher’s pit closures, he carried that conviction into a confrontation that tested the limits of industrial power. For him, direct action meant withdrawing labor, holding the line at colliery gates, and blocking the flows that kept the economy running. Such tactics translate numbers into tangible pressure because they interrupt production and profit rather than appeal to conscience.
He does not dismiss marches; he concedes they are important. The thrust is that they are insufficient. The urgency of his final line is a call for movements to stop mistaking publicity for power and to organize where they can impose real costs. It is an argument about where agency resides: not in persuading elites to be kind, but in making it impossible for them to ignore rank-and-file strength.
The miners strike revealed both the potency and the limits of this approach. Disruption bit hard, yet the state had prepared with stockpiles, policing, legal constraints, and a media narrative that eroded support. Divisions within the labor movement weakened the action. The lesson is not that direct action fails, but that it demands strategy, solidarity, and broad alliances to withstand countermeasures. The debate endures across today’s movements, from unions to climate groups: marches win attention; direct action forces decisions. Scargill plants his flag firmly with the latter.
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| Topic | Justice |
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