Winter of Discontent facts for kids

The Sun's headline "Crisis? What crisis?"

James Callaghan, Prime Minister during the Winter of Discontent, pictured in 1978

The Winter of Discontent was the period between November 1978 and February 1979 in the United Kingdom characterised by widespread strikes by private, and later public, sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Labour Party government had been imposing, against Trades Union Congress (TUC) opposition, to control inflation. Some of these industrial disputes caused great public inconvenience, exacerbated by the coldest winter in 16 years, in which severe storms isolated many remote areas of the country.

A strike by workers at Ford in late 1978 was settled with a pay increase of 17 per cent, well above the 5 per cent limit the government was holding its own workers to with the intent of setting an example for the private sector to follow, after a resolution at the Labour Party's annual conference urging the government not to intervene passed overwhelmingly. At the end of the year a road hauliers' strike began, coupled with a severe storm as 1979 began. Later in the month many public workers followed suit as well. These actions included an unofficial strike by gravediggers working in Liverpool and Tameside, and strikes by refuse collectors, leaving uncollected rubbish on streets and in public spaces, including London's Leicester Square. Additionally, NHS ancillary workers formed picket lines to blockade hospital entrances with the result that many hospitals were reduced to taking emergency patients only.

The unrest had deeper causes besides resentment of the caps on pay rises. Labour's internal divisions over its commitment to socialism, manifested in disputes over labour law reform and macroeconomic strategy during the 1960s and early 1970s, pitted constituency members against the party's establishment. Many of the strikes were initiated at the local level, with national union leaders largely unable to stop them. Union membership, particularly in the public sector, had grown more female and less white, and the growth of the public sector unions had not brought them a commensurate share of power within the TUC.

After Callaghan returned from a summit conference in the tropics at a time when the hauliers' strike and the weather had seriously disrupted the economy, leading thousands to apply for unemployment benefits, his denial that there was "mounting chaos" in the country was paraphrased in a famous Sun headline as "Crisis? What Crisis?" Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher's acknowledgement of the severity of the situation in a party political broadcast a week later was seen as instrumental to her victory in the general election held four months later after Callaghan's government fell to a no-confidence vote. Once in power, the Conservatives, who under Thatcher's leadership had begun criticising the unions as too powerful, passed legislation, similar to that proposed in a Labour white paper a decade earlier, that banned many practices, such as secondary picketing, that had magnified the effects of the strikes. Thatcher, and later other Conservatives like Boris Johnson, have continued to invoke the Winter of Discontent in election campaigns; it would be 18 years until another Labour government took power. In the late 2010s, after the more left-wing Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, some British leftists argued that this narrative about the Winter of Discontent was inaccurate, and that policy in subsequent decades was much more harmful to Britain.

The term "Winter of Discontent" is taken from the opening line of William Shakespeare's play Richard III. It is credited to Larry Lamb, then editor at The Sun, in an editorial on 3 May 1979.

Background

The Winter of Discontent was driven by a combination of different social, economic and political factors which had been developing for over a decade.

Divisions in Labour Party over macroeconomic strategy

Under the influence of Anthony Crosland, a member of the more moderate Gaitskellite wing of the Labour Party in the 1950s, the party establishment came to embrace a more moderate course of action than it had in its earlier years before the war. Crosland had argued in his book The Future of Socialism that the government exerted enough control over private industry that it was not necessary to nationalise it as the party had long called to do, and that the ultimate goals of socialism could be as readily achieved by assuring long-term economic stability and building out the social welfare state. His "revisionist" views became Labour's perspective on the post-war consensus, in which both they and the Conservative Party agreed in principle on a strong government role in the economy, strong unions and a welfare state as foundational to Britain's prosperity.

In the 1970s, following the surge in radical left-wing politics of the late 1960s, that view was challenged in another Labour figure's book, Stuart Holland's The Socialist Challenge. He argued that contrary to Crosland's assertions, the government could exercise little control over Britain's largest companies, which were likely to continue consolidating into an oligopoly that, by the 1980s, could raise prices high enough that governments following Keynesian economics would be unable to ensure their citizens the opportunity for full employment that they had been able to since the war, and exploit transfer pricing to avoid paying British taxes. Holland called for returning to nationalisation, arguing that taking control of the top 25 companies that way would result in a market with more competition and less inflation.

Holland's ideas formed the basis of the Alternative Economic Strategy (AES) promoted by Tony Benn, then Secretary of State for Industry in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan as they considered responses to the sterling crisis in 1976. The AES called on Britain to adopt a protectionist stance in international trade, including reversing its recent decision to join the European Common Market, and impose no incomes policies to combat inflation. Benn believed that this approach was more in keeping with Labour's traditional policies and would have its strongest supporters in the unions, with them vigorously supporting the government against opposition from the financial sector and "commanding heights" of industry. It was ultimately rejected in favour of the social contract and extensive cuts in public spending as the condition of an International Monetary Fund loan that supported the pound after the 1976 sterling crisis.

The left wing of the Labour Party, while critical of the revisionist approach and the Social Contract, was not universally supportive of the AES either. Many thought it did not go far enough, or avoided the issue of nationalisation. Feminists in particular criticised it for its focus on traditionally male-dominated manufacturing jobs and ignoring the broader issues that the increasing number of women in the workforce faced, preferring a focus on broader social issues rather than just working conditions and pay, the traditional areas unions had negotiated with employers.

1960s–70s labour law reforms

In 1968 Wilson's government appointed the Donovan Commission to review British labour law with an eye toward reducing the days lost to strikes every year; many Britons had come to believe the unions were too powerful despite the country's economic growth since the war. It found much of the problem to lie in a parallel system of 'official' signed agreements between unions and employers, and 'unofficial', often unwritten ones at the local level, between shop stewards and managers, which often took precedence in practice over the official ones. The government responded with In Place of Strife, a white paper by Secretary of State for Employment Barbara Castle, which recommended restrictions on unions' ability to strike, such as requiring strikes take place after a member vote and fining unions for unofficial strikes.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) vigorously opposed making Castle's recommendations law, and Callaghan, then Home Secretary, led a cabinet revolt which led to its abandonment. Callaghan did not believe it would be effective in curtailing unofficial strikes, that the proposals could not pass, and the effort would create unnecessary tension between the government and the unions that were key to its political strength.

After the Conservatives won the following year's election, they implemented their own legislation to address the issue. The Industrial Relations Act 1971, modeled in part on the U.S. Taft-Hartley Act, passed over determined union opposition, included many of the same provisions as In Place of Strife, and explicitly stated that formal collective bargaining agreements would have the force of law unless they had disclaimers to the contrary. It also created a National Industrial Relations Court to handle disputes and put unions under a central registry to enforce their rules.

New Prime Minister Edward Heath hoped that the new law would not only address the strike issue but the steep inflation plaguing the British economy (along with other industrial capitalist economies) at the time, eliminating the need for a separate incomes policy by having a moderating effect on pay increases demanded by unions. Ongoing union resistance to the Industrial Relations Act led to a House of Lords ruling in their favor over demonstrations and widespread unofficial strikes following the Pentonville Five's imprisonment for continuing to picket a London container depot in violation of a court order, which undermined the legislation. Coal miners officially went on strike for the first time in almost half a century in 1972; after two months the strike was settled with the miners getting a 21 per cent increase, less than half of what they had originally sought.

Heath turned to an incomes policy; inflation continued to worsen. The incomes policy was abandoned in 1973 when that year's oil embargo nearly doubled prices within months. To meet demand for heat in the wintertime, the government had to return to coal, giving the National Union of Mineworkers more leverage. The government declared a state of emergency that November, and at the beginning of 1974 limited all nonessential businesses to three days of electricity each week to conserve power. Miners, who had seen their rise from two years before turn into a pay cut in real terms due to the inflation the government had not brought under control, voted overwhelmingly to go on strike in late January.

Two weeks later, the government responded by calling an election, running on the slogan "Who Governs Britain?". At the end of the month the Conservatives no longer did; Labour and Wilson returned, but without a majority. They were able to pass the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which repealed the Heath government's Industrial Relations Act.

In October Wilson won a majority of three seats; still they needed a coalition with the Liberal Party to have a majority on many issues. Callaghan, now Foreign Secretary, warned his fellow Cabinet members at the time of the possibility of "a breakdown of democracy", telling them that "If I were a young man, I would emigrate."

Incomes policy

Wilson, and Callaghan, who succeeded him as Prime Minister after Wilson resigned for health reasons in 1976, continued to fight inflation, which peaked at 26.9 per cent in the 12 months to August 1975. While demonstrating to markets fiscal responsibility the government wished to avoid large increases in unemployment. As part of the campaign to bring down inflation, the government had agreed a "Social Contract" with the TUC which allowed for a voluntary incomes policy in which the pay rises for workers were held down to limits set by the government. Previous governments had brought in incomes policies backed by Acts of Parliament, but the Social Contract agreed that this would not happen.

Phases I and II

Phase I of the pay policy was announced on 11 July 1975 with a white paper entitled The Attack on Inflation. This proposed a limit on wage rises of £6 per week for all earning below £8,500 annually. The TUC General Council accepted these proposals by 19 votes to 13. On 5 May 1976 the TUC accepted a new policy for 1976 increases, beginning 1 August, of between £2.50 and £4 per week with further years outlined. At the Annual Congress on 8 September 1976 the TUC rejected a motion which called for a return to free collective bargaining (which meant no incomes policy at all) once Phase I expired on 1 August 1977. This new policy was Phase II of the incomes policy.

Phase III

On 15 July 1977, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey announced Phase III of the incomes policy in which there was to be a phased return to free collective bargaining, without "a free-for-all". After prolonged negotiations, the TUC agreed to continue with the modest increases recommended for 1977–78 under Phase II limits and not to try to reopen pay agreements made under the previous policy, while the government agreed not to intervene in pay negotiations. The Conservative Party criticised the power of the unions and lack of any stronger policy to cover the period from the summer of 1978. The inflation rate continued to fall through 1977 and by 1978 the annual rate was below 10 per cent.

At the end of the year Bernard Donoughue, Callaghan's chief policy advisor, sent him a memo analysing possible election dates. He concluded that the following October or November would be the best option, as the economy was likely to remain in good shape through then. After that, he wrote, the outlook was unclear, with pressure from the government's own incomes policy likely.

Five per cent limit

At a May 1978 Downing Street lunch with editors and reporters from the Daily Mirror, Callaghan asked if they believed it was possible that the planned Phase IV would succeed, as he believed it would if the unions and their members understood it was the best way to keep Labour in power. Most told him that it would be difficult, but not impossible. Geoffrey Goodman disagreed, saying in his view it would be impossible for the union leaders to keep their membership from demanding higher pay increases. "If that is the case, then I will go over the heads of the trade union leadership and appeal directly to their members—and the voters", the prime minister responded. "We have to hold the line on pay or else the government will fall."

On 21 July 1978 Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey introduced a new white paper which set a guideline for pay rises of 5 per cent in the year from 1 August. Callaghan was determined to keep inflation down to single figures, however trade union leaders warned the government that the 5 per cent limit was unachievable, and urged a more flexible approach with a range of settlements between 5 and 8 per cent. The TUC voted overwhelmingly on 26 July to reject the limit and insist on a return to free collective bargaining as they were promised.

It had been widely expected that Callaghan would call a general election in the autumn, and that the 5 per cent limit would be revised if Labour won. At a private dinner before that year's TUC conference, Callaghan discussed election strategy with the leaders of major unions. He asked whether he should call an autumn election; with the exception of Scanlon they all urged him to call for one no later than November. Any later, they said, and they could not guarantee their memberships would remain on the job and off the picket line through the winter.

Unexpectedly however on 7 September, Callaghan announced that he would not be calling a general election that autumn but seeking to go through the winter with continued pay restraint so that the economy would be in a better state in preparation for a spring election, therefore the 5 per cent limit stood. The pay limit was officially termed "Phase IV" but most referred to it as "the 5 per cent limit". Although the government did not make the 5 per cent limit a legal requirement, it decided to impose penalties on private and public government contractors who broke the limit.

Changes in labour movement

Between 1966 and 1979, Britain's unions were changing and becoming more diverse. Most of the increase in union membership was driven by women returning to or entering the workforce—73 per cent of them joined a union during that period against 19.3 per cent of men newly in work, as manufacturing jobs, traditionally heavily male, disappeared. Black and Asian workers also filled union ranks; in 1977, 61 per cent of black men in work belonged to a union as opposed to 47 per cent of white men. Asian women became the face of the labour movement during the 1976–1978 Grunwick dispute over pay and conditions at a film processing plant in suburban London.

Within unions, power was also devolving to the rank and file. The political upheavals of the late 1960s in Europe and the United States had brought participatory democracy to the fore, and workers felt they should be taking decisions, including about when and whether to strike, that had hitherto been the province of union leadership. Hugh Scanlon, who took over as head of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) in 1967, and Jack Jones, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) from shortly afterwards, were known among union leaders as "the dubious duo" for their advocacy for devolution.

Dissatisfied public employees

Many new members were also coming from government jobs. In 1974, about half of the total British workforce was unionised, but 83.1 per cent of all public-sector workers were. In the health sector that reached 90 per cent. Many of the government workers joining unions were women.

The public employees were in a particularly difficult position with regard to incomes policy. Governments kept their employees' pay, already lower than their private-sector colleagues, low both because they could and because they wanted to set an example for the private sector, an example the private sector rarely followed. Their unions were also frustrated that their growing numbers had not yet translated into corresponding influence within the TUC.

These matters came to a head with the 1977 fire brigade strike, a strike that many firemen were conflicted about since they knew they would be abandoning their own profession's duty to protect life, but felt that they could no longer make ends meet with their pay packets. They asked for a 30 per cent increase, 20 per cent over the government's limit at the time, and a limit to 42 hours of work each week. The government responded by declaring a state of emergency and bringing in Army troops as replacements. The TUC voted late in the strike to not campaign in support of the firemen, in order to maintain its relationship with the government.

"Stepping Stones" and hardening of Conservative position on unionism

Margaret Thatcher was elected Conservative leader to succeed Heath in 1975. She had been known as a member of his Cabinet, where she served as Secretary of State for Education, for her advocacy of market-based solutions over government intervention in the economy, and had become convinced, as she wrote later, by that experience that the only thing more damaging to the British economy than Labour's socialist policies was her own party's attempts to emulate them. Influenced by writers such as Friedrich Hayek and Colm Brogan, she came to believe the power of British unions under the postwar consensus had come at the expense of Britain as a whole.

In 1977 two of her advisors, John Hoskyns and Norman Strauss, prepared a report called "Stepping Stones" which diagrammed the vicious cycle through which they believed the unions' influence exacerbated Britain's ongoing economic difficulties, such as unemployment and inflation. Thatcher made it available to her shadow cabinet with the authors' recommendation that they all read it. By the end of the year she had formed a steering group to develop a specific policy aimed at curbing union power under a Tory government, and a media strategy that would invest the public in this.

To implement the media strategy, the party hired the advertising firm of Saatchi & Saatchi, whose 1978 "Labour Isn't Working" campaign has been credited with persuading Callaghan not to hold an election that year. In 1978 Britain's largest tabloid, The Sun, dropped its longtime support for Labour to instead embrace the Tories. Editor Larry Lamb met frequently with Thatcher's media advisor Gordon Reece to plan and refine strategy. During the later phases of the Grunwick dispute, as strikers took to the streets to march and sometimes clashed violently with the police, the Tories began using the media coverage to leverage the critique of unionism contained in "Stepping Stones".

Ford negotiations

Although not an official guideline, the pay rise set by Ford of Britain was accepted throughout private industry as a benchmark for negotiations. Ford had enjoyed a good year, and could afford to offer a large pay rise to its workers. The company was, however, also a major government contractor. Ford's management therefore made a pay offer within the 5 per cent guidelines. In response, 15,000 Ford workers, mostly from the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), began an unofficial strike on 22 September 1978, which subsequently became an official TGWU action on 5 October. The number of participants grew to 57,000. The strike prevented the production of 115,000 vehicles which cost Ford around $885 million.

During the strike, Vauxhall Motors employees accepted an 8.5 per cent rise. After long negotiation in which they weighed the chances of suffering from government sanctions against the continued damage of the strike, Ford eventually revised their offer to 17 per cent and decided to accept the sanctions; Ford workers accepted the rise on 22 November

Political difficulties

As the Ford strike was starting, the Labour Party conference began at Blackpool. Terry Duffy, the delegate from Liverpool Wavertree Constituency Labour Party and a supporter of the Militant group, moved a motion on 2 October which demanded "that the Government immediately cease intervening in wage negotiations". Despite a plea from Michael Foot not to put the motion to the vote, the resolution was carried by 4,017,000 to 1,924,000. The next day, the Prime Minister accepted the fact of defeat by saying "I think it was a lesson in democracy yesterday", but insisted that he would not let up on the fight against inflation.

Meanwhile, the government's situation in the House of Commons was increasingly difficult; through by-elections it had lost its majority of three seats in 1976 and had been forced to put together a pact with the Liberal Party in 1977 in order to keep winning votes on legislation; the pact lapsed in July 1978. A decision to grant extra parliamentary seats to Northern Ireland afforded temporary support from the Ulster Unionist Party, but the Unionists were clear that this support would be withdrawn immediately after the bill to grant extra seats had been passed – it was through the Ulster Unionists agreeing to abstain that the government defeated a motion of no confidence by 312 to 300 on 9 November.

Further negotiation at the TUC

By the middle of November it was clear that Ford would offer an increase substantially over the 5 per cent limit. The government subsequently entered into intense negotiations with the TUC, hoping to produce an agreement on pay policy that would prevent disputes and show political unity in the run-up to the general election. A limited and weak formula was eventually worked out and put to the General Council of the TUC on 14 November, but its General Council vote was tied 14–14, with the formula being rejected on the chair's casting vote. One important personality on the TUC General Council had changed earlier in 1978 with Moss Evans replacing Jack Jones at the TGWU. Evans proved a weak leader of his union, although it is doubtful whether Jones could have restrained the actions of some of the TGWU shop stewards.

After Ford settled, the government announced on 28 November that sanctions would be imposed on Ford, along with 220 other companies, for breach of the pay policy. The announcement of actual sanctions produced an immediate protest from the Confederation of British Industry which announced that it would challenge their legality. The Conservatives put down a motion in the House of Commons to revoke the sanctions. A co-ordinated protest by left-wing Labour MPs over spending on defence forced the debate set for 7 December to be postponed; however on 13 December an anti-sanctions amendment was passed by 285 to 279. The substantive motion as amended was then passed by 285 to 283. James Callaghan put down a further motion of confidence for the next day, which the government won by ten votes (300 to 290), but accepted that his government could not use sanctions. In effect this deprived the government of any means of enforcing the 5 per cent limit on private industry.

Onset of severe winter weather

A mild autumn turned cold on the morning of 25 November when temperatures recorded at Heathrow Airport dropped from 14 °C (57 °F) to 0 °C (32 °F) overnight, with some snowflakes. Throughout most of the following month, the cold lingered, only for temperatures to rise well above 10 °C (50 °F) around Christmas. On 30 December, the temperature dropped again, along with rain that soon turned to snow; the next day 1978 ended with Heathrow recording a high of only −3 °C (27 °F) amid steady snowfall.

The effects were more severe outside of London. Ilfracombe and other towns in North Devon could only be reached by helicopter as many roads could not be adequately cleared. The Royal Automobile Club blamed local councils, who in turn pointed to unresolved issues with their unions and staff shortages; even around London local authorities were only able to clear main roads. Two Scottish trains near Stirling were stuck in the snow, leaving 300 passengers stranded; rail transport difficulties were exacerbated elsewhere in the country by a strike. Tanker drivers had also gone on strike in some areas from 18 December, causing some homeowners to have difficulties keeping their homes heated and limiting petrol supplies. Only three League football matches could take place over the New Year's holiday, and all rugby contests were cancelled.

Lorry drivers' strike

With the government now having no way of enforcing its pay policy, unions which had not yet put in pay claims began to increase their aim. Lorry drivers, represented by the TGWU, had demanded rises of up to 40 per cent on 18 December; years of expansion in the industry had left employers short of drivers, and those drivers who had jobs often worked 70–80 hours a week for minimal pay. The Road Haulage Association (RHA), the industry trade group, had initially told Secretary of State for Transport William Rodgers, a member of the Labour Party's right wing who had become sceptical of the public's appetite for the completion of the party's socialist programme, that it would stay within the 5 per cent ceiling. But as 1979 began, the RHA, whom Rodgers saw as disorganised and easily intimidated by the TGWU, suddenly increased its offer to 13 per cent, in hopes of settling before strikes became widespread.

The offer had the opposite effect. Drivers, emboldened by memories of a strike the previous winter by South Wales hauliers that won participants a 20 per cent rise, decided they could do better by walking out. The union's national leadership was, as they had anticipated in their September dinner with Callaghan, doubtful they could restrain the local leaders. On 2 January Rodgers warned the Cabinet that a national road-haulage strike was about to happen, but cautioned against pressuring the RHA to improve their offer even more.

The next day an unofficial strike of all TGWU lorry drivers began. With petrol distribution held up, petrol stations closed across the country. The strikers also picketed the main ports. The strikes were made official on 11 January by the TGWU and 12 January by the United Road Transport Union. With 80 per cent of the nation's goods transported by road, roads still not completely cleared from the earlier storm, essential supplies were put in danger as striking drivers picketed those firms that continued to work. While the oil tanker drivers were working, the main refineries were also targeted and the tanker drivers let the strikers know where they were going, allowing for flying pickets to turn them back at their destination. More than a million UK workers were laid off temporarily during the disputes.

In Kingston upon Hull, striking hauliers were able to blockade the city's two main roads effectively enough to control what goods were allowed into and out of the city, and companies made their case to their own nominal employees to get past the barricades. Newspaper headlines likened the situation to a siege, and the Battle of Stalingrad; fears that food supplies would also be impacted fuelled panic buying. Such coverage often exaggerated the reach of the strikers, which served both their interest and their employers'. It also helped the Conservatives disseminate the arguments of "Stepping Stones" about unionism out of control to the public; letters to the editor across the country reflected a growing public anger with the unions.

Due to the disruption of fuel supplies, the Cabinet Office prepared to implement previous plans for "Operation Drumstick", by which the Army were put on standby to take over from the tanker drivers. However, the operation would need the declaration of a state of emergency in order to allow conscription of the assets of the oil companies, and the government drew back from such a step on 18 January. Rodgers in particular was opposed to it, since the available troops could at best only make up for a very small portion of the striking drivers, and it might be possible to use them more effectively without declaring an emergency. Before the situation developed into a crisis the oil companies settled on wage rises of around 15 per cent.

The Cabinet also decided that same day that it would not take action to limit any hauling company's profits, thereby allowing them to increase their offer to the strikers. Rodgers was so disheartened by this that he wrote a resignation letter to Callaghan, saying "the Government is not even in the front line" and accusing it of "defeatism of a most reprehensible kind". He ultimately decided to remain in the Cabinet.

A further plan was drawn up to call a state of emergency and safeguard essential supplies through the Army, regarding which the government warned the TGWU leadership, which resulted in the union accepting on 12 January 1979 a list of emergency supplies which were officially exempt from action. In practice, what counted as an emergency was left up to local officials of the TGWU to determine, and practice across the country varied according to the views of the local shop stewards who established "dispensation committees" to decide.

Demonstrations against the strike took place in Liverpool and Manchester, met by counterdemonstrations in support. In Birmingham, violence erupted on 17 January when three hundred women working at the Cadbury Schweppes plant in Bournville heard that a flying picket was moving into place to attempt to block a delivery. Swinging their pocketbooks and umbrellas, they quickly drove away the striking lorry drivers, whom they outnumbered by twenty to one. The incident made national news.

Some hauliers attempted to return to work without waiting for an offer. A group in the Shropshire town of Oakengates organised a convoy, but it was unable to leave town as the ungritted roads proved too slippery to drive.

On 29 January, lorry drivers in the South West accepted a deal awarded by an arbitration panel of a rise of up to 20 per cent, just £1 per week less than the union had been striking for; this settlement proved a model which was accepted throughout the country.

After the drivers returned to work, some media outlets took a second look at the shortages and found that they had been more a matter of fear than reality. The Economist reported that many predicted shortages of foods had not actually taken place. Douglas Smith of the Employment Department recalled years later that he only recalled certain breakfast cereals being out of stock, and Rodgers, too, agreed that the job losses had not been as severe as they seemed they would be. But the fears of disruption had had an impact on the national mood even if little of what was feared had actually come to pass.

Public sector employees

Bitter winter weather returned after a week of milder temperatures on 22 January. Freezing rain began falling across England at noon; by midnight temperatures dropped further and it turned to snow, which continued falling into the next day. Once again roads were impassable in the south; in the north and at higher elevations areas that had not yet recovered from the storm three weeks prior were newly afflicted.

A month earlier the public sector unions had set that day as the biggest individual day of strike action since the General Strike of 1926, and many workers stayed out indefinitely afterwards. With many in the private sector having achieved substantial rises, the public sector unions became increasingly concerned to keep pace in terms of pay. The government had already announced a slight weakening of the policy on 16 January, which gave the unions cause for hope that they might win and use free collective bargaining. Train drivers belonging to ASLEF and the National Union of Railwaymen had already begun a series of 24-hour strikes, and the Royal College of Nursing conference on 18 January decided to ask that the pay of nurses be increased to the same level in real terms as 1974, which would mean a 25 per cent average rise. The public sector unions labelled the date the "Day of Action", in which they held a 24-hour strike and marched to demand a £60 per week minimum wage. It would later be recalled as "Misery Monday" by the media.

With the succession of strikes having been called and then won, many groups of workers began to take unofficial action – often without the consent or support of the union leaderships. Ambulance drivers began to take strike action in mid-January, and in parts of the country (London, West Midlands, Cardiff, Glasgow and the west of Scotland) their action included refusing to attend 999 emergency calls. In these areas, the Army was drafted in to provide a skeleton service. Ancillary hospital staff also went on strike. On 30 January, the Secretary of State for Social Services David Ennals announced that 1,100 of 2,300 NHS hospitals were only treating emergencies, that practically no ambulance service was operating normally, and that the ancillary health service workers were deciding which cases merited treatment. The media reported with scorn that cancer patients were being prevented from getting essential treatment.

Gravediggers' strike

At a strike committee meeting in the Liverpool area earlier in January, it was reported that although local binmen were supportive of the strike, they did not want to be the first to do so as they had always been. The committee then asked Ian Lowes, convener for the General and Municipal Workers' Union (GMWU) local, to have the gravediggers and crematorium workers he represented take the lead instead. He accepted, as long as the other unions followed; and the GMWU's national executive approved the strike.

Those unions had never gone on strike before, Lowes recalled in 2006, and he had not expected that permission to be granted. "I knew how the press was going to latch on to it," he said, "and they totally underestimated the venom that headed our way." Larry Whitty, an executive official with the union, also agreed later that it had been a mistake to approve the strike. The GMWU at the time was also known as the most conservative and least militant of the public employee unions; frequently it had used its influence within the Labour Party to frustrate left-wing challenges to the leadership, and its officials rarely faced contested elections for their positions. Faced with the growing threat from the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and the Confederation of Health Service Employees, both of which were growing more quickly, it was trying not to be what members of those unions called the 'scab union'.

The ensuing strike, in Liverpool and in Tameside near Manchester, was later frequently referred to by Conservative politicians. With 80 gravediggers being on strike, Liverpool City Council hired a factory in Speke to store the corpses until they could be buried. The Department of Environment noted that there were 150 bodies stored at the factory at one point, with 25 more added every day. The reports of unburied bodies caused concern with the public. On 1 February a persistent journalist asked the Medical Officer of Health for Liverpool, Dr Duncan Bolton, what would be done if the strike continued for months, Bolton speculated that burial at sea would be considered. Although his response was hypothetical, in the circumstances it caused great alarm. Other alternatives were considered, including allowing the bereaved to dig their own funeral's graves, deploying troops, and engaging private contractors to inter the bodies. The main concerns were said to be aesthetic because bodies could be safely stored in heat-sealed bags for up to six weeks. Bolton later reported being "horrified" by the sensationalised reportage of the strike in the mass media. The gravediggers eventually settled for a 14 per cent rise after a fortnight off the job.

In their later memoirs, Callaghan and Healey both blamed NUPE for letting the strike go on as long as it did, as would Conservatives. While the Tameside gravediggers had been members of that union, those in the Liverpool area were GMWU.

Waste collectors

With many collectors having been on strike since 22 January, local authorities began to run out of space for storing waste and used local parks under their control. The Conservative controlled Westminster City Council used Leicester Square in the heart of London's West End for piles of rubbish and, as the Evening Standard reported, this attracted rats and the available food led to an increase in their numbers. The media nicknamed the area Fester Square.

On 21 February, a settlement of the local authority workers' dispute was agreed, whereby workers got an 11 per cent rise, plus £1 per week, with the possibility of extra rises, should a pay comparability study recommend them. Some left-wing local authorities, among them the London Borough of Camden, conceded the union demands in full (known as the "Camden surplus") and then saw an investigation by the District Auditor, which eventually ruled it a breach of the fiduciary duty owed to the ratepayers (local taxpayers) of the area and therefore illegal. Camden Borough councillors, among them Ken Livingstone, avoided surcharge. Livingstone was Leader of the Greater London Council at the time the decision not to impose a surcharge was made.

End of the strikes

By the end of January 90,000 Britons were receiving unemployment benefit. There were no more major storms, but temperatures remained bitterly cold. Many remote communities still had not quite recovered from the snowstorm at the beginning of the month. A 40-mile (64 km) section of the M6 north of Walsall was closed to traffic, and many other roads, even near London, had enforced temporary speed limits as low as 20 miles per hour (32 km/h). Plans to have the Army grit the roads were abandoned when NUPE official Barry Shuttleworth threatened an expanded strike of public employees in response.

Strikes by essential services dismayed many senior ministers in the Labour government who had been close to the trade union movement, who had thought it unlikely that trade unionists would take such action. Among these was Prime Minister James Callaghan himself, who had built his political career on his connection to the trade unions, and had practically founded one, the Inland Revenue Staff Federation. Callaghan called the actions of the strikers "free collective vandalism".

The government was negotiating with the senior union leaders and on 11 February came to an agreement on a proposal to be put to the TUC General Council. On 14 February, as thaws in the weather began to seem possible, the General Council agreed the concordat, published under the title "The Economy, the Government, and Trade Union Responsibilities". By this stage union executives had limited control over their members and strikes did not immediately cease, although they began to wind down from this point. In total in 1979, 29,474,000 working days were lost in industrial disputes, compared with 9,306,000 in 1978.

Storms in late February prolonged the isolation of the remote communities where roads had not been cleared yet. January 1979, with an average temperature of −1.4 °C (29.5 °F), was the seventeenth coldest January since records began to be kept in 1659; in the years since only two other winter months in Britain (February 1986 and December 2010) have had average temperatures below freezing. The −0.1 °C (31.8 °F) average for both January and February has not even been equaled by another two-month period since. Overall, the winter of 1979 was the twenty-eighth coldest ever, but the third coldest of the 20th century.

Effect on general election

Margaret Thatcher, who won the 1979 general election and became Prime Minister

The strikes appeared to have a profound effect on voting intention. According to Gallup, Labour had a lead of 5 percentage points over the Conservatives in November 1978, which turned to a Conservative lead of 7.5 percentage points in January 1979, and of 20 percentage points in February. On 1 March, referendums on devolution to Scotland and Wales were held. That in Wales went strongly against devolution; that in Scotland produced a small majority in favour which did not reach the threshold set by Parliament of 40 per cent of that electorate. The government's decision not to press ahead with devolution immediately led the Scottish National Party to withdraw support from the government and on 28 March in a motion of no confidence the government lost by one vote, precipitating a general election.

Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher had already outlined her proposals for restricting trade union power in a party political broadcast on 17 January in the middle of the lorry drivers' strike. During the election campaign the Conservative Party made extensive use of the disruption caused during the strike. One broadcast on 23 April began with the Sun's headline "Crisis? What Crisis?" being shown and read out by an increasingly desperate voiceover interspersed with film footage of piles of rubbish, closed factories, picketed hospitals and locked graveyards. The scale of the Conservatives' victory in the general election has often been ascribed to the effect of the strikes, as well as their "Labour Isn't Working" campaign, and the party used film of the events of the winter in election campaigns for years to come.

Legacy

Following Thatcher's election win, she brought the post-war consensus to a halt and made drastic changes to trade union laws (most notably the regulation that unions had to hold a ballot among members before calling strikes) and as a result strikes were at their lowest level for 30 years by the time of the 1983 general election, which the Conservatives won by a landslide.