Michael McGahey (29 May 1925 – 30 January 1999) was a Scottish miners' leader and Communist. He had a distinctive gravelly voice, and described himself as "a product of my class and my movement".

Early life

His father, John McGahey, worked in the mines at

Shotts Shotts is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is located almost halfway between Glasgow () and Edinburgh (). The village has a population of about 8,840. A local story has Shotts being named after the legendary giant highwayman Bertram de ...

North Lanarkshire North Lanarkshire ( sco, North Lanrikshire; gd, Siorrachd Lannraig a Tuath) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the northeast of the City of Glasgow and contains many of Glasgow's suburbs and commuter towns and villages. It also ...

when Mick was born. John was a founder member of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

Graham Stevenson: M to Q – Compendium of Communist Biography by surname
and took an active part in the 1926

General Strike A general strike refers to a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large co ...

. The family moved to

Cambuslang Cambuslang ( sco, Cammuslang, from gd, Camas Lang) is a town on the south-eastern outskirts of Greater Glasgow, Scotland. With approximately 30,000 residents, it is the 27th largest town in Scotland by population, although, never having had a ...

in search of work, and it was here that McGahey went to school. McGahey started work at age 14 at the Gateside Colliery, and continued to work as a miner for the next 25 years. He followed his father into the Communist Party and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), remaining a member of both the Communist Party, until its dissolution in 1990, and the NUM, all his life.

Trade unionist and communist

He became chairman of the local branch of his union when he was only eighteen and thereafter progressed through its echelons, though never quite reaching the national presidency. He was elected to the Scottish Executive of the NUM in 1958, becoming president of the Scottish area in 1967. He was regarded as a highly competent operator but his strongly militant line was opposed by others in the Union. He was defeated in the 1971 elections for National President by Joe Gormley. McGahey was, however, elected National Vice-President of the NUM in 1972. He made similar progress in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), being elected to its Executive in 1971. He remained a member until the CPGB dissolved in 1991 and then joined its successor in Scotland, the

Communist Party of Scotland The Communist Party of Scotland (CPS; ''Pàrtaidh Co-Mhaoineach na h-Alba'') was a communist political party based in Scotland. It was established in January 1992 by former members of the Communist Party of Great Britain who disagreed with the ...

. He was reportedly the subject of phone tapping by the UK security service MI5 whose transcribers found him difficult to understand because of his accent and the effects of alcohol consumption. He came to the attention of the public during the miners strikes of

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

and

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...

. He later claimed these were purely industrial disputes, made political by the then Prime Minister,

Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conserv ...

. Nevertheless, he took a characteristically militant line, opposing some of the tactics of Gormley, accusing him of "''ballotisis''" and swearing he would not be "''constitutionalised''" out of a national strike. Gormley, it was later claimed, postponed his own retirement until 1981, by which time McGahey was over 55, too old by union rules to stand for President. He played a smaller role (mostly on Scottish affairs) during the 1984–1985 miners' strike, as he was nearing retirement. He opposed the holding of a national ballot and favoured letting regions make their own decisions on whether to strike. He saw the appointment of

Ian MacGregor Sir Ian Kinloch MacGregor, KBE (21 September 1912 – 13 April 1998) was a Scottish-American metallurgist and industrialist, most famous in the UK for his controversial tenure at the British Steel Corporation and his conduct during the 1984� ...

as chair of the National Coal Board as a "declaration of war". James Cowan, then deputy chairman of the NCB, claims that McGahey warned him to retire in 1983 and protect his health, as he feared that a "bloody" strike was inevitable with the appointment of Ian MacGregor and that there would be conflict between different regions in the NUM. Surveillance by MI5 on McGahey during the 1984–85 strike found that he was "extremely angry and embarrassed" about Scargill's links with the Libyan regime, but that he was "happy to take part, with Scargill and other NUM leaders, in contacts with Soviet representatives". After the strike, McGahey became more critical of

Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (1984–85), a major event in the history of ...

and argued against the growing concentration of power within the NUM in the national leadership at the expense of regional areas. He expressed regret on the use of violent picketing in Nottinghamshire and the divisions that this caused amongst mineworkers, saying: :I am not sure we handled it all correctly. The mass intrusion of pickets into Notts, not just Yorkshiremen; I accept some responsibility for that, and so will the left have to. I think if as an executive we had approached Notts without pickets, it might have been different. Because I reject, I have made this clear since the strike, that 25 or 30,000 Notts miners, their wives and families and communities are scabs and blacklegs. I refuse to accept this. We did alienate them during the strike. McGahey continuously insisted that the NUM find a way to reconcile with the

Union of Democratic Mineworkers The Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) was a British trade union for coal miners based in Nottinghamshire, England, established in 1985, after the 1984–85 miners' strike, when the Nottinghamshire Area of the National Union of Mineworker ...

(a Midlands-based breakaway from the NUM). Scargill referred to this insistence as a "tragedy that people from the far north should pontificate about what we should be doing to win back members for the NUM."

Comments after the death of Ian MacGregor

On the death of

(chair of the National Coal Board during the 1984–85 strike), McGahey said, "It's no loss to people of my ilk. MacGregor was a vicious, anti-trades unionist, anti-working class person, recruited by the Tory government quite deliberately for the purpose of destroying trade unionism in the mining industry. I will not suffer any grief, not will I in any way cry over the loss of Ian MacGregor."

Memorials

He married Catherine Young in 1954 with whom he had two daughters and a son. A heavy smoker for most of his life, McGahey suffered in later years from chronic

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

and

pneumoconiosis Pneumoconiosis is the general term for a class of interstitial lung disease where inhalation of dust ( for example, ash dust, lead particles, pollen grains etc) has caused interstitial fibrosis. The three most common types are asbestosis, silicos ...

. A significant memorial, in the form of mine workings, stands to him at the east end of Cambuslang Main Street and there have been calls in the

Scottish Parliament The Scottish Parliament ( gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba ; sco, Scots Pairlament) is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyro ...

for a more national memorial. On 28 April 2006, in

Bonnyrigg Bonnyrigg ( sco, Bonnyrigg) is a town in Midlothian, Scotland, eight miles (13 kilometres) southeast of Edinburgh city centre. The town had a population of 14,663 in the 2001 census which rose to 15,677 in the 2011 census, both figures based ...

, ex-

UNISON In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or per ...

general secretary

Rodney Bickerstaffe Rodney Kevan Bickerstaffe (6 April 1945 – 3 October 2017) was a British trade unionist. He was General Secretary of the National Union of Public Employees (1982–1993) and UNISON (1996–2001), Britain's largest trade union at the time. He l ...

unveiled a memorial to mark the 10th Anniversary of McGahey's address to the

Midlothian Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh, ...

TUC Worker's Memorial Day event in

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936. Born duri ...

Park. McGahey's son was present. Bickerstaffe described McGahey as a "working class hero" who never lost touch with his roots and socialist values. He listed some of McGahey's sayings which were just as relevant today. "We are a movement not a monument", he quoted as a reminder of the need to continue to move and to fight on, and finished by saying "We know the reasons why Michael never became NUM President, but whether he had stayed as a steward or a delegate he would still have had a major impact on the movement".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McGahey, Mick 1925 births 1999 deaths Communist Party of Great Britain members Scottish communists Scottish trade unionists People from Cambuslang Members of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress People from Shotts Scottish miners Vice Presidents of the National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain)