On 4th May 1926 one million miners and two and a half million other workers were called out on strike by the Trade Union Congress. The strike lasted for eight days, until the 12th May. There were three main causes to the General Strike: Britain's economic crisis during this period, the problems within the coal industry and the Government's policy towards the strike. The key cause of the General Strike, however, was the conflict within the coal industry. .
In the post-war years many heavy industries and in particular the coal industries found themselves being returned to private ownership, this created a mass discontent of a very numerous unionized and activist work force. In fact by 1921 there were over 8 million trade union members, this number doubled compared to the pre-war figures. So the workers dissatisfaction is more than acceptable bearing in mind that the tough, unsafe and long hours in the pits were only rewarded with greedy salaries on behalf of those avaricious shareholders who wanted to keep their profit levels steady and high. How ether these harsh industrial relations had been taking place even before the war and know were starting to degenerate.
The government initially decided that the conflict between the mine owners and miners was not of their concern. But in 1925, the Trade Union Congress became involved and threatened a lock-out. In order to maintain control and settle the miners, the government responded by providing a twenty three million pound funding. A strike was temporarily avoided because both the miners- who were not receiving pay cuts- and the mine owners -who still had a reduction in the wages they paid the miners- were satisfied. But the fundings were only for nine months. During this time the government set up the Samuel Commission to investigate the problems of British mining and discuss how best to increase its productivity.