If there had been a national ballot and a strike decision Notts miners would have gone out....
I very much doubt that indeed. The NUM under Joe Gormley held two national ballots concerning new productivity schemes. Both ballots firmly rejected these new schemes. Despite that, the Notts NUM regional committee voted to implement the 1977 productivity schemes - in direct violation of the wishes of the NUM membership nationally as expressed in two national ballots. As a consequence of that, Notts miners became the highest paid miners in Britain - they obviously put their own personal interests before that of other miners nationally. At the start of the '84 strike, not one single pit in Nottinghamshire was under threat of closure, there is no evidence that the Notts NUM regional committee would have put the interests of other miners nationally concerning pit closures, before their own narrow interests.
