Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British Marxist and trade unionist. He was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. Joining the NUM at the age of nineteen in 1957, he became one of its leading activists in the late 1960s. He led an unofficial strike in 1969, and played a key organising role during the strikes of 1972 and 1974, the latter of which helped in the downfall of Edward Heath's Conservative government.
