Timeline of key strikes in the UK from the past 40 years
"Britain's Winter of Discontent" as it was famously labelled, was a successful public sector strike in 1979 and since that, and for the past 40 years, there have been key moments in the strike activity in the UK . 
A turning point for British labour relations was the The Miners Strike 1984-1985, and with the dispute lasting over a year, the miners eventually were forced back to work, this was significant as it was the first major loss for trade unions and set the tone for 25 years of working class defeat in the UK. 
Along with the defeat of the miners strike, the 1986-87 Wapping dispute, supported by the EETPU union, was a second major defeat for unions. Along with the Liverpool Dockers dispute that reached the support from around the world, there were little wins for trade unions as they moved into the 2000s, and saw a large decline in trade union memberships.
After several days of action, the 2002 Firefighters strike lead to union leadership accept a three year deal which provided wage increases barely above inflation.
Lastly, another key strike was the 2011, June 30th co-ordinated strikes, whereby nearly a million teachers and civil servants took part in a one-day strike that was co-ordinated. Although this was a small dispute compared to the others, it is significant because there had previously been a strong decline in strike activity, but the 2011 strike saw a return of strike action to help combat rising inequality. (Federation, n.d.)
This graph below shows the working days lost due to strikes since the first recorded strike in 1891. 1912-1934 was the period with the highest amount of working days lost. This is due to a few wide scale strikes including the 1926 General strike which involved 1.9 million strikers and lasted 9 days in the UK. (Savoy, 2017)

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