A colleague told her children yesterday that they might miss some school after council workers voted to go on strike over pay. To which they replied: “What's a strike, Mummy?”

There are predictions of a summer of strikes ahead. So for those who think industrial relations are romances conducted on heavy-duty lathes or behind a blast furnace, or who have forgotten the significance of the year 1984 in Britain, here is an A to Z of the history of downing tools.

Arthur. As in Scargill (King Arthurto his friends). The Marxist leader of the National Union of Mineworkers locked horns with Margaret Thatcher in the epic strike of 1984-85 (see below) but couldn't save our mining industry.

Billy Elliot. The wonderful film (and musical) about a boy from a pit village who dreamt of becoming a ballet dancer introduced the most bitter industrial dispute of modern times to new generations.

Times Archive: 10 reasons why the Seventies are back

Strikes, inflation, Abba, maxi-skirts ... the past is coming back to get us

Times Archive, 1977: TUC urges unions to aid Grunwick strike

The TUC yesterday urged unions to intensify their support for the Grunwick strikers after further violent clashes between the police and pickets

• Postmen widen mail ban as Grunwick talks break down

• Leading article: An abuse of power

Collective bargaining. The process of union/management negotiations. If agreement is not reached, it can lead to a ...

Dispute. This precedes a strike. Usually it is over pay and/or conditions. When talks between unions and management collapse, union members are balloted about strike action. Sometimes union members take unofficial strike action without a ballot, for which they can technically be dismissed. When a large number of workers walk out in this way it is a “wildcat strike”. A “yes” vote in a ballot can lead to union bosses declaring ...

Everybody out! Once an almost everyday sound in Britain.

Flying pickets. A picket is a group of employees who assemble outside their work place to show they are on strike and to dissuade colleagues from going in. Flying pickets zip from one workplace to another, annoying the bosses enormously.

General strike. In 1926 workers in key industries went on strike in support of the miners. Police and the Army kept the country operating as the Government waged a propaganda war against strikers. The action was called off after nine days, though some miners held out for months.

Hollywood. The three-month strike by writers, which ended in February, concerned payments for films and shows released on DVD and the internet. It brought the movie and TV industries to their knees and showed how much the “talent” rely on other people to script their every word. Tinseltown's actors are now threatening to pull the same trick.

Industrial Revolution. This started everything. Where would strikers be without it? In the fields, grumbling about wonky scythes.

Japan. Rather than down tools, workers here sometimes take over the premises and work harder, increasing productivity - thereby screwing up the boss's immaculate plans, so he loses face.

Key workers. Britain's biggest unions are Unite, representing general workers, and Unison, which also looks after just about everybody as far as one can tell from its website.

Lorry drivers. Truckers can be very truculent, particularly on the Continent. They specialise in go-slows on motorways or parking for days in long queues that bring all of France and much of the rest of the Continent grinding to a halt.

Miners' strike. A year-long dispute that grew increasingly bitter as it stretched into 1985. At issue were plans to shut 20 pits, with the loss of 20,000 of Britain's 187,000 mining jobs. Thatcher's Government refused to back down; as strikers struggled to feed their families, they began to drift back to work. Eventually the strike was brought to an end.

Nottingham. Scargill weakened his position by not balloting for strike action. When Nottingham miners were balloted they voted against the strike by a huge majority and formed the rival Union of Democratic Mineworkers, which further undermined the strike.

Orgreave. A South Yorkshire coking plant and the scene of a bloody battle between 5,000 picketing mineworkers and an equal number of police. It symbolised the emotions invested in the dispute.

Poland. Home of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity union, which co-ordinated strikes that spread from the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk in 1981, sending shock waves throughout the Communist bloc.

The Queen. She was due to end her strike yesterday (that would be Queen Mermaid, a Brooklyn artist and community organiser who went on hunger strike over plans to develop Coney Island, the New York amusement park).

Ramses III. The second pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty presided over the first recorded labour strike. A huge volcanic eruption in Iceland probably caused the environmental conditions that led to harvests failing. Tomb-builders were among those who stopped working amid unrest over grain price inflation. A bit like today.

Scabs. A term used by strikers to describe colleagues who have returned to work. S is also for secondary pickets, who set up outside other businesses to encourage those workers to join the strike.

TUC. The Trades Union Congress, a federation of unions set up in 1868, represents more than six million workers in Britain.

Union. A trade union is a group of workers who negotiate collectively with employers. Unions had their origin in the 19th century as industry started employing large groups of workers. Their decline has, on the whole, matched that of Britain's manufacturing base.

Violence. Force was used on both sides in the miners' strike. The most sickening incident involved a concrete block being thrown off a bridge at a car taking a miner across a picket line, killing a taxi driver.

Winter of Discontent. There were widespread strikes in the winter of 1978-79. The failure of James Callaghan's Labour Government to get a grip on industrial relations contributed to Thatcher's landslide Tory victory in 1979. W is also for Wapping. Er, this was before my time; it seems there was a little local difficulty when some newspapers moved to this bit of East London.

X-rated. In his comedy Lysistrata, the Greek dramatist Aristophanes invented the concept of the sex strike to bring about peace. The women of Athens refuse to have sex with their husbands until they end the Peloponnesian War.

Yorkshire. Where the miners' strike began. News that Cortonwood, a pit near Barnsley, was to close, triggered the strike and the scale of the Government's plans quickly became clear.

Zzz. The sound heard in Tony Blair's private office when union leaders visited.

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