Tonypandy miners during the Miners Strike of 1910-11. The strikes were an attempt by miners and their families to improve wages and living conditions in severely deprived parts of South Wales. Wages had been kept low for years by a cartel of mine owners. What became known as the Tonypandy riots of 1910 and 1911 were a series of violent confrontations between the striking coal miners and police that took place at various locations in and around the Rhondda mine. The confrontations were the culmination of the industrial dispute between workers and the mine owners. The term "Tonypandy riot" applied to specific events on the evening of Tuesday, 8 November 1910, when strikers smashed windows of businesses in Tonypandy..