Reply to: Miners Strike - 25 yrs on

[Cyberman]

I remember the 1970s : power cuts and unions running the country. I was really pleased when Thatcher broke the unions. Bring back Maggie : we need someone to sort out the credit crunch.

WHS !!!

[BrilloPad]

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7925552.stm

Any memories, stories, opinions ?


I was in the RAF at the time and posted over in Lincoln, I remember driving over one day and seeing scores and scores of police vans heading down the
A1. I remember at the time thinking - bl**dy miners, but that was mainly watching the BBC. Anyone have any good links or recommend any books that gives both sides of the story ?

I remember the 1970s : power cuts and unions running the country. I was really pleased when Thatcher broke the unions. Bring back Maggie : we need someone to sort out the credit crunch.

[Cyberman]

That's right, and people should remember that unions don't just become radicalised without a reason. Intransigence from both sides will never solve anything. It's a particular working atmosphere that gives the Scargills of this world the opportunity to get power in unions, and it doesn't need to happen.

You just cannot give in to unions that ask for 27% pay rises as the miners did. We gave in too much in the 70s and it needed a strong leader to stand up to their blackmail and return to a viable economy. Thatcher was that strong leader.

[Cyberman]

One thing that shocks me about the whole miners strike is that people on the right seem to forget that miners were real people, with homes and families who were genuinely frightened about their future. They weren't born as hard left communists, they followed a leader they thought could rescue their jobs. On the left there seems to be a denial that something needed to change in British industry and that the unions were by then not really suited to cooperating in change; ultimately it turned into a battle between the hard right and the hard left which the hard right won at the time, but in hindsight, everybody lost.

We did not all lose. In fact we gained by the demise of union power and increased efficiency of the economy as strikes reduced in all industries. Overall, we had a boom period that has been wasted since 1997 with a return to tax and spend policies of the 70s and that are now landing us with a doubling of the national debt to a trillion pounds under Brown.

[Cyberman]

Honda and Nissan UK both allow unions and they are/were some of the most successful car plants in the western hemisphere, you can’t blame unions for everything, short termism and greed is more of a problem for the British IMO.

Those are successful because the practices were agreed with the unions from set-up, and Nissan for instance set up in the 80s after the Thatcher legislation. The problem arises when the company requires efficiency changes to be made and this could well cause strife at Nissan in the future.

To see problems of longstanding restrictive practices you only have to look at the railways and post office, where salaries and perks are now far higher than in their comparative industries abroad. The Sun newspaper also had massive problems with the printing unions in the early 70s when they wanted to computerise printing practices.

Unfortunately, the unions are largely responsible for the demise of much of British industry and the reluctance of foreign companies to employ British labour in the UK.

[foritisme]

Nah, sod the topic. Let's discuss your shiny, sparkly clean, blue overalls!!

2nd line - I spent most of my time running the tuck shop !

[DodgyAgent]

It's ironic really that the "prosperous" industries such as electricity, gas , telecom were sold off and the un-prosperous [or so thatcher said] were closed.

The jobs that were lost have never been replaced, and the profits of the utilities most;y end up over-seas...

So why is it that the coal mines that are now operating cannot find skilled miners to work in them? Your cliches suggest that every miner who lost his job has simply sat at home for 25 years waiting for another job.

[ratewhore]

Flight Systems - Red Arrows

Nah, sod the topic. Let's discuss your shiny, sparkly clean, blue overalls!!

[OwlHoot]

I remember also a story of a prostitute that offered free sex to miners because she was in favour of the strike but many wives were not and had refused 'conjugal rights'. She fainted when one miner called on her because of the size of his enormous plonker.

You mean he'd brought Arthur Scargill with him?

[Sysman]

I'm in the US this week, and it's interesting to see how many of the big US car manufacturers are still struggling to cope with union practices. I'm not saying whether they are justified or not, but their slightly suicidal intransigence appears puzzling in the "current climate."

Half a dozen or so years ago a mate did a 6 month stint in the US and on his return was moaning vociferously about the unions there. Apparently if he wanted to dive into a bit of electrical kit he had to get someone else to undo the screws on the cover plates for him - the sort of stuff I'd heard about happening in heavy UK union shops in the 1970s.

[Mich the Tester]

The jobs that were lost have never been replaced, and the profits of the utilities most;y end up over-seas...

When I did my PDip in Manufacturing and Technology I was told I was obliged to study industrial history; I thought that it would be boring and useless, but it turned out to be fascinating, particularly British and US heavy industry and labour relations in the post-war period. It concerns me that the lessons from those times haven't been learned. Too often work is outsourced for short term financial gains (plenty cheapness, much quickness) with no thought to the long term loss of skill and knowledge in a particular business or industry. We see authoritarian 'professional managers' in service businesses who have no real nitty-gritty knowledge of the product or service (see the bank directors) and who don't listen to professionals. It's all happening all over again, but now it's the white collar workers' time to suffer.

Perhaps humans are doomed to repeat the errors of history.

[foritisme]

You weren't a scuffer were you? Did you have a proper job?

Flight Systems - Red Arrows

Then had my first taste of IT on the AEW Nimrod at Waddington (abeit only for a short time ! )


But going back on topic and what Mich said - I think I was very lucky to be in an 'industry' that was unaffected on the whole by the miner's strike. Looking at some of those images on the bbc website, you can see real people and it must have been truely awful for them, their families and their communities.

[Bagpuss]

We've gone from a bunch of miners holding us ransom over our energy needs to a bunch of Russian gangstas, sorry I mean businessmen. Which is worse?

[Bluebird]

Thatcher inherited labour relations that had been ruined many years earlier. She could have tried to gradually improve matters, but chose, perhaps considering the financial situation of UK and the hard left nature of the unions, to wield an axe. Unfortunately she did this with little regard to the consequences for people who had earned their living from mining and had built their communities around the mine. Just providing subsidies for a shopping centre to provide McJobs to people who'd grown up with pride in their work didn't help anybody.

her battle was against the unions, but she seemed to forget that the individual miners were real, living, feeling human beings.

It's ironic really that the "prosperous" industries such as electricity, gas , telecom were sold off and the un-prosperous [or so thatcher said] were closed.

The jobs that were lost have never been replaced, and the profits of the utilities most;y end up over-seas...

[Bluebird]

One thing that shocks me about the whole miners strike is that people on the right seem to forget that miners were real people, with homes and families who were genuinely frightened about their future. They weren't born as hard left communists, they followed a leader they thought could rescue their jobs. On the left there seems to be a denial that something needed to change in British industry and that the unions were by then not really suited to cooperating in change; ultimately it turned into a battle between the hard right and the hard left which the hard right won at the time, but in hindsight, everybody lost.

There are towns and villages in South Wales which have never recovered from the closure of the mine in the 80s.
There is an element of regeneration, but now the service industry jobs which were to replace the mines / manufacturing roles are now being out- sourced abroad as well.