Miners set to mark the strike
Tuesday 3rd March 2009, 8:59AM GMT.
LETTER: March 12 marks the 25th anniversary of the start of the year-long long miners’ strike.
A quarter of a century on, the devastating economic and social problems resulting from the pit closure programme are still to be seen in areas throughout Britain where mining was the principal industry.
At a time when the banks have been bailed out to a tune of £120 billion, economically viable pits could have been saved at a cost (at today’s money) of £1billion.
Moreover, the UK today depends on coal for half of its energy.
As a consequence we import 45 million tonnes of coal a year – enough to have kept 45 pits open. The money needed to keep the pits open in the 1980s would by now have been repaid manifold.
We will never forget the tremendous support we got from support groups and individuals throughout the country who selflessly raised money and food for our families and offered accommodation when we were in the area.
As this is the 25th anniversary of the strike the NUM is commemorating it with many activities but the focal point is the hit play Maggie’s End, which will run at the 500-seat Shaw Theatre, Euston Road (next to Kings Cross Station), London, from April 7 to 18.
I realise the show is in London but we’d love to see anyone there who supported the miners in their struggle to save their communities.
Davey Hopper
NUM
North East Area Secretary
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And 25 years later, you still don’t get it, do you?
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Cheap but factless jibe.
Least they went out and defended their cause – today – its log on moan on (and on and on) but don’t get out there are Do Something about it.
I do seem to remember that actually Arthur Scargill was / is still right about the need for coal – albeit on a crash course with his manner in running the strike.
Look at the big picture – the strike was choralled to happen by Thatcher as part of the
grand payback for the Tories loss in the 70s.
The teachers were hung out to dry as well – and more sublty told be the blame for things that were and still are responsibilites of parents. All for daring to take on the Tories.
- afterall weren’t the Tories stoking up the banks in a gallop of greed and fake finance that the current situation is the logical finale? (yes, I know Blair could have changed things, but he’s a Tory anyway).
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Perhaps you would like to share with the rest of us exactly what he’s supposed to get?
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I have no sympathy for those that strike: I never have done and never will. The unions that destroyed Britain under their beloved Labour administration of the 70s had to be crushed. Scargill tried to use the mining industry to take on Thatcher and the dawn of a new era. He lost. The miners lost. Good riddance.
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H. St. John Peasbody said:
“Scargill tried to use the mining industry to take on Thatcher and the dawn of a new era. He lost. The miners lost. Good riddance.”
Errr, which “new era” are you referring to – the current recession and the virtual death of productive industry in Britain, where we will be worse affected than virtually any other economy?
Don’t tell me, that’s only because New Labour didn’t quite follow Thatcher’s instructions to the letter….
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Perhaps Rob would like to outline which Western economies still have a productive industry? None – everything is produced in the Far East because, get this, labour is cheap out there! Here, we have an absurd minimum wage! We can’t have it all ways, Rob. Perhaps you’d rather have “guns or butter” economics along with your pink blanket?
And Britain is severely affected by this recession thanks to the previous Chancellor’s management of the economy for a decade – yes, Gordon’s fault. Of course it is – TEN YEARS in no. 11 and this is the result. A “prudent economy” built on lies and spin.
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Strikes and pointless unions help know one apart from the union bosses who get well paid through it all scargill never lost his home did he? infact he bought a brand new one . Go on pay your union dues. I did for 16 years and got nothing apart from relieved of my union dues. And before any one prattles on about pay rises we were given them when the bosses decided we had one which was usually every other year or so but the unions told us it was down to them . Yes and pigs fly glad i am my own boss now and i will have no truck with any silly union.aND WHAT A MUG I WAS TO PAY THEM ANYTHING.As for the miners move on for godsake its 20 odd years .
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Andrew, you’re wrong. The trade Union movement had a proud history of protecting workers’ rights and working conditions in this country – and the wealthy few hated it.
That’s why Thatcher attacked the coal industry – she wanted to undermine the rights of all workers.
Look at the liberties that have now been taken by global multi-national companies with our jobs, and our money. If the power was left in the hands of the real wealth creators – the workers – this couldn’t have happened. It wasn’t just the miners who lost under Thatcher – we all did, apart from a small number of greedy yuppies – and look what they did to us when they grew up.
For those that say ‘I would never strike’ – you’re simply inviting exploitation by the few who own most of the wealth in this world. You’d rather let your co-workers fight the battles for you.
I never particularly liked Scargill – he came across as humourless and self-obsessed – but he was right about Thatcher’s utter contempt for the ordinary working people of this country.
And Andrew – legally you can’t prevent any of your employees from joining a Union, nor can you sack them for doing so – it’s a basic human right in this country, despite Thatcher’s attempt to ban it at places such as GCHQ.
I hope that 51% of them do so – then you’d have to stop sulking and talk to their Union!
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only the loony left think the miners were right, history has proven that we were right to close the pits, maggie showed you lot
hahahahahahaahahah we won, you lost
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H. Sinjun, agree with everything you say and I also agree with you Andrew, this country does not know how near it came to having our democracy overturned and a nasty situation developing which everyone would have thought impossible.
Scargill, McGahey and the other communists and left wing extremists had set in train a militant, politicised, workers “battering ram”, bent on bringing about a violent revolution in our democratic process. The striking NUM, led by Scargill was to be the catalyst which brought other militant unions out on strike, either in sympathy with the mineworkers or having their own manufactured reasons for violent confrontation. (Remember Scargill getting funds from Colonel Ghadafi of Libya).
By the time Thatcher got in, the country had been wracked by strikes in almost every industry of importance, the car industry had been brought to it’s knees by the communist “Red Robbo”, the print media had brought the newspaper industry to it’s knees by excessive wage demands and it was all part of a “grand plan”, ie to bring about a workers revolution. Remember the violence with Scargill at Saltley Coking Works and the wrecked houses in Telford brought about by “flying pickets”.
Had Labour remained in power, Scargill’s plan would have succeeded. Luckily Thatcher saw it coming and once in power, she set out her stall, coal stocks were massively built up – enough to withstand a lengthy strike, Eddie Shah was a willing tool to confront the print workers at Grunwick. The Police were “put on a war footing” with huge emphasis put on anti public disorder training and the philosophy of Police mutual aide was formalised to the point where massive numbers of Police could be bussed about the country at a few minutes notice.
The liberalised “union laws” which gave Union leaders carte blanche to secondary picket, intimidate and beset workers houses was tightened up and, when the moment was right and Scargill threatened strike action, a “brought in toughie” from Canada, purposefully rejected every demand made by Scargill and we had the miners strike. Hitherto, Labour would have caved in to their demands and now they were up against Thatcher.
The Unions got was coming to them and which was long overdue. Rather than hold the country to ransom, they sank into the background and the militants were eased out and sanity prevailed. The threat to our society was ended and Scargill went into abject obscurity.
Now, with this Labour Government, union laws have been eased and militancy once again is on the increase. Talks with Union leaders and the beer and sandwiches regime is back again and we know what we are in for if New Labour get in for another term.
Just as in the 70s, Labour are running true to form, serious economic problems, industrial “champing at the bit” and a government built on lies, deceit and spin. All the hallmark of Labour in the 70s.
And, to boot, union members being thrown out of work by the thousand and Union leaders living on a pigs back with £400 a night hotel accomodation and the explanation that they have to “live up” to their exalted positions.
Once again it is the workers being regarded as little better than “gun fodder” by their own leaders who will lead them to penury, just as Scargill did all those years ago.
Now we have this man Hopper, harking back to those times, he must be the second coming of Peter Pan. Many of us recall those dark days with revulsion and are thankful that the admirers of “old Russia” were well and truly trounced.
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i think the point is valid
UK coal is better than polish coal too, we need to burn it despite green aims, so lets open up a few more pits, BUT…. Lets use polish labour or agency workers, either way lets not let the NUM run the country again
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Tory Boy – in the end I’m afraid ‘we’ didn’t win. You see all of our energy utilities were sold for a fast buck, under the facade of a ‘share-owning democracy’ and are now (surprise surprise) owned by foreign-led multi-national companies, who as we all know are profiteering at our expense via our Gas and electricity bills.
And Harry – I recall that although Margaret Thatcher was dead set against subsidised coal, she was perfectly happy to lose jobs and damage our economy by importing heavily-subsidised Polish coal in the ’80s. What a hypocrite she was.
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it was the miners strike that was the final straw for me as a tory, although i took a middle view. regrettably the miners were ill lead and crushed between two hard rocks. the first the loony right maggie hell bent on defeating the miners after they hung ted heath out to dry in 1973, and the second hard rock scargill who took the miners out without a ballot and for a political point masked by the threat of pit jobs. if he had got a ballot at least he might have had credability.
as it was after a year on strike the run down began and michael hesiltine closed our coal industry down. i can never forgive thatcher and scargill for all the misery caused in mining communities since then. tony benn was right to say this was britains last civil war.
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Stuart,
I’m not aware of any significant way in which the New Labour government has ‘eased’ Union laws. The only instance I can think of is the return of the right to belong to a Union to the staff unfairly penalised at GCHQ, and the payment of compensation to those unfairly sacked there.
We also have the minimum wage, and the restriction on people working excessive hours – perhaps you don’t like those either.
Moving on to some of your other inaccuracies, I think you must be getting your back copies of the Daily Mail mixed up – the Grunwick dispute was not to do with printing, Grunwick was a photographic laboratory, staffed mainly by low-paid Asian women, who, fed up with their exploitativwe working conditions, decided to join a union.
Their boss, despite the wishes of the majority of his workforce, decided he didn’t want to recognise their rights, and set about causing a lengthy and costly dispute. Interestingly, amongst those wgho spent time on the picket line were well-known moderates such as Shirley Williams, and Denis Howell, both well to the right within the Labour Party.
Rabid right-winger Keith Joseph described them as ‘Moderates behind whom Red Fascism spreads’. Upon hearing these comments fellow Tory Jim Prior described Joseph as ‘Off his head’, and even Thatcher described the comments as ‘A bit harsh’!
Eddie Shah had nothing whatsoever to do with Grunwick.
Derek ‘Red Robbo’ Robinson is a much-maligned man. He was indeed a communist, and did instigate a number of ill-advised strikes. But strikes don’t occur at the behest of one man. He was supported by many disgruntled, skilled car workers, who looked at their German counterparts and saw that engineers were regarded in that country as highly-skilled professional people, rather than grease-monkeys. Look at the fortunes of the German and British motor industries since – and bear in mind that the Germans have had far more trade union rights and recognition in the last 40 years or so than British workers have.
At the same time Thatcher was building an economy based upon barrow-boys trading shares
– an economy which we’re now finding was built on sand. It’s a matter of record that ‘Red Robbo’ always also campaigned for greater investement in the motor industry, and new models (although this side of his campagning was never advertised in the Tory press).
This lack of investment was the true cause of the demise of our motor industry. If you doubt this, compare the money that was being invested at Wolfsburg by Volkswagen in the ’80s and that invested in Longbridge and other Midlands plants. Thatcher despised people who got their hands dirty for a living.
Finally, talking about ‘threats to our democracy’, you may not be aware that in 1974 there was a conspiracy by certain ‘rogue’ex-Army officers to oust Harold Wilson. This culminated in a number of military manoeuvres which were not Government-authorised, including an attempt to put a ring around Heathrow Airport – I remember this being reported in the press at the time, and being reported as ‘an exercise’ – it now seems it wasn’t! So the far-right in this country were certainly out to threaten our democracy, using means far-less open to scrutiny than trade union activities.
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And Andrew – legally you can’t prevent any of your employees from joining a Union, nor can you sack them for doing so – it’s a basic human right in this country, despite Thatcher’s attempt to ban it at places such as GCHQ.
The above is correct and neither as an employer do the employer have to recognise any union that any one belongs too so this asks the question are the ones paying there union dues wasting there money?? yes they are unions will take the money and when they are asked to help oooooooops sorry cant help we have done all we can for .
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i was proud to have taken part in the last 5 gchq marches in cheltenham. i remember the celebration march in 1997. in thunder and lightening and without any bands as princess diana had died that early morning
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Peter, re Grunwick, I concede that Eddie Shah came later with the mass strikes over “electronic news gathering” and other newspaper related issues etc. Ward was the boss at Grunwick and both disputes had their origins in the militancy of unions bent on mass violence and confrontation, the “workers” were just a means to an end of left wing or Marxist union leaders. Indeed, whether it was under Labour or the early years under the Conservatives, this whole period was beset with strikes and industrial unrest deliberately fostered by extremist union leaders who had different motives to working in the best interests of their members. I quoted Grunwick, Eddie Shah etc to illustrate the extreme violence and political slant of unions in worker disputes rather than a wish to be pedantic.
I don’t take the Daily Mail but I will start to do so I think – or I will have to use Google a lot more before I rush into print. You seem to find it quite useful. My approach to anti militant Trade Unionism was brought about by me being in a position “to know” at that time and being aware of the devious means adopted by Union leaders and having a knowledge of their individual philosophies and thoughts and ideas. Many at that time were a danger to democracy, we will leave it at that.
The rest of your comment are the outpourings of the type of person who either led or was an activist in the unions in those terrible days.
Red Robbo was a thick, rabble rousing, troublesome loud – mouth who Manager after Manager had tried to get rid of but was afraid to because of his threat to lead a prolonged mass walk-out if he was sacked. The only ones to follow him were the workers of Longbridge, outside that factories fence, he was ridiculed and despised the length and breadth of the country.
Car factories then, as now were in private ownership, their investment and working conditions were for the “private” management – not Government. Just like the printers (the highest paid workers in the country at the time), the car workers were very highly paid and management were giving in to union demands in order to maintain production and keep the peace. This was the age of the whole production line and factory output coming to a halt if a foreman put a flea in the ear of a bone idle worker. Red Robbo would call them out and it is likely the foreman would be sacked rather than the idle worker. This was the regime in many, many factories and industries at that time – and you know it but either won’t admit it or believe in it and condone it.
Red Robbo had contempt for Labour as well as the Tories and his whole time at Longbridge was spent in formenting trouble and strikes. The fact that you defend him say’s much for your own politics and extreme socialist approach etc.
You jump on the left wing, “populist” anti Thatcher bandwaggon of the time Peter and I won’t insult you by saying what I think of others who do the same because (without being patronising), I think you are a little out of the ordinary anti Thatcher mob in that you seem fairly intelligent.
Now, the matter of 1974, who seems to have been reading the Daily Mail. Absolute and utter bunkum. How can you, the newspapers or anyone else for that matter know what was going on in the MOD or even in some remote Military unit at that time. And for anyone, other than a very well connected Officer in MI5 to say that a “coup de tat” was being planned is just plain Alice in Wonderland. Yes, I read the ridiculous newspaper comments. If you recall it was about the time that international terrorism was rearing it’s head and planes etc had been hijacked around the world.
The question of putting a ring around London Airport was an exercise with the Metropolitan Police and MOD working in tandem – which indeed was being acted upon a Met Police initiative and not the Army. If you recall there was a similar “exercise” not to long afterwards and in the order of things don’t you think that any plotters would have more than put a ring around Heathrow if they were plotting to set up whatever it was they wished – what about putting a ring around Parliament, Downing Street, The Palace, the BBC etc etc etc etc.
No Peter, pure fantasy, there was no right wing plot and anyway, they would have had to arrest me, shoot me or do something because I was in a position which, with a few friends I could have put the kybosh on the whole game as could thousands of others like me at that time. Anyway, I didn’t hear anything of secret trials, court martials, accidental shootings of Generals, Police Commissioners or Chief Constables or the like so you just fantasise and the rest of us will see those days as they really were, the country on the brink of disaster brought about by Trade Union militancy and unpatriotic scheming and chicanery.
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princess who? They reckon the band was playing at buck house.
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It is ironic that this anniversary mirrors in part the aspirations of another group of British workers that attempted to save their industry.
Almost 70 years ago 200 men from the northeast town of Jarrow embarked on a march to lobby an indifferent Tory government to bring much needed work to a brutally impoverished area, they were not successful largely due to policies of a Steel Cartel headed by German Nazi Steel producers preferred Lord Runciman who had top links to the Baldwin Government, net result Britain imported millions of tons of Nazi steel to the detriment of British workers, sound familiar?
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Peter, I agree with you on many points here…but looking at things from afar both sides (right and left) are at fault. I have worked in Britain and in Germany (as a tradesman) and there is certainly more respect for people who work with their hands (in Germany) than in Britain, or indeed other English speaking countries. This could be connected to language (German is my second language) in German there is no distinction between “professional” and “tradesman”. The word “beruf” applies to both. Also as regards to language the management would speak the same dialect as working men whereas in Britain accents and dialects help to enforce the class (and worker management) system.
There are many reasons why German industry has had more success than Britain’s… the first and most important has been the education of skilled workers. The German “gewerbeschule” or technical schools have been supported by both private sector industry, the public sector and government. In Great Britain trade schools and apprenticeship systems were largely dismantled.. Shirley Williams, whom you mention, was instrumental in closing down the technical institutions… and she was left leaning .. right?
Lack of investment may have been a factor in the demise of Britain’s industry, especially the motor industry, but lack of communication between management and workers was a bigger factor. In Germany union officials, and shop foremen were educated at universities and colleges and had a better understanding of the problems of management. A system of “Capitalism with a Conscience”…evolved and working people in Germany became richer than most people in Europe with extensive holidays, benefits etc., yet still remaining the world’s leading exporter…. until about two months ago when China took the lead.
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after 25 years let us remember some of the good things that happened during the miners year long strike. of the few good things one stands out a mile, i refer to the late great football manager brian clough who paid out of his own money and i suspect others contributed to send his local striking miners away to tenby for a fortnights holiday. generosity in deed. had it not been thatcher v scargill i am convinced we would have had a coal industry now, albeit considerably slimmed down, providing coal for new coal fired power stations which with new technology would have restricted carbon waste.
why are there plans to dig up the foothill of the wrekin.this coal must be used somewhere, doubt if they get planning for this though
with renewables only likely to provide 4 and half % of our power needs, i recommemd you all get a large supply of candles and oil lamps for use by 2015 or sooner. houses with open fires will be the ones to own or rent.
sadly we have been let down by successive governments and the heavenly twins castor and pollux aka blair and brown have dithered for 12 years about our future power needs
ps last one out please turn off the light before the french owned power industry do it for you
pps it is today 5.3.09 that is the silver anniversary of a very sooty black year in our history
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Another cycle of Labour mis-management, spend and waste, lies and spin!!
This time, the opposition are not capable of getting us out of McBroons mess!
Sad but true
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Stuart,
I agree that ‘Red Robbo’ was a rabble rouser, but I cannot dismiss the man as ‘thick’. He was well-educated, and to a great extent, self-educated – something I admire in him. He was and is, a communist, and whilst I’ve never shared his views politically, I respect his sincerity and integrity. He genuinely believed in what he was doing, and like it or not, some of his criticism, particularly over lack of investment, hit the nail on the head.
The Grunwick strike was a strike against unfair treatment of workers, and specifically of women workers. Inevitably other rag-bag groups such as the SWP joined picket lines and stirred things up, but it was a strike, as I’ve said in my previous post, that had a broad range of support, and was a case where workers had a legitimate grievance which their manager simply refused to discuss. Had he done so, the trouble could have been avoided, but he wqas having his strings pulled by parties of the right such as the inappropriately-named and very anti-TU National Association for Freedom.
Turning to the 1974 ‘Coup d’Etat’. The incident I described did happen – see guardian.co.uk or ukwatch.net for further details.
It was a pretty half-hearted attempt, which came to nothing, but there were certainly those on the loony-right who were covertly considering such activities.
I’ve been a member of a trade union for over 20 years, but I’ve never been either a militant or an activist – I was briefly a local rep, which involved little more than the distribution of a news sheet now and then.
Tony,
I wouldn’t really have thought that Shirley Williams was regarded as ‘left-leaning’ at the time. She was towards the right of the Labour party, and ultimately left to start the SDP.
Of course, Labour then was a good deal more to the left that the centrist party we see today.
I think she was instrumental in replacing Secondary Modern schools with Comprehensives, but the real nail in the coffin of education to create properly-skilled workers was the scrapping of the Industrial Training Boards and formal apprenticeships in the 1980s, and their replacement with the truly awful YTS schemes – little more than a mechanism to introduce cheap Labour into the marketplace.
Apprentices were never well-paid, but at least they got good training – YTS people, with a few exceptions of genuinely good employers, got neither decent pay nor training.
The class system in this country has always been a barrier to our success – there’s no doubt about that, and it was as much to preserve that ‘them and us’ division in the 80s as anything else that made Thatcher undermine and attack ordinary working people at every possible opportunity.
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i am neither a socialist or a labourite just a trade unionist looking after my colleagues rights. what a pity scargill and co gave the unions such a bad name. but rotten apples in unions are alive and well today, i understand one of my unions leaders wasted £1000 pounds of union funds, that is members funds on 1 nights b and b in the usa
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Peter, the mere mention of the word “Guardian” is enough for me. That supports my view that it was a fantasy. Nobody in the pay of the Guardian would know if a “coup” was being planned because, quite simply, if one was being thought about, the Guardian or any other paper would not have had the slightest sniff of it. Even Chapman Pincher, the Daily Express clot who professed to know how the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service ate, slept and breathed didn’t labour the point of a coup to any great extent. He merely mouthed continually of the left wing plots to liberty and freedom in this country. Indeed, as far as I can recall, he was one of the prime movers in starting up the NAFF in 1975 which, I grant you was extremely anti union. I lump him and the Guardian writers together. There was no attempted coup albeit, some idiots of no account and unknown in any responsible walk of life may have mulled the idea over in drunken chats. Certainly the alleged “ring ” around Heathrow was not part of it but it made good copy for journalists who liked to impress with their purported knowledge of the cloak and dagger boys. They had been reading to much of John Le Carrie.
As for your comments on the class system and Thatcher, again total bunkum. The woman came from a humble background herself – was it a grocers family in Grantham – correct me if I am wrong. She was opposed to militant unions who saw their loyalty to Moscow rather than London. She was a woman of her time, next to Churchill, the greatest Prime Minister that this country has had and it took her own lily livered Ministers like Heseltine and Howe and the like to bring her down, Certainly the British people didn’t.
Those that talk about class systems, accents and all the rest of the nonsence are in cloud cuckoo land. A big chip on the shoulder, jealousy, envy, lack of ambition, lack of achievement, ashamed of their own background etc, I attach all these to those that complain of a “class system” in order to cover up their own failings and inabilities.
Whilst I was doing my National Service, I used to rail about the chinless, toffee nosed, cherry mouthed wonders in Officers uniforms as many of us did. Having left the army, I still continued to have much to do with it from my job point of view with meetings with very senior officers with red collar tabs on their uniforms. Before going to a meeting, I used to delight in looking at the salary scales of those attending from the Army and comparing them with my own – I can’t recall one occasion when theirs was greater than mine. There was no greater “class divide” in those days than the Armed Services, it was not only based on rank but also the demarcation between “Officers and other ranks, ie non Officers”.
Out of the services, on equal terms they had no advantage whatsoever and “did not try it on”.
So, those that harp on about class, I say to them, well, do something about it and try to improve yours rather than decrying those who have generally achieved something. “Class” is to much of an excuse for ones own failings.
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down with the communists long live the queen
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Could have predicted most of comments on this blog before I even looked! The Miners strike was a classic confrontation by a left wing Union leader Arthur Scargill and a right wing PM Margaret Thatcher and who was right and who was wrong? well in my opinion both were wrong! and the losers were all of us! we now import huge amounts of inferior coal from Eastern Europe while our own coalfields lie idle. I am a union member and have been for 30 years and went on strike for nearly 4 weeks in 1987 so I did have a taste of what the Miners went through! was it worth probably not and would I do it again? not on your nelly.
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Peter,
Yes… I can remember the lousy pay as an apprentice in the UK… it was 29 bob a week.. didn’t go very far even in ‘them’ days. But neither the boss nor the union encouraged technical training… so both were at fault.
I’m afraid I know nothing about the industrial training boards – but Shirley surely dismantled the tripartite system, closed the technical schools and adopted the North American system of High Schools .. just another name for Comprehensive. Bad idea…!
When it comes to unions today… they have nothing in common with the trade associations of the past. On this continent the bulk of unions and associations are for the benefit of the middle and indeed upper middle class, most (of the) working class don’t have a union.
In turn these professional unions (nurses, civil servants, teachers, health-care workers) are in reality corporations.. rich ones at that. They run the biggest financial corporations on the continent and are in it for profit.You will likely find that public servants’ and teachers’ unions have bought up quite a few of your utility companies including water, gas, and electricity and (for profit) have increased the prices affecting working people in your country. Unions, as I see it, are no longer for the “workers” but for elite groups who have the money to invest on a worldwide scale to the detriment of poor people .. especially in the third world.
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ITS REALLY SAD SOCIETY IS SO POLARISED BY THIS, ITS A SAD SAD TALE OF UNEMPLOYMENT BUT I THINK NECESSARY FOR THE ECONOMY AT LARGE
I just wish people would see the human side and not get so angry and extreme views over this
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Stuart, I see Mrs. Thatcher’s gamble with the miners’ union more as a threat to Moscow… and Britain’s miners were caught in between. Arguably, Mrs. Thatcher, was the most important western figure to rid the world of Moscow’s influence. Without communism in the back forty the dispute would’ve been a domestic affair……some mines would be closed, others privatized or bought out, perhaps by employees. Nevertheless many miners would have had to have retraining into other fields…. what a Godsend after working in a mine! And let’s not forget that Mrs. Thatcher’s economic philosophies came from the Austrian economist Hayak, he was her mentor and adviser .
Peter, Just a point from this side of the pond. Some of the world’s largest coalmines (causing massive environmental damage to fauna and flora) here in Western Canada, are owned by unions; teachers’ unions. Kinda sad but true.
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Tony, Thatchers primary concern in the confrontation with the miners was the fact that the NUM under Scargill’s leadership had previously brought down two previous governments and was in the forefront of, and the blueprint for almost every industrial dispute in this country going back many years. Other unions followed the NUMs lead and almost every strike/unrest received NUM support and encouragement.
Prior to her government gaining power, particularly under Jim Callaghan (1976), the country was a basket case with strikes being part of a national desease. Ted Heath (1970) had also been unable to withstand industrial unrest and strikes and his weak government had also lost out.
Thatcher let it be known, almost openly to the Tory heirarchy that any government of hers was not going to be a Ted Heath lookalike. It was partly this open contempt for his premiership, together with some other matters which brought about the lasting vitriolic relationship between Thatcher and Heath.
Some would say that she was “out for revenge” against Scargill and again, some of us would say it became almost “personal”.
Therefore, the NUM and Scargill were firmly in Thatchers sights immediately the Tory government took office in 1979. The philosophy was, “break Scargill and the NUM and one break’s union militancy and industrial unrest across the board”.
Moscow did not figure in any Tory deliberations with regard to domestic industrial/union matters other than the normal “western liberal democracies” awareness and approach to Soviet issues as they affected their normal wish to undermine capitalism and promote worker unrest and ultimately, revolution. The Soviet cliche’ “Iron Lady”, I agree, was based on their perceptions of Thatcher because of her strong will when it came to domestic matters, eg “the lady’s not for turning” etc and her strong will in International affairs – particularly with the EU. “Moscow” per se was not a major consideration in her dealing with the miners and the miners were not “caught in between”. Indeed, any “winnings” over Moscow, first and foremost came about from her primary objective of “winning” over the NUM and other unions. We must not see Thatcherism and the miners NUM in isolation however, the NUM and Scargill was the head of the monster, but the body was all the “gun fodder” of the other extremist unions, many in the public services (who, some would argue had a right to be militant in view of their derisory pay scales and working conditions) who similarly had to be dealt with.
Scargill and the union bully boys had their heyday under Heath, Wilson and Callaghan. They were put in their right place under Maggie Thatcher but today, we see the same sort of policies on the part of at least two major unions , the same type of half illiterate Union leaders with a Communist background who can only spout extreme socialist rhetoric, willing to lead their members to the precipice whilst they enjoy the good things in life and all the trappings of luxury at their members expence.
I can see at least two unions causing major trouble if the Tories get into power next time around.
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