Whatever you think of previous strikes the 1984 strike was about preventing mass closures of mines and huge job losses. As for the 3 day week, that strike was about being offered a pay rise below inflation. What would you have done in their position?
Scargill was simply using the miners for political point scoring, he wanted to bring down the government. London docks went the same way as did BL and other major businesses. UK unions have never really looked after the interests of their members, they are too busy playing politics. They got away with too much for too long due to **** poor management caving in to unreasonable demands always the chickens came home to roost when the businesses ended or collapsed.
 
With all due respect, that's bollocks. Maybe Scargill did have ulterior motives, but from the average miner's point of view the Government were proposing mine closures and huge job losses, that's why they went on strike. Remember, this was a Government with a leader who described high unemployment as "a price worth paying".
 
You only have to look at what labour and conservatives both did to the working man to see where their real interests lie . They were driven by ideology as were the unions at BL ,
workers are pawns , as can be seen from the EU , free movement of labour , but its like any commodity oversupply devalues. Sheeples is the word that describes.
 
With all due respect, that's bollocks. Maybe Scargill did have ulterior motives, but from the average miner's point of view the Government were proposing mine closures and huge job losses, that's why they went on strike. Remember, this was a Government with a leader who described high unemployment as "a price worth paying".

Not only that, but it has made this country dependent on energy supplies from other countries. She also encouraged people to sign up for disability benefits to disguise the amount of unemployment. Its a trend that continues to rise and is hard to reverse. There used to be a stigma to being on benefits but she removed that.
 
It does seem that the Torys, or rather the elite who operate their strings, are again striving to put the working man back in his place. They want to get rid of the middle class and upper working class, and go back to a Victorian style Britain, with a few very, very rich, and the rest very poor and doing as they are told. I gather Cameron is now proposing serious restrictions on the Unions, employees rights and the right to strike. These proposals were not mentioned a great deal before the election.
 
It does seem that the Torys, or rather the elite who operate their strings, are again striving to put the working man back in his place. They want to get rid of the middle class and upper working class, and go back to a Victorian style Britain, with a few very, very rich, and the rest very poor and doing as they are told. I gather Cameron is now proposing serious restrictions on the Unions, employees rights and the right to strike. These proposals were not mentioned a great deal before the election.

So, that's all from driving in France for now. Would anyone like to comment on the price of bacon? We could end up talking about the plight of penguins!
 
Save_the_Penguins-863cnu-d.jpg
 
With all due respect, that's bollocks. Maybe Scargill did have ulterior motives, but from the average miner's point of view the Government were proposing mine closures and huge job losses, that's why they went on strike. Remember, this was a Government with a leader who described high unemployment as "a price worth paying".
Mine closure was precipitated by restrictive practices making them unprofitable plus continual strikes or strike threats.
Even after the closures, private companies found it impossible to operate deep mines at a profit when imported coal was so much cheaper.
Opencast survived for a while, may still survive, I haven't checked.
 
Mine closure was precipitated by restrictive practices making them unprofitable plus continual strikes or strike threats.
Even after the closures, private companies found it impossible to operate deep mines at a profit when imported coal was so much cheaper.
Opencast survived for a while, may still survive, I haven't checked.

What restrictive practices do you mean?

One problem with the big mining and steel industries was that whole communities were served by mainly one workplace. Closing so many in one fell swoop left unemployment as the only option for most workers, and the destruction of local economies, including the businesses that relied on the custom of those workers. Any Government that cared about it's people at all would have done it differently, either by gradual closure or alternative employment creation or both. What these communities are left with now, which took several years to create, is mainly retail parks - people working in shops to make money to spend in other shops, and lower incomes overall.
This assumes that these closures were in fact necessary, although by now the coal industry would be much reduced anyway due to lower demand.
As for imported coal, quality was very often lower (this according to my father who worked in a coal fired power station) and increased the costs of some industries. The effect of not producing enough coal for the country's needs has been that imported coal has also become more expensive.
I do wonder what the overall effect of mine closures, importing coal, lower incomes and unemployment has had on the UK economy since 1984?
 
What restrictive practices do you mean?

One problem with the big mining and steel industries was that whole communities were served by mainly one workplace. Closing so many in one fell swoop left unemployment as the only option for most workers, and the destruction of local economies, including the businesses that relied on the custom of those workers. Any Government that cared about it's people at all would have done it differently, either by gradual closure or alternative employment creation or both. What these communities are left with now, which took several years to create, is mainly retail parks - people working in shops to make money to spend in other shops, and lower incomes overall.
This assumes that these closures were in fact necessary, although by now the coal industry would be much reduced anyway due to lower demand.
As for imported coal, quality was very often lower (this according to my father who worked in a coal fired power station) and increased the costs of some industries. The effect of not producing enough coal for the country's needs has been that imported coal has also become more expensive.
I do wonder what the overall effect of mine closures, importing coal, lower incomes and unemployment has had on the UK economy since 1984?
It would take too long to list all the restrictive practices, my family come from Yorkshire and are well versed in the stupidity that went on.
But as an example, when I was an apprentice electrician, if we had a job in the London Docks on a ship for example, before we could go to the job, we had to go to the yard and remove saws for metal & wood, drills, pipe threading & bending gear etc. To install a conduit run, we needed umpteen different trades to drill hole through the metal or wood bulkheads, cut thread and bend the pipe, drill & fix the saddles, install the pipe, leaving us to pull the wires in and connect. A job that should have taken less than a day took a week. Similar things went on in the mines and in my experience in the newspaper industry. I'm sure it affected other industries too in particular BL.
the UK was known as the sick man of Europe
 
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France is great thanks for asking, it helps that my wife is a French and Spanish teacher. As for the strikes malarkey, I was only eleven you bunch of old farts[emoji69]
 
The whole point was that the Tory government were killing their jobs; they were trying to save them. Do you think they'd have saved their jobs by doing nothing?

The Clyde workers succeeded, by the way.

The Clyde workers success was just another political ploy to attain the yes vote. As usual, England and the English take the hit!
 
i wonder if the price of cheaper(?) imported coal plus the cost of unemployment benefits for out of work miners would be more or less than the cost of British coal. When ever we are told it will be cheaper to import there is no mention of the wider costs. Importing goods equals exporting jobs.
And no, I have no idea what this has to do with driving in France.
 
The Clyde workers success was just another political ploy to attain the yes vote. As usual, England and the English take the hit!

Check my posts, I referred to the UCS work-in. I doubt they thought of the 2014 referendum in 1971.
As for your second point, check your history; Scotland took a much bigger hit than England in the 80s, as did Wales, although parts of England were as bad, mostly in the North where it was more industrialised. Why do you think we haven't voted Tory since?
 
Check my posts, I referred to the UCS work-in. I doubt they thought of the 2014 referendum in 1971.
As for your second point, check your history; Scotland took a much bigger hit than England in the 80s, as did Wales, although parts of England were as bad, mostly in the North where it was more industrialised. Why do you think we haven't voted Tory since?

Go even further back in history and you will find the bale out of a bankrupt Scotland by England has led to nothing but shoulder chips on behalf of the Scott's.
I spent my childhood and working life, certainly the biggest part of it, working in Sheffield. Well aware of northern preferences and, come to that working practices. But a sweeping statement about who votes or doesn't vote Tory is a bit ill informed. Not everyone from there frequented a bar festooned with spittoons and, or went down the mines aged 10. The country has the government it voted for under the system it has always used, first past the post. So, for the next few years you are going to have to get used to it. After all, Plenty of us suffered under 13 years of the other lot of losers!
 

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