Carryfast:
While now of course it’s all about the bs ‘climate change’ issue to make sure that British coal stays underground to keep the imports ( and the kickbacks to the bankers ) flowing.
Ah, the good old conspiracy theory. The true socialist delusionist’s ace in the hole.
Coal, as a fuel, is basically finished. It might be plentiful but believe it or not it’s bloody dirty; round here it wasn’t so much “How Green was my Valley” as “How Black…” and if you want to go back to that sort of environment go live in Port Talbot for a few weeks , you’ll soon change your mind.
There’s nothing socialist about taking the US coal industry’s view of the situation.It’s the environentalist global warming believers who are the real delusionists.
Coal finished yeah right.In the minds of the global warming believers who’ve been indoctrinated by the bankers.Just like here the yanks are now making themselves reliant on natural gas supplies which won’t be sustainable in the long term which will then make them reliant on imported energy supplies.Meanwhile in other countries more coal fired energy plants are being built than are being closed down in the states even though like here the US is self sufficient in coal.
Soldier z:
So why didn’t the unions stop Blair?
They are after all bankrolling Labour be it old or new.
Millband and the rest of the clowns he’s surrounded with won’t be any better.
It’s convienient for everybody to blame Thatcher but nobody has reversed a single thing she’s done.
Truth be told Labour and the tories would kill for a leader like her again.
That’s why Blair and his crew proposed a state funeral for her - she did their job for them and they carried it on.
Instead Labour flooded the market with cheap foreign labour whilst paying British wasters more money to sit at home than the working man.
Funny how all these union men forget their principles when they are offered a safe seat or a seat in the house of lords.
Lord Prescott was all for blowing it up until he was offered a place in it at £300 a day.
We all point the fingers at bankers and tax payers bailout remember who it was who sent that money over to them?
By the time Blair was elected the union movement had long since given up having been defeated by Thatcher just as was the case in the States in the case of Reagan.The fact is when push comes to shove unions are now as much use as taking a knife to a gunfight.Meanwhile most real Labour voters had given up on the Party when Callaghan and Healey stitched up the unions during the late 1970’s which is how Maggie got elected in 1979.The only landslide in that election being all the disillusioned Labour voters who stayed at home.The rest is history.
Carryfast:
While now of course it’s all about the bs ‘climate change’ issue to make sure that British coal stays underground to keep the imports ( and the kickbacks to the bankers ) flowing.
Ah, the good old conspiracy theory. The true socialist delusionist’s ace in the hole.
Coal, as a fuel, is basically finished. It might be plentiful but believe it or not it’s bloody dirty; round here it wasn’t so much “How Green was my Valley” as “How Black…” and if you want to go back to that sort of environment go live in Port Talbot for a few weeks , you’ll soon change your mind.
Who are you going to send down t’pit to get it if you do bring good old British Coal back in.
Most of the miners are in their 60’s now.
Whose going to give up a good beniffit income to go and dig coal for a living?
Your right it’s not nice stuff they didn’t call them “black backs” for nothing
Unions are about as usefull as a pork pie at a bar mitzvah.
Tesco has it’s own union, financed in part by the company itself
The TGWU, URTU, NUT, NUM are all blood sucking money making groups that take from members and give very little back except to it’s executives.
The case in point recently where Arthur Scargill wanted his extra house in London paid for by the union for the rest of his life… The poor families he and his arrogance destroyed while he lived in luxury at member expence. Stuff the unions.
I was a staunch supporter of unions and a long time TGWU member because I realised the vital part they had played in getting the working man a living wage and decent conditions that we (up until the 90’s) enjoyed.
What made me leave the union though was during the first fuel protests when the (then) general secretary publicly criticised the protestors! These were his members he was berating, the very people who paid his 140k a year salary, his flash Jag, and generous pension scheme. I realised he had one eye on his imminent knighthood so betrayed his members for his bag of silver coins.
the maoster:
I was a staunch supporter of unions and a long time TGWU member because I realised the vital part they had played in getting the working man a living wage and decent conditions that we (up until the 90’s) enjoyed.
What made me leave the union though was during the first fuel protests when the (then) general secretary publicly criticised the protestors! These were his members he was berating, the very people who paid his 140k a year salary, his flash Jag, and generous pension scheme. I realised he had one eye on his imminent knighthood so betrayed his members for his bag of silver coins.
The TUC showed it’s gutless true colours by failing to call a general strike in support of the miners against the Thatcher government.While even if it had the question as to wether there would have been solid support by all the unions memebership instead of swallowing all the Thatcherite bs would still have been there anyway.I think,like in many other cases,the working class have brought a lot of the problems it now faces on itself.Too many gutless weak turncoats who’ve thrown away most of what previous generations of workers had fought for and decided to believe everything that Thatcher told them instead.
Carryfast:
The TUC showed it’s gutless true colours by failing to call a general strike in support of the miners against the Thatcher government.
flying pickets
one out all out
coming out in solidarity with our brother workers
to coin a few phrases
like i said the demise of british industry
maybe someone in the TUC could see
The idea of ‘flying pickets’ is a contradiction in an environment where there is solidarity because they wouldn’t have been needed.
The fact is too many people seem to conveniently forget that Thatcher (and Reagan) actually ‘won’,not the Unions,and the ‘result’ was the demise of British ( and US ) industry.As I said the TUC ( and the Labour Party ) was made up of a bunch of gutless turncoat tossers ( probably a refelection of the working class it reperesented ) and the rest is history.
I know the Union is not just about striking but for me as a new driver with a new mortgage back in 76/77 to go on a drivers strike never ever again. and then there was talk about striking over the tacho, well that didn’t happen
toothpick johnny:
I know the Union is not just about striking but for me as a new driver with a new mortgage back in 76/77 to go on a drivers strike never ever again. and then there was talk about striking over the tacho, well that didn’t happen
Striking is a bit like war.No sane person wants to do it and afterwards every sane person says never again but the the fact is throughout history there’s often been no alternative and if it hadn’t been for people over the years who realised that you probably wouldn’t have been able to afford a mortgage in 1976.Just as many people now can’t because the unions have been defeated and they’re finished with the result that wage levels are now so far behind prices the economy is going backwards.
It’s a bit surprising that some still think that it is the workers having too many rights ( eg constructive dismissal etc) and that legislation protecting the workforce is preventing employment opportunities in the UK
The Government’s agenda of ‘reforms’ continues despite the undisputed fact that:
the number of ET claims issued in the Tribunals has dropped significantly over
the last 18 months (a 15% fall between April ’11 and March ’12)
the UK is already one of the world’s least regulated labour markets (moving from
10th to 8th most flexible labour market within the recent World Economic Forum
Global Competitiveness Report) and the Government admits that the UK has
less employment ‘red tape’ than Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
(the Government’s response on ‘No Fault Dismissals’ Consultation of September
2012
In addition there are numerous further changes to the employment law at present being debated and planned which will put employment tribunals almost out of the reach of many, with costs being significantly higher. Also new rules which will make the use of agency workers easier for bosses.
Whislt I can understand the sentiments of many against unions, you can be certain of one thing…there is NO ONE else going to oppose these changes except the unions.
If anyone wants I can paste the report of up coming changes, but it is quite a long one.
del949:
It’s a bit surprising that some still think that it is the workers having too many rights ( eg constructive dismissal etc) and that legislation protecting the workforce is preventing employment opportunities in the UK
The Government’s agenda of ‘reforms’ continues despite the undisputed fact that:
the number of ET claims issued in the Tribunals has dropped significantly over
the last 18 months (a 15% fall between April ’11 and March ’12)
the UK is already one of the world’s least regulated labour markets (moving from
10th to 8th most flexible labour market within the recent World Economic Forum
Global Competitiveness Report) and the Government admits that the UK has
less employment ‘red tape’ than Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
(the Government’s response on ‘No Fault Dismissals’ Consultation of September
2012
In addition there are numerous further changes to the employment law at present being debated and planned which will put employment tribunals almost out of the reach of many, with costs being significantly higher. Also new rules which will make the use of agency workers easier for bosses.
Whislt I can understand the sentiments of many against unions, you can be certain of one thing…there is NO ONE else going to oppose these changes except the unions.
If anyone wants I can paste the report of up coming changes, but it is quite a long one.
It’s just a typical tory idea of saying that making it easier to sack people will increase employment.In other words if you want more jobs then you’ll have to be prepared to accept zb terms and conditions and be prepared to work within the worst types of employment environment.Just as any average 1930’s worker ( who was lucky enough to have a job ) could have told you would happen when Callaghan and Thatcher managed to convince too many of the working class that ‘the unions’,as things stood in the early 1970’s,were too powerful.
The ‘unions’ are only as strong as the membership and you’re forgetting that the membership,where it exists,is now mostly made up of Thatcher’s and Blair’s generations who’ve been indoctrinated with the pro Chinese Communist Party line that the Britain of the early 1970’s was a bad place which no one would want to go back to.
My attitude del is zb em it’s their own fault for being so stupid to believe everything that the British government tells them and it’s all too late and there’s no way back.Might as well sell the place,and it’s mug workforce,out to the Chinese government now rather than later.
You even see it now, folk going on strike because the company wants to cut back or relocate,
The company will do what they want, your stood outside for a day in the freezing cold waving a banner to gain what, a week off on the sick with flu?
We will have to differ CF.
I genuinely believe that when the push really comes then the British worker WILL stand up.
The later it is left the greater the threat of bloodshed, but eventually the time will come.
my opinion is that it is closer now than it has ever been.
The troubles in the '30 's were lessened by the fact that the ordinary man had never had a taste of the better things in life and was easily satisfied, as well as being poorly educated.
Things are different now and the ordinary bloke has had a decent education and knows what the better things in life are having tasted them and he will not give them up lightly.
Wether you believe it or not the unions are showing a small but steady increase in membership as more workers are being treated like rubbish and are coming to realise that there is only one way to fight back.
B1 GGK:
You even see it now, folk going on strike because the company wants to cut back or relocate,
The company will do what they want, your stood outside for a day in the freezing cold waving a banner to gain what, a week off on the sick with flu?
how many times do you see this , where a company needs to make drastic cuts to survive a changing world
and what is the unions reply ,lets go on strike and that lost time probably finish,s most of them
del949:
We will have to differ CF.
I genuinely believe that when the push really comes then the British worker WILL stand up.
The later it is left the greater the threat of bloodshed, but eventually the time will come.
my opinion is that it is closer now than it has ever been.
The troubles in the '30 's were lessened by the fact that the ordinary man had never had a taste of the better things in life and was easily satisfied, as well as being poorly educated.
Things are different now and the ordinary bloke has had a decent education and knows what the better things in life are having tasted them and he will not give them up lightly.
Wether you believe it or not the unions are showing a small but steady increase in membership as more workers are being treated like rubbish and are coming to realise that there is only one way to fight back.
How can you ‘fight back’ with every single one of Maggie’s trade union law ‘reforms’ still in place and even reinforced and a membership that wouldn’t even know what solidarity and supporting each other up to the point of a general strike if needed means,if it couldn’t even do that in the early 1980’s let alone now.That’s even if we had any industry left to support a general strike anyway.I’ll believe it when I hear anyone in today’s society saying maybe those trade union members of the early-mid 1970’s had a point and were on the right track and the economy was actually getting somewhere,at that point,to prove it.That was until Wilson,Callaghan and Maggie changed things forever.As I’ve said it’s probably too late and the government,CBI,and the Chinese Communist Party know it.
B1 GGK:
You even see it now, folk going on strike because the company wants to cut back or relocate,
The company will do what they want, your stood outside for a day in the freezing cold waving a banner to gain what, a week off on the sick with flu?
how many times do you see this , where a company needs to make drastic cuts to survive a changing world
and what is the unions reply ,lets go on strike and that lost time probably finish,s most of them
When exactly since the early 1970’s did this so called widespread solid strike that you’re referring to happen .
Yeah right a changing world in which it’s all about the global free market economy and it’s the Chinese idea on working conditions and wage levels as they apply to the general workforce which is the ‘world’ which you’re referring to.
B1 GGK:
You even see it now, folk going on strike because the company wants to cut back or relocate,
The company will do what they want, your stood outside for a day in the freezing cold waving a banner to gain what, a week off on the sick with flu?
how many times do you see this , where a company needs to make drastic cuts to survive a changing world
and what is the unions reply ,lets go on strike and that lost time probably finish,s most of them
When exactly since the early 1970’s did this so called widespread solid strike that you’re referring to happen .
2006/07 when the HMRC were having to make cutbacks, they were outside on strike with the ‘save our jobs’ blah blah signs,
Redundancy’s happened, local councils have been the same the past year or so.
How can you ‘fight back’ with every single one of Maggie’s trade union law ‘reforms’ still in place
Eventually people will rise up and it will not matter what the law says.
It has happened in other countries and will happen here if the system continues as it is doing.
When people have nothing left to lose they won’t be frightened of losing it.
B1 GGK:
You even see it now, folk going on strike because the company wants to cut back or relocate,
The company will do what they want, your stood outside for a day in the freezing cold waving a banner to gain what, a week off on the sick with flu?
how many times do you see this , where a company needs to make drastic cuts to survive a changing world
and what is the unions reply ,lets go on strike and that lost time probably finish,s most of them
When exactly since the early 1970’s did this so called widespread solid strike that you’re referring to happen .
2006/07 when the HMRC were having to make cutbacks, they were outside on strike with the ‘save our jobs’ blah blah signs,
Redundancy’s happened, local councils have been the same the past year or so.
Not exactly a widespread solidly supported strike with sympathy action taking place in unconnected industries as in the case of when the miners defeated the Heath government.
. 