Quote by MidsCouple24
Maybe the passage of time has altered memories, but I saw the miners strike from a town which had a very profitable pit, with years of reserves left. Note I said town not village. The pit is long gone now !! But the town was big enough to cope.
The NUM did not suddenly proclaim, out of the blue, one day that they were going on strike.
There had been rumours circulating about mass pit closures for some time and about 20 pits were closing a year up to then.
What happened was that the mining villages, where they relied on the pit for most incomes, said "we have to do something" the NUM was playing catch-up to respond to this, then it all got nasty.
In the villages, they were not trying to bring down the Gov. they were trying to preserve a way of life !! It may have been a horrible job, an in-efficient industry, but it was their way of life and they wanted it preserving.
You might look at it in regard to the "travellers" of today. Most people would not want that way of life but do we have the right to decide to take action which would end that way of life ?
John
In my opinion the Miners were the victims of their own power, their own unions, the world had witnessed the miners in Russia and China holding their respective nations to ransom, all the Unions in the UK were being run by power crazy leaders who cared more about personal power and personal gain than the actual members, they knew that Thatcher would not allow them to bring down the Government or hold the Nation to ransom, but they went ahead with a no-win strike anyway. when it costs twice as much to get a bag of coal out of the ground than you can sell it for something has to give, when you can buy coal from abroad at half the price even the profitable pits can sell it for then your onto a loser, look at today with the price of fuel, if the UK population were told that their energy bills would be cut in half tomorrow if we bought gas and electricity from Iran or North Korea but at the expense of many British workers do you think they would support the workers, I think not.
The IRA tried to hold Maggie to ransom, Bobby Sands tried the hardest and look what happened to him
Stop the Miners and you stop the shipyard union, the Transport and General union, the Steel union, show me a 70s, 80s Great British industry and I will show you they had a powerful Union and that the industry you name is no longer with us or here but in dire straits.Shipbuilding, Steel, Pottery, Coal, Car manufacture, Railways.
OK, The Gas and Electricity industries had powerful unions !!! Those industries are still with us, but privatised by Maggie.
So to turn it round a bit, out of all the privatised industries, which of them do you look at today and say "Thank God we privatised them, they are now much better for Joe Public" ???
John
