An excellent article from the 'remain' voting historian Dominic Sandbrook regarding the huge problems facing the EU at this time. Worth a read. DOMINIC SANDBROOK: Europe's elite are so blinded by their own sanctimonious piety that they cannot see that the migration crisis is pushing millions to the extreme Right
I can't believe I'm reading some of this Leo - and you accuse me of being radical. The ability to withdraw labour, as a last resort which is sometimes the only tool possible for workers to protect themselves is a human right, without which we would be moving slowly back to slavery. It may be inconvenient at times for the consumer or traveller but we have to understand that workers need to have a means at their disposal to avoid being at the complete mercy of their employers, and to give more balance between worker and employer power. Without the right to strike workers would be completely at the mercy of the market, and 'profitability'. Do you want to go back to the 19th Century ?
yes and he was the diametric opponent of an authoritarian establishment who used the forces of the state to overthrow an action they had every right to perform... The same sort of things has happened in despotic totalitarian countries world wide. Again I am talking principle as i was no supporter of Scargill Also I live in the midst of the old coal mine territory... whole towns were decimated... and communities where the Tories would never have any chance of getting in. People to this day are VERY bitter The Govt closed the mines as we could get 'cheaper' coal elsewhere...... These were ordinary working people who wanted to do a days work... not some sort of extreme radical communist plot.... Unions were created to protect working people... let us never forget that.....
I would think the new generation are thankful they don't have to work underground in awful conditions anymore to earn a living. With the UK unemployment at its lowest level for 40 years jobs have been created in those former mining areas that are far superior.
The problem was that they destroyed whole communities and cultures SH. not just industries, and it was Thatcher's intention to do just that.
Come and debate that with the people of Barnsley, Rotherham, Pontefract, Castleford etc etc. You would get nowhere fast. Whole communities were decimated.. And not recovered to this day. Wont take you long to find out where the cheapest housing is etc etc. For you and I all this passes us by as we by chance, birth , motivation etc have been able to make more of our lives. Sent from my G3121 using Tapatalk
Surely you cannot believe her intentions were anything like that. De-industrialisation was gaining ground well before Thatcher. The leaders of the mining unions were Kremlin financed communists more intend on bringing the government down rather than look after their own members, which they managed to wholly let down. Every government since has considered the changes she made to industrial relations as the norm, not to be changed in any way. Hopefully Corbyn, McDonnell and the Unite union do not have a chance to take us back to those dark days.
I don't think it's realistic here to be talking of unemployment statistics. Many areas of the north were dramatically depopulated during the 80s - Liverpool alone lost around 200,000 in population, and it was not unique in this. Immigration managed to restabilize some areas - but these were people who, for one reason or another, have never appeared on unemployment statistics. The other point is that real jobs were destroyed whereas what replaced them were hire and fire, zero contract, precarious jobs in the service sector. Germany also deindustrialized many mining areas - the Ruhr is full of these old mining towns, Gelsenkirchen, Essen etc. I also live in an old mining area (Zinc and Cadmium) but these were phased out gradually in a planned manner over a large number of years, accompanied by the necessary reinvestment in those areas.
Blackmail is an emotive issue. If I| hurt you or your family to further my economic ends I would not expect you to be cool and calm. That is what stirkes do. Every worker has the right not to work for an employer. Quit if you don't like your job. Nobody has the right to a guaranteed job. Strikes were a 19C way of dealing with unequal labour laws. Nowadays compulsory arbitration means there is never a need to strike. We don't live in Victorian times so they are not relevant. Why not quote the Romans or *****ls - it would be as relevant.. Stirkes are the use of force and innocent people who are not connected to either party are usually the victims.
What is the point of a list of unions. and Scargill closed the coal mining industry through political strikes
Nonsense. There is no justification nowadays to hurt innocent people when arbitration is an alternative with the outcome mandatory if the two sides fail to compromise. Strikes are the extreme; negotiation and arbitration are just being reasonable. Tell the millions who have suffered for the last few years on Southern Rail that stirkes are justified. Moving back to slavery - what garbage - and you say you are not extreme. You parrot Marx and Engels - 19C - rubbish. Try 21st Century arbitration.
You live in an area where people are Labour supporters who failed to see the enemy was Scargill and the Unions. If they had their way we would still have horses and carts. If the Unions had cared about the workers not politics they would have agreed a sensible way of exploiting the diminishing coal resources. No - they tried to bring down a government and thankfully failed. Honestly reading you and Cologne is like going back in time. You resort to talking about previous centuries and totallitarian regimes in other countries becaus eyou have no currently valid arguments. We are a 21st Century democracy whatever Cologne thinks and strikes are not an acceptable way of resloving disputes - they deliberately target innocent people.
I'm sure their are lots of good quality businesses and jobs that have been created in these former mining areas taking advantage of cheaper costs and a willing workforce. Your black & white world is far too simplistic for reality. At the moment I am in the middle of a self build project. Some components with specialist labour, windows, doors, block & beam floors, etc are sourced mainly from the North or East of England where lower production costs outweigh the logistical cost to reach the Home Counties. Although I am retired now I previously moved my warehousing from Herts to the Midlands for the same reasons. I really do not buy into your vision of UK barren industrial areas.
It was not. She simply recognised that mining was dying. If the unions cared about workers they would have cooperated in slow managed reduction alongside new industries but they were not interested - after all each miner gone was less union contributions.
It is just left wing political ideology based on times long gone versus adaptation to the modern world. Some people would have us live in huts with no modern transport or high tech industry - good for them but not for most of us.
Drifted into emotive and abusive tone again. I suggest you talk to some ex mining folk and see how they feel. There are villages around here where you can't get two houses for 50k as there is nothing happening there any more. May be ask yourself why the Tories never get in on those areas. Because they are responsible for the running down of so many communities. They do nothing for these working class people. One of the reasons the union movement developed was that government do nothing for the manual workers.. Except to exploit them for profit.. Sent from my G3121 using Tapatalk
You may like to think we have 'moved on' from the 19th Century, but was Thatcher not an admirer of what she called 'Victorian Values' - was Neo Liberalism nothing other than an ideological repetition of the Laissez Faire of those times ? An ideology which failed miserably then, as now. Is the distribution of wealth in modern Britain not more unequal now than at any time since the Middle Ages ? You talk of compulsory arbitration - by whom ? By a body set up by the government which is, in turn, sponsored by the employers - do you expect them to be always neutral ? And when this fails then the only recourse is withholding of labour. You may be bitter because of personal experiences - but that is no reason to apply a ruling to all cases, as you are doing.
Seeing as this thread is about Brexit, maybe we should suggest that arbitration is used to sort out the Cabinet.
Sometimes it is giving as good as you get. People talking about Victorian age and despots in foreign lands are not emotive? The mining community were misled and will never forgive or forget - but it does not make their stand right. Blimey - I thought arguments about class warfare were a thing of the past too. Most of us are just middle class for goodness sake. The era of people in rags doffing caps to lords and ladies has gone you know.
