I did nothing illegal, secondary picketing wasn't unlawful in 1979. During the January 1979 strike I was putting in 16 hour shifts: eight hours organising at Bevin House, Hull and eight hours on the cobbles, preventing scab drivers from trying to undermine the principles of the strike.

I was the shop steward in our haulage company and because I was the only one who didn't have children, I was the only one to work between Christmas and New Year. When I got back to the yard on 30 December 1978, I noticed that all of the other trucks had been de-licensed. A few phone calls confirmed that all the other companies had done the same. The employers knew that our mass-meeting on 2 January 1979 would result in an immediate strike vote and sought to minimise their costs. Can't blame them for that.

After the strike was called I was co-opted onto the strike committee and our MD was on the employers' committee. We spoke most days on how things were going and even devised a way of bringing the dispute to an early end. Unfortunately most of the employers refused to even consider the resolution. During the time of the strike I proposed we allow any trucks carrying food (human and animal) be allowed free movement, this was approved by the rest of the strike committee, similarly those companies engaged in fuel supplies (coal, LPG & oil) were also given dispensation. The flying pickets were needed because too many unscrupulous companies and the scab-labour drivers they employed tried to use the dispensations to engage in general haulage. Quite simply, if they'd played by the agreed rules, there'd have been no need for flying pickets.

We finally settled for our full demand, three weeks after the dispute could've been resolved if it wasn't for the initial intransigence of the employers. They were the ones who caused the protraction and in the end paid a very expensive price. It's easy to lay the blame for all this country's previous labour problems at the feet of the workers. It's made even easier when an established media tend to present only one side of the story but the fact that they are esteablished means they are an integral part of the establishment and it is their best interests to portray the "plebs" as the problem.

German and French labour forces have always been heavily unionised, the difference between their industries and ours can mostly be placed at the feet of the management styles. Continental companies have always seen their workers as an asset, most British companies saw them as a cost-base at best, usually as a liability.

Post WW2 we helped rebuild Germany & Japan and both countries actively embraced the industrial management principles of W Edwards Deming, what a great pity our own industrial magnates refused to adopt the same principles here.

I'm still waiting for evidence of the power cuts and water & gas shortages prior to Thatcher BTW

There is no inconsistency here, not sure how you equate running huge loss making industries to participation in social projects.

The term scab is pretty emotive - so anyone who disagrees with the majority is a scab - surely the failure is your inability to convince them of the merits of your argument? To stop normal people not involved in disputes from carrying out their daily business is abhorrent.

So you agree with my post then ?

Scab, black-leg or strike-breaker, are not emotive, they are desriptive of the actions of non-union labour who otherwise would have been involved in agricultural haulage, taking an opportunity to profit at the expense of those who had withdrawn their labour in order to improve their working conditions. The fact that the scabs would also have ultimately benefited from any improvements in pay and conditions made it all the more unpaletable.

The vast majority of drivers were in the main trades unions: TGWU, URTU, USDAW; most of the non-unionised (and some unionised) drivers had been iven dispensations to engage in vital supplies, they and their employers chose to take advantage of the strike by engaging in general haulage, often by using amateur subterfuge. I remember driving a minibus full of pickets to a local factory after an attempted strike-break. When we arrived we found a truck with an animal feed dispensation sticker in the windscreen, his load was fully sheeted and hay could be seen at the bottom edges of the sheet. He'd glued hay to the chock rails, hoping we wouldn't question why a company like Smith & Nephew would need a delivery of animal feed

I've crossed picket lines, usually because i'm happy with my pay and conditions, if i don't agree with those on strike why penalize myself?
You'd say i was the one being selfish but personally i thought they were the ones being greedy.
I was in an industry that thought 28k a year wasn't enough to live on and an 'insult' and wanted 30k. Like the extra £38 a week was a way of stopping being insulted.
Scabs might undermine your strike but if they don't agree with your opinions or politics who are you to force it on them?

If it were legal most firms would pay higher wages to non union members - its a fallacy that unions always negotiate the best T&Cs. Significant numbers of people have lost their jobs because of the actions of unions - my own industry has seen huge factory closures, the PLC I work for has closed 13 in five years - the first to go are always those where UNITE has a significant presence.

Are you suggesting that if you are not a union member - I have never been a union member - that if the union calls a strike in the firm you work for you should also strike?

I only ever had experience of working in one unionised industry, electrical contracting in the 1970s where every qualified electrician was a member of the EEPTU, it being virtually compulsory especially if you wanted to work on larger projects.

From memory they were a "mild" union in that we didn't have any strikes for the ten years I was in that trade and annual pay increases were simply agreed with the employers trade organisation, the ECA and others, from memory Frank Chapple was considered to be a moderate leader and from inside the trade he certainly kept a level playing field - reading a quick resume of his union in Wiki its obvious that he ruffled a few feathers in the TUC with his policy of single union agreements and they eventually evicted the EEPTU from the TUC



The only thing that ever caused us problems as employers was the strict dogma of no bonus payments on building sites, there were two rates for the two grades of electricians and they were considered to be the rate for the job, overtime rates were pre-agreed and that was that.

Of course in the real world both employers and employees would apply bonus schemes to contracts, we did it all the time, it was actually my job to survey the sites and work out the bonus targets for each section of work, and then pay them when complete within the time allotted - all of this was strictly against the union code and we would have had strikes called if they had found out, truth is that no-one told the union because it benefited everyone, our electricians earned the bonus on top of their standard rates for completing work quicker than estimated, and the company made more profit from doing so - we only ever had one very strong union electrician and he and I would spend hours sitting on drums of cable discussing his political views which rested somewhere to the left of Marx until eventually he'd look at his watch and declare that he'd better get on because he was on a good bonus run this week and he'd lost two hours already gabbing to me.

And THATS where I learned of the power of money over principal

Boasting about being a scab makes you look like a complete w@nker.

Without trades unions most firms would be paying subsistence wages for working in horrendous conditions. Improvements to pay and conditions that have benefited the workforce have rarely,if ever, been instigated by employers. Collective bargaining also suits many large employers because of its simplicity. I know you will argue that all of that is in the past and there is now no need for unions but I would counter that with asking you to look at what this government wants to do to the national labour force.

Cameron is busily stamping his feet for reform of the EU and repatriation of powers back to the UK. Most of what he wants to exercise greater control over is labour law, basically he wants to reduce or remove the safeguards that have been achieved over years of struggle. Thatcher's Right to Buy and the big bang had nothing to do with empowering the individual, it was all about creating a workforce of compliant wage-slaves. By shifting the emphasis from savings to ever-increasing personal debt, she achieved this without most people noticing.

I'm not surprised that you've never been a member of a trade union but while you've been enjoying a pay freeze (a cut effectively), has the same happened to the executives of your orgnisation or their shareholders? If I was ever in a situation where non-union labour decided to cross a picket line, there's little I could do about it, apart from ignore them, on a personal level, afterwards.

Bang on. The one thing that rarely gets mentioned is how Thatcher and, in fairness, the political classes have allowed a major fracture to occur in the average working relationship. Before the 1980s employees could expect that their loyalty would be rewarded or that's how people felt. When the relaxation of employment law came it made it much easier for companies in the UK to fold/close down business operations in the UK and move them overseas. This isn't the case in countries like Germany and France where employment law dictates that such sweeping and wholesale changes to local economies have a much more stringent process for this that normally hinders such multinationals. In the UK we don't have that kind of employment protection.

As this happened so the UK workforce has realised that if you commit yourself to a company there is no guarantee that you will share in its success. Even companies which are successful in the UK have seen some of their operations move overseas. One of my recent employes was a £250m business in Liverpool which has an 80% market share, year-on-year growth in double figures (for over 20 years) and makes a lot of money from it. Its parent company, Danone, moves in and is slowly moving personnel and production from the Liverpool site into its cheaper subsidiaries and factories overseas. That is the company's prerogative in the modern day of course, however, this is a very successful business built by talent and individuals from the Liverpool area, providing lots of jobs to the local area through it.

Organisations want commitment and effort from its workforce but when work is so transient it undermines that, creates insecurity within individuals and eventually long-term mental health problems for the UK workforce and social problems that we have to pick up as taxpayers. Alternatively we ignore them and then face epidemics of whole communities that slowly die and become trapped in the welfare cycle that the political classes then demonise.

The Sin Bin should be rename Jurrasic Park

Flying pickets, the Closed Shop and intimidation.

Now we are seeing the REAL "socialist" come out.

Spot on.

Haha

You really are a bitter and twisted Communist who is living in another era aren't you?

Ironically you are exactly the reason that many of us supported Thatcher and saw the need for change.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with a Trade Union that behaves reasonably and is there to ensure fairness, there is everything wrong with them having too much power and breeding the kind of lovely person that you come across as.

Thatcher chewed you up and spat you out like a discarded piece of chewing gum. No wonder you are bitter.

Does it?

What happened to democracy and freedom of choice?

True. A similar paradox arises when large companies and multi-national corporations demand tax breaks and employ tax avoidance techniques.

Those companies demand a well-educated, healthy and secure workforce while simultaneously trying very hard to avoid paying for the welfare policies that will provide them with such a workforce.

No-one forces people to work for a particular company. Last time I checked, slavery was still illegal.

I really cannot understand this feeling that the employee is somehow "entitled" to anything.

I've always been very simple about these matters. I go to work, I get paid. If I believe this is a good arrangment I stay, if I believe it isn't, or believe I could get a better one, I move.

It's not rocket science. I've never had a chip on my shoulder, never thought the world owed me a living. The last 3 years are a classic case - a wage freeze, coupled with inflation is effectively a pay cut. I have two choices- to stay in the current role or to leave.

As for the employer, well they will pay the employee whatever is needed to maximise profit. And why shouldn't they? They are the ones taking the risks, they should make the decisions.

?

When i look to join a company, i look at the pay, terms/conditions etc.
If i'm not happy i look elsewhere.
Why would i join a company i wasn't happy with and then moan and strike when i knew what i was getting into.
Quite recently my company went on strike about not getting the 6% pay rise it asked for, when companies are shutting left right and centre and people are taking pay cuts i personally found it vulgar asking for 6%.

I was quite happy to not get a rise at all, my opinion, my right.

Besides i don't go to work to make friends, if i upset people who disagree with it so be it, my life, my mortgage, my principles and i can easily look at myself in the mirror.

I personally think you're a wa-k-r if you feel the need to force your way of thinking on to me, there's a name for people like you and i didn't think it was anything to do with socialism, unless it's the Hitler form of socialism you subscribe to?

i'm confused. thatcher created a load of wage slaves? how did these people pay for stuff before they became slaves? where did they live? how did they live?
or are we just in "waaahhhh, she's a woman and she's a tory" territory. again.

Contempt, even better. My work is done.

Oh he's making it up as he goes along. Wounded service man, where on earth did you get that from ?? Dope.

Nowt clever to say eh ?

Now where's my gun, oh there it is !

You must be a teacher. No wonder our kids can't read and write, Tony Blairs legacy. Plus 2 wars he got into, and you have a pop at Thatcher, hypocrite !

BT were making a profit when they were sold off for peanuts.