Originally Posted by
Lee Reynolds
The coal industry was being heavily subsidised. It needed a shake up not destroying.
Im not sure it was viable at all, but the problem that a shake up would face is the unions they just wouldnt allow ANY change at all, as is typical of most unions of that era.
Mate of mine did some consultancy work up at longbridge and there were portions of the factory that were running at 25% efficiency compared to what they were designed for in terms of manpower simply because the unions wouldnt allow that to be changed as they wouldnt allow any job losses, then what happened of course, was that the company went bankrupt because the unions were forcing it to be unsustainable.
Its the unions not thatcher that killed coal mining IMHO, if they had been for change and accepted redundancies etc as part of that, then it might have been possible to have the shakeup you menition but the reality was that wasnt even an option, it literally wasnt worth discussing any sensible option with them, as they would have just dug their heals in and demanded more subsidy etc.
Thatcher had it in for the trade unions
fucking right she did, and bloody good thing to, those bastards were ruining this country till she came along and kicked the shit out of them.
[quote]and was 'having the miners'[quote]
Yep, she made a brilliant example out of scargill
this was always known back then by scargill etc, but is widely known now to anyone who wants to read into it all. Not that they will. Thats why she imported coal for 12 months proir to the strike on the quiet, as she knew once closures were announced the miners would strike, the strike would last a long time as the government didnt need to negotiate as they had coal, and the longer the strike went on the more the public would turn on the miners....and she was right. Got to give her credit where its due, she knew what she was doing!
fucking right she did!
dont agree with everything she did, but she certainly did what needed to be done with the unions, this country would be far worse off today if it wasnt for her IMHO
Some of the privitisation im not sure was the best option, but realistically she knew (and was right) that things like the trains and water and electric would never run smoothly in the hands of the UK state, so its probably just a case of she knew better than me and thats why I disagree
The people what still bang on about it being subsidised and thats why they were closed need to pull there head out of their arses and look into what its cost to close the mines down!
Less than it would have cost to keep them open till now, imagine the amount of health and safety that would be involved by now, and the amount of claims that would be happening for respiratory injury, if we hadnt closed them when we had, we would be fucked by now even more!