Were the Unions too powerful before Thatcher?

I've heard a lot of people, even some left-wingers, say that the Unions were too powerful in Britain before Thatcher, and that although she went too far, they did need to be put in their place.

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Reply 1

Jordan-James

Yep and Bob Crowes still too powerful today.

Reply 2

MatureStudent36

Original post by sammynorton90

I've heard a lot of people, even some left-wingers, say that the Unions were too powerful in Britain before Thatcher, and that although she went too far, they did need to be put in their place.

To quote Churchill, and not the former PM. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.

Too much power, without any long term strategy.

If you take the German Trade Unions they have as much power but are quite forward thinking. They understand that redundancies will be needed when new technology such as automation, new IT systems etc are brought in, but they understand that it is needed to ensure the long term survival of the company.

As we were stuck with nationalised industry that was uncompetitve as the unions knew that the taxpayer would always make up the shortfall, in many cases the unions would turn their backs on new technology to ensure that as many of their members were employed as possible.

Sheffield for example makes more steel now with a few dozen people in a highly automated steel mill, than they used to with tens of thousands working in late 19th century practices.

Miners would still prefere to use a pick, rather than more modern techniques as it employed more union members.

We know longer need thousands of riveters to build a ship when a few hundred with modular construction will do the same job.

It's a but difficult though to blame it all on the unions as there was a degree of poor management and lack of competition with a nationalised industry. The problem with th eunions was that they kept hold the government and the population to ransom with never eding strikes.

Reply 3

Morgsie

Yes and it was not right that they called the shots

Reply 4

sammynorton90

Original post by Jordan-James

Yep and Bob Crowes still too powerful today.

I've heard he's on 150k a year, dunno how true it is.

Reply 5

Jordan-James

Original post by sammynorton90

I've heard he's on 150k a year, dunno how true it is.

Hes on a salary of 140k, probably earns more than that, thats not really the point though.

The guys a communist ****, and abuses the inelasticity of demand for public transport by striking at times of public need, using the same argument for every strike, hes made driving a train one of the highest paid jobs in the country, and when he has a hissy fit the bus service have to make up for it, so all in all hes an idiot.

RMT needs to be changed.

Reply 6

sammynorton90

Original post by Jordan-James

So basically, the Unions claim to be communist, an ideology where you don't do things for personal greed but for society as a whole, but instead actually just hold the government and British public to ransom (bad for society) so they can line their pockets (greed). So they're basically just wolves in sheeps clothing?

Reply 7

Steevee

They certainly were. They were essentially holding the nation to ransom through nationalised industry. At the time we had rolling blackouts in many UK cities, the 3 day working week for some industries. Unions have their place, but they had far too much power at the time and it was being abused. In the end they undid themselves, the government and public would only put up with so much, and what the Unions seemed to forget was that though they may have represented their members, there was a much wider working class being badly affected by their action.

Reply 8

sammynorton90

Original post by Steevee

My dad said there used to be some violence in the Unions as well. Like apparently there used to be public votes for things, so basically even if you didn't agree with the rest of the Union you were forced into voting with the majority.

Reply 9

Plainview

Yes, this is something too many people are apt to forget, and nearly all Ding-Dong partiers are too young to appreciate (he says confidently as a middle-class 18 year-old).

Reply 10

Steevee

Original post by sammynorton90

I don't know about the Unions in general, but Scargill and his cronies certainly did. When he failed to achieve a majority for stike action, he called a strike anyway, then took his supporters to other mines and industries and forcibly blocked workers entering with picket lines. And there was a lot of violence around those strikes.

Reply 11

sammynorton90

Original post by Steevee

Scargill strikes me as a grade A bellend. Apparently he had a massive painting of himself in his office posing like he was Lenin. Clearly thought of himself as a much bigger fish then he was.

Yes, objectively so.

Well, do you think the country today would put up with any other industry insiders turning up at No.10 for beer and sandwiches and telling the elected leaders how they would allow them to run the country?

Would you scream bloody murder in the same way you do when there is the slightest hint of any sort of rich person having the slightest link with DC?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 14

Evie Ninnenbaum

At least the leaders of the Trade Unions were elected, now we have an unelected plutocracy. Enjoy.

Reply 15

Steevee

Original post by sammynorton90

Scargill strikes me as a grade A bellend. Apparently he had a massive painting of himself in his office posing like he was Lenin. Clearly thought of himself as a much bigger fish then he was.

Pretty much, he knew the government could never give into his demands, he just wanted fight the government, not actually get what was best for his Union. Typical Communist really, took his extreme ideology over actually helping his beloved proles.

Anyway, it's ironic because now most of the miners, what are left of them, hate the SOB.

Reply 16

marcusfox

Original post by Evie Ninnenbaum

At least the leaders of the Trade Unions were elected, now we have an unelected plutocracy. Enjoy.

Well, they were elected, and as a member, if you didn't vote for the 'right person' you were ostracised.

I believe it was Thatcher who brought in the secret ballot for the trades unions...

Reply 17

abzy1234

Exemplified by Harold Wilson's failure to curb mounting trade union power in 1969 after his fiasco and disaster of a policy, In Place of Strife.

To be honest, the problem really began when the Conservatives dominated from 1951 to 1964. This whole notion of "One-Nation Toryism" was inherently unsustainable, and failed to really create a beneficial relationship with the unions; whereby the government would simply agree to every single union demand out of fear of negative public perception.

If you really want to be cynical, you can look back at Attlee's era, where they really failed to invest in a proper industrial democracy; preferring to seek the common ground and a "third way". To be fair to Attlee's administration though, images of war unity and the sheer scale of destruction, made it very difficult for them to accept any form of internal resentment.

The unions really only have themselves to blame in all honesty imo.