Thatcher has died

The value of the job is based around how it much it cannot be done without not the skill involved. There is zero skill needed to drive a tube train. Well maybe being able to see would be helpful (but hardly a skill).

movedalot re driving a tube train. I really don't know how skilled it is. But I'm sure you know that everybody thinks everybody's else's job is a piece of cake.

movedalot It may well be that the country has borne the expense of the funerals of previous prime ministers. I would reiterate, however, my previous query. Other than Sir Winston Churchill, do you recall any of the funerals of Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan ....? I would suggest that none of these funerals was on the lavish scale as that proposed for Mrs T.

Management didn't know and were shocked and angry that this had happened.

It was unfair - the other employees were afraid to cross their union rep (remember how powerful unions used to be) and talk to me. (This was in the early 1980s.)

It was a nasty situation and the union was quite happy to make my working life as miserable as possible so long as they could think they had won.

I seldom mention this as talking about it seems to bring about an evangelical zeal in pro-unionists. Everyone other than the union is blamed for this sort of situation.

In later years when I was in management, I always encouraged staff to join a union, and met often with organisers and shop stewards to deal with any situation before it escalated, but this experience made me very, very careful in my dealings with any union member.

Why would management put you in a job that was still in dispute noodles? Did you takee it knowing that there was this problem and how the workers were responding to it whilst waiting for resolution? Seems unfair to have put you in a position like that - both unions and management had a resposibility not to inflict that on you.

No, I got a lot of support from management. Had it not been for their making sure I was alright and continuing the dialogue with the unions, then I would have left.

Eventually through a continuing process of meetings with the union, management was able negotiate a satisfactory outcome and the post was was 'unblacked'.

I was left very disillusioned though. The union didn't give a stuff about me, despite knowing I had 3 children to support and desperately needed the job.

Unions were not the only organisations that 'blacked ' people. Many people who had been sacked by one company found they could not get a job with any other company.
Most of the improvements in working conditions were achieved through workers acting together. Does anybody really think that employers would have done it out of altruism? And anybody who did not join a union should, perhaps, have refused any gains achieved for them by that union.

For the record, the Falklands was officially a skirmish; it was never a war.

Not your fault - management failed to support you there noodles. I also had the unfortunate experience of having some work imposed on me that had led to the breakdown and long term absence of a respected colleague. If it hadn't been for the union, I would have been next. The work was divided into three full-time jobs.

Where did anyone get the idea that some Gransnetters are too thick to understand that businesses need to make a profit in a capitalist society? Insulting or what? (Strictly speaking they do in other kinds of society but in a slightly different way.)

I can't say that I recall anything here that I would describe as vitriolic. There's quite a bit of anger and there are certainly posts deploring Margaret Thatcher, her policies and political philosophy. Perhaps I have missed some more forceful posts but mostly I thought the antis were fairly temperate in the language.

The Falklands war had very little to do with national pride or protecting British citizens. Do you really thing Maggie or anyone else in government cared about a few thousand sheep farmers at the other side of the world? The Falklands War was about and the arguments are still about oil. Oil was discovered in the South Atlantic and even though we didn't have the technology to extract it at the time there was no doubt that such technology would be developed. Therefore it became necessary to hold on to the Falkland Islands in order to lay claim to the oilfields.

If there had been no oil the Falkland islanders would now be citizens of Argentina. But then the Argentinians wouldn't have been interested either so maybe they'd still be British.

I had the unsettling experience of taking a job that had been 'blacked' by the unions. The previous postholder (who had left the post several months earlier) had been in dispute with management and it was in answer to this, that the position had been 'blacked'.

I didn't know anything about this and could not understand why people refused to answer even simple questions, like "where's the photocopying paper kept" and excluded me (a totally innocent party) from the chats at coffee breaks etc in order to 'get back' at management.

It was a horrible experience.

A union...as I keep saying...is the coming together of the workers. As the workers are citizens of this country they had the right to make themselves heard. How do you draw attention to what is going wrong? You take action. Ordinary people didn't have the money to run expensive media campaigns even if they could get the media to help them so they go on to the streets. They demonstrate and they withdraw their labour.

My ex was a hospital porter in 1979. He went on strike not only to protest about job cuts but also to bring to public attention what was happening to the nhs. Job cuts meant reduced care and longer waiting lists.

Picket lines were infiltrated by special branch. Picket were filmed and records kept in the same way as they did with terrorists. Again workers classed as antipatriotic revolutionaries/potential terrorists when they were simply trying to make themselves heard.

As for the three day week in the early seventies that was about the miners trying to get a decent wage and conditions. Everyone was taken by surprise by how quickly the power stations ran out of coal and also realised that if they worked together the workers had a huge amount of power. The demonised unions simply organised the workers. The workers had the power. Maggie saw this as a threat and determined to break the unions and hence the power of the workers. She made sure that huge stockpiles of coal were held at the power stations before there was an announcement of massive pit closures. The miners went on strike to try to protect their jobs but they were always going to lose. Maggie had brought in anti union laws and Scargill was a fool who fell into her trap by allowing the strike to take place before the legalities had been completed. This meant that other unions couldn't officially support them so the miners were to all intents and purposes fighting alone. Having destroyed the miners Maggie went on to systematically destroy every major industry in which the workers might be able to control.

I've often wondered what is so difficlt about driving a tube train? Can there be much to do just driving on rails? Do the bus drivers get paid more? Danger money perhaps?

I also understand that a lot more people now use the trains than when they were in public ownership.

Hero Jingle? Where did you read, or infer, that Russell Brand is anyone's hero on here? We must be reading very different posts

One of my favourite Union leaders is Bob Crow, can't remember the acronym but it's the transport union. He managed to secure a deal from London transport for £50k salaries for the tube drivers. Power to him. But sympathy for the poor sods paying the fares. He also, I believe earns well in excess of £100k and lives in a council house. Hypocrite. A Southern Scargill.

Crikey POGS we posted at the same time and said exactly the same thing. Spooky

moved actually I think you'll find a school of thought that believes businesses don't have to be profitable at all, they should be supported by taxes paid by the businesses which are profitable. The good old days. Remember British Leyland?

Industries will shut down unless they can make a profit. If a company is not profitable then the quickest way to reduce cost is getting rid of employees. This is the stark fact of life. The Unions in the 70s had way too much power for a body that was unelected except by its own members. What say did a business owner have in decisions to withhold power or shut down ports etc. things which potentially could wipe out their businesses. Yes, by all means trumpet the rights of 'the workers' but try not to forget that other people worked too.

I was trying hard not to get embroiled in this particular thread as I thought it was so vitriolic I would sit back and watch and let the words of some be agreed with by those of that persuasion. All entitled to our view I suppose.

I can't stand it any longer though and I am cross with myself for getting hooked by the 'debate' or 'statement' as per your mind set. I have to agree with Sel and I thought the Russel Brand bit was brilliant.

Baroness Thatcher was devisive, yes I agree. This country was split in half not only by Thatcher but by the agressive tactics that the unions had adopted. It was not a spin term, this country was tagged 'The Sick Man Of Europe'

It is always said the North of England was destroyed by Thatcher. There are some of us who say the whole country was being destroyed by the unions. I have mentioned before on another thread the destruction of private companies because of union activity has never been shown one minute of sympathy by the left. There were men and women in private companies who were struggling just as much to feed their children and keep a roof over their head. They had not made a decision to stop their wages coming into the home to feed the family by choosing to stop working. They had no choice, their work was cut from under their feet by companies who were trying their damndest to keep ticking over to employ them but couldn't do so because of the state of the economy slowly being brought to it's knees by union strikes. Nothing moved, we were in a crisis. Thatcther is always said to be the one who caused it. No she didn't it was going on before she became PM.

I have said before for my first job I was a GPO telephonist . I was a kid of 16 and I didn't want to join the union. I wanted to give my money to my mum and keep a bit for myself. The horrible b-----s who were union 'representatives' were evil to me. I was threatened to be sent to coventry, nobody would have anything to do with me. Watch your back, that sort of thing. I was told by a lot of the others, 'Take my advice, none of us want to be in it but if you don't they will make your life hell. In other words the union was who you had to report to. This was rife throughout industry and the public service and the unions were getting bigger and stronger through bullying and threats to co workers.

It wasn't Thatcher who was making this country a basket case. Industry was choosing to give up, it couldn't compete with the demands of the evergrowing strength of union leaders. Might I add who to this day give themselves very lucrative wages and perks, that's good socialism at work. Top Union Leaders as we know earn more than MP's and if I am not mistaken could get more that the PM. of the country.

As for the wonderful Mr Scargill wasn't he taken to court recently by the Union to get him out of his 'Grace and Favour' flat in London which was costing thousands a year out of the vast union funds.

Just heard on Radio 4 that "The country has always borne the cost of the funerals of ex-Prime Ministers"

I thought the article by Russell Brand was excellent as well.

I used to really despise him until, a few months ago, I read his article on illegal drugs which was very insightful, compassionate and well written.

gracesmum hear hear. In the final analysis, MT displayed that determination and tenacity could lead to ending one's days in dignified luxury at The Ritz!

The Ritz? or alternatively, being patronised (and possibly) brutalised in a Care Home ? Difficult choice huh.

I know! I know! But the Ritz? - ALWAYS wonderful / Care Homes? NOT ALWAYS wonderful. No doubt she will be blamed for that too.

RIP Mrs T.

Tegan I think engineering is very much respcted in this country and nowadays very few of them get their hands dirty. I worked in engineering a long time ago and was very impressed by some of the guys who did get their hands dirty in those days. Unfortunately we were not very profitable and had to amalgamate 2 companies and close others. No matter what anyone may feel businesses do have to be profitable to continue.

It was interesting when we closed a factory in Sparkhill that most of our Indian people were not too bothered as they all had fingers in other pies. I am quite sure that with their work ethic they were all fine.

I don't understand how the pre Thatcher years are being given such a rosy glow. The three day week, bodies left unburied , rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts and the whole country being held to ransom by bloody minded trade unions? Yes, those were the days alright....

At least Margaret Thatcher devoted years of her life trying to do some good for this country. Can't say the same about Russell Brand!

God! He's a right one to have for your new hero!