"it is unacceptable for men or women to call in because a child is sick in my view."

[hunkermunker]

Xenia says "it is unacceptable for men or women to call in because a child is sick in my view."

I am interested to know what other people do in this situation.

Unions aren't miners. The miners were just as exploited by the unions, if not more. They lost everything.

I still don't see how you blame the miners for you being burned sorry. How do you imagine the miners families were keeping warm too after taking baths in the north sea?

"But it needed to happen. If you allow gangs of armed thugs to declare areas of country no go areas, and cut off it's electricity supply at a whim, it is going to end badly. "

Shame on you DC. Where on earth have your objective critical faculties gone? You justify the misery this idiot machismo caused to tens of thousands of men, women and children; and justify is as necessarily to defeat a handful of fanatics.

I blame the unions because they caused power to be cut off to my home. When you cut off safe sources of energy, unsafe ones will be substituted. As it happens that resulted in burning plastic being stuck to my body. Was not nice. I wasn't the only one.

A good test for one's objectivity is to change who is the subject of the ethical question. If you can swap the names, and still hold the position, you are a good way to being objective.

Let's swap "the miners" for "the bosses of BP", another set of energy baddies.

If "the bosses of BP" or some other oil company demanded big pay rises, then cut off power to millions of homes, then hired armed thugs to beat up and occasionally kill people that opposed them, the sort of people who supported the miners would want them hung.

Would MonkeyTrousers be arguing that it wasn't the oil companies fault that I and thousands of others were burned ?

If a government was so corrupt that many of it's MPs were entirely paid for by an oil company, and referred to this company openly as "we" having their name on his headed notepaper, they would be seen as irredeemably corrupt.
When we read of such things in (say) Nigeria we see it as gross corruption, and many people who would characterise themselves of the left would want penalties against British oil companies who did it.

If this were a 3rd world country (we nearly were), and a new regime came to power, many would expect not only changes in the law, but if the new regime refrained from executing the people who did it, the new leaders would be seen as great statesmen.

Ironically the miners unions themselves were democratic bodies, and Scargill, Gormley et al were very popular, so I do not think it correct to draw a distinction between the miners and their union.
Under the stress of fighting Thatcher of course, they broke up, but in the 1970s support was near total.

Yes, the miners families also suffered during the strikes. That was a bad thing, but that was the miners choice.
Surely you are not saying that just because their families suffered as well that the greed and violence was justified ?

Did we need that mining industry anyway? My mother's family worked in the mines. They were not fun jobs. They still have problems up there with unions. There's a big equal pay case being brought by women in the North East. The male unions won't accept the equal pay or not in the right timescale. It's interesting the union, not the employer is the stumbling block to the women getting the equal pay.

i'm confused. when i think miners strike i think of the one during thatcherism 1985. the one in the 70's wasn't so long was it?

As possibly the oldest person in this thread, am I the only person who remembers "Love They Neighbour" ?
It was a 70s sitcom where a stupid racist white couple live next to a nice black couple. It is in no way politically correct, racial abuse was every other sentence. My guess is that today you wouldn't get through the first episode before it was puilled from the screen.

But the other reason it will never be repeated is that the white racist was a shop steward.
No one at the time thought it odd that a loud vicious racist would hold a post in a union.

Closed shops et al were to protect the rights of white men who knew each other against all comers.
At Grunwick asian women were attacked by union thugs, but the Labour party refused point blank to allow any prosecution, despite videos of the attacks being shown on the BBC.

During the miners strikes it was seen by Labour MPs as "understandable" if union members threw large lumps of concrete off motorway bridges, even if it killed poeple.
Saldy for the unions they chose to keep on doing this during Thatch'ers reign and the murderers were locked up. However Labour MPs continued to lobby for their release, not on the grounds that the wrong men had been convicted but on the grounds that "lots of people did it, so why pick on them ?"

Fortunately Thatcher succeeded in her strategic goal of destroying socialism, and today's Labour party is if anything to the right of the Tories.

Next time a mumsnetter gets a "man's job", I wonder if she'll thank Thatcher ?
No, I thought not.

It was the reduction in top rate of tax to 40% which has had the biggest impact on me as it increased the incentive to work hard. The Tories did that and apart from it in effect being 41% (plus a lot of new indirect taxes which you tend just to pay if you spend) labour has kept it so.

"I blame the unions because they caused power to be cut off to my home."

Are we talking about the same thing Dom? Are you talking about the winter of discontent? But I'm glad you clarify it is the unions and not the miners. Like I said before, they were ordered out on strike, they didn't vote for it.

"When you cut off safe sources of energy, unsafe ones will be substituted. As it happens that resulted in burning plastic being stuck to my body. Was not nice. I wasn't the only one."

Yes, it sounds horrific. But who are the others. I'm sorry but as a parent it makes me wonder about supervision. You are being a bit vague. Are you talking about open fires rather than central heating?

"A good test for one's objectivity is to change who is the subject of the ethical question. If you can swap the names, and still hold the position, you are a good way to being objective.

Let's swap "the miners" for "the bosses of BP", another set of energy baddies."

Who said anything about baddies? There are a few cheap shots creeping in here. I wouldn't thought better of you.

"If "the bosses of BP" or some other oil company demanded big pay rises, then cut off power to millions of homes, then hired armed thugs to beat up and occasionally kill people that opposed them, the sort of people who supported the miners would want them hung."

Firstly, who are you quoting here re BP bosses? Secondly, lets just clarify that you are talking about 'bosses', you call them miners later in the same sentence - which is it? Who/What is the causa nostra here? You flip from from one to the other but it does nothing but muddy your argument.

"Would MonkeyTrousers be arguing that it wasn't the oil companies fault that I and thousands of others were burned ?"

Well your analogy is full of logical holes so I wouldn't be arguing anything. But you say 'thousands'; are these hypothetical thousands?

You then go on to talk about corruption. There is no doubt that some in the unions were corrupt, but not all. They were, by that time however, monstrous egotists. Power and a free hand does corrupt.

And so we come full circle.

"Surely you are not saying that just because their families suffered as well that the greed and violence was justified ?"

No, I have never made such an assertion. I am not 'on side' of either the unions or the Thatcher government, but the people who are chewed up and spat out as means to an end; political cannon fodder.

Blueshoes I missed out 'sometimes ' from that post. I'm not a pessamist.

Xenia - "Did we need that mining industry anyway? My mother's family worked in the mines. They were not fun jobs."

No they weren't. I'm not defending that kind of masochistic working class ethic either.

"They still have problems up there with unions."

Forgive me but isn?t that the job of unions; to negotiate and make nuisances of themselves to get matters heard?

"It's interesting the union, not the employer is the stumbling block to the women getting the equal pay."

Except it's probably a union that is bringing the motion anyway?

?As possibly the oldest person in this thread, am I the only person who remembers "Love They Neighbour" ??

No, I do.

?But the other reason it will never be repeated is that the white racist was a shop steward. No one at the time thought it odd that a loud vicious racist would hold a post in a union.?
I think that?s your opinion, nothing more.

?During the miners strikes it was seen by Labour MPs as "understandable" if union members threw large lumps of concrete off motorway bridges, even if it killed poeple.?

Who said this? Did they keep their job? Are they still in office?

"lots of people did it, so why pick on them ?"

Same question applies.

?Fortunately Thatcher succeeded in her strategic goal of destroying socialism, and today's Labour party is if anything to the right of the Tories.?

Well that?s just more rhetoric; a popular slur but a meaningless one non the less. The world has moved on, the Labour Party found step with it is all. The Tories are still stuggling.

?Next time a mumsnetter gets a "man's job", I wonder if she'll thank Thatcher ?
No, I thought not.?
Why should she? Thatcher was no a feminist. I think she even explicitly came out in opposition to them and their aims. I?ll have a look in my notes.

DominiConnor - I'm old enough to remember 'Love Thy Neighbour'. A bit like Alf Garnett... the joke was always on the white guy for pathetic racist views, which is how they got away with it.

I can also remember (in about 1970?) getting a card thru the door every week to tell you which times & days the power would probably go off.

I can remember sitting around with candles - luckily for us we had a gas fire and cooker so we had 2 warm rooms.

That was in the days when it used to snow in the south east! I can remember snow coming over the top of my wellies. One year it snowed after Christmas and it lay until March - think it was 1978.

As late as 1983 I got my car stuck in a 5' deep snow drift. Can't imagine that these days - it's only snowed on about 8 days since ds1 was born in 1993.

You're dead right about the unions... the sad thing is that so many mining families suffered so much as a result. If only they could have foreseen the end result. It's not just coal, though - the last Cornish Tin mine at Geevor is a fascinating place to visit but was put out of business by cheap Chinese imports.

Oh gawd, I don't think I will like the latest posts on here will I? I've just skimmed down and got the gist I think.

You're a bricklayer??

This link explains the chronology of the miners' strikes of the 70's & 80's The scheduled power cuts & 3 day week were Ted Heath, not Maggie
I don't remember power cuts in 1984, but that could be
(a)because the mining industry had declined so much in importance that the power companies could do without the coal or
(b) because my memory has declined so much since having two kids that I can't remember them

Are you talking about open fires rather than central heating?
Sorry I was actually dumbfounded by the ignorance of that remark. You rendered me unable to type for a while.
God give me strength. DW gives me grief about calling myself "working class", and my contempt for middle class socialists.
We were living in a council house on the Essex borders in the 1970s. What planet do you come from ? Does Marie Antoinette live there ?
No we did not have fucking central heating.
Nor also did dusky maidens serve me hand made delicacies at high tea, we rarely ate partridge shot on our highland estates, I did not go to school in my personal helicopter, and to answer your next question we didn?t eat cake when we had no bread. And yes that happened.
Even if we did have central heating , having no electricity bollixes every flavour of that.
Have you any knowledge of anything at all except what you get from the Guardian ?
I fail to understand how you can even try to pretend that you think you can take a country which uses electricity for 99% of it's lighting, turn it off and expect no accidents to happen.
Are you so divorced from reality that you can't see that as bad ?
I wish I'd had your childhood.
Did Enid Blyton script it ?
Yes, my parental supervision was lacking. They weren't equipped to deal with a house with on lighting or heat. You reckon you could do better ? Care to try ?
Here?s a simple start. Move to somewhere where the outside temperature is -3, turn off all your lights and heating. You have no food because by the time you got there, the power had been cut off from them. Cook a meal for your kids. Off you go. You have no bloody idea at all do you ?
monkeytrousers we are not talking of the Winter of Discontent. By that point in the 70s it was standard to talk of when the power cuts would come not if. I blame the unions because they caused power to be cut off to my home so they could get richer and more powerful. I call that bad. Not being a socialist, I see the world as it is, not how I would like it to be.
The miners voted for every strike except the one they lost to Thatcher. This is not a coincidence. They were stupid thugs who lost, my only regret is we didn?t napalm the fuckers.
I?m sorry I confused you with BP.
In simple terms. If a big business did what the miners did, ie cut off most of our electricity, beat people up, and/or murder them, then they would be in deep shit. The miners did all these things, sometimes on live TV.
You then go on to talk about corruption. There is no doubt that some in the unions were corrupt, >but not all.
Try reading my post again. I used short words.
I never accused the unions of being corrupt, and am at pains to say they were democratic.
They corrupted the Labour party. The unions did exactly what their members wanted. The ?Lions led by donkeys? line does not wash. Look up the footage of the big union riots, or the car park meeting of big unions. Huge support for the most aggressive actions their leaders could come up with.

It's off topic but looking of that I am remnded of the complete hypocrisy about the defense of fox hunting - have these people never heard of the miners strike or of any amount of massive white collar layoffs?

Where were they defending the same principles for a different class?

You've lost it DC.

Miners' strikes in early 70's were one of the reasons Maggie cracked down so hard on the unions. Pretty sure she came to power in 1979 but haven't checked.

Yes, 79, I was 9

People who say "I'm not a historian but..." when talking about the 70's & 80's make me feel old. This isn't history, it's my life....

Wow... have just read your thread DC. That is pretty bitter. I'm middle class - like you can't help what my father did for a living or where I was born. I have socialist principles but that's far removed from Labour policy.
I have never read the Guardian.

So what caused your abject ignorance then ?
I take it you're too young to have seen socialism in action ?
It wasn't nice for those of us it happened to.

Did you really believe that people like us had central heating ?
Who do you think might have put it there ?

Eventually, my family got it's act together, and we bought it (thanks to Thatcher), and installed heating.

I paid cash, (yes literally a box of money) for my 25% of the house. The money I earned mostly legally because Thatcher's boys loved computers, and accidentally put one in my school which me and my mates "acquired" and put to good use.
Under the Tories I had a good university education paid for by the government with a grant to live on. Since my accountants have recently done my personal accounts I note I repay this almost on a monthly basis, which makes it a good investment. Never have I complained about income tax because I regard it as a debt due.

The Labour party has of course not only abolished grants, but actually charges kids to go to university.

Rusty, there are people who are specialists in those eras. I lived through them too, but I only know what I know, IYSWIM. It's a historians job to join up all the dots from many perspectives, and the Thatcher era was very complicated as is the Blair one.

"Did you really believe that people like us had central heating ?"

No Dominic I didn't. But we had an open fire as our only source of heat too, everyone did. You are the one who said that cutting the power source caused you to light fires.

I thought we were having an objective discussion, I was wrong. Lets leave it at that.