Post by chrish on Aug 19, 2010 21:32:32 GMT
Without wanting to start another thread of condolence I see it was the funeral today of Scottish Trade Union leader and journalist Jimmy Reid who recently died at the age of 78.
Earlier in the year I remembered seeing a program on the BBC about the shipyards at Clyde and how they battled against the lost of government subsidies meaning the potential loss of 6,000 jobs.
Jimmy Reid was most famous for campaigning against the possible closure of Clyde shipyards by Edward Heath's Conservative Government in the early 1970's. Bloody Tories.
During the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-in he famously made this speech warning the workforce.
“We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying because the world is watching us, and it is our responsibility to conduct ourselves with responsibility, and with dignity, and with maturity."
Over the next 3 years over 101 million pounds were raised by the public.
He also made the famous anti rat-race speech
"Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes. A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts and before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?"
Earlier in the year I remembered seeing a program on the BBC about the shipyards at Clyde and how they battled against the lost of government subsidies meaning the potential loss of 6,000 jobs.
Jimmy Reid was most famous for campaigning against the possible closure of Clyde shipyards by Edward Heath's Conservative Government in the early 1970's. Bloody Tories.
During the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-in he famously made this speech warning the workforce.
“We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying because the world is watching us, and it is our responsibility to conduct ourselves with responsibility, and with dignity, and with maturity."
Over the next 3 years over 101 million pounds were raised by the public.
He also made the famous anti rat-race speech
"Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes. A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts and before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?"
Jimmy Reid is, and always will be; a political and social hero of mine, and I actually have that text somewhere amongst my possessions.