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Post by stuartB on Oct 2, 2012 19:08:53 GMT
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Post by lambethgull on Oct 2, 2012 20:09:51 GMT
No doubt scabs and Tories enjoy the (admittedly rather undignified) spectacle of Arthur Scargill's retirement, but we all know which side those bastards were and are on.
I've spoken to former miners (not fu**ing scabs btw!) who couldn't be more critical of Scargill and his cronies. I'll listen to their critique of Scargill any day of the week.
Love the name of his QC btw!!! ;D
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Post by stuartB on Oct 2, 2012 20:49:42 GMT
very ironic name for his QC, indeed.
I started seeing my wife during the strike of 1984 and visited south wales frequently. Even though my point of view changed witnessing the real people suffering, it didn't change my view of the NUM and especially Scargill.
Over the years even the south wales miners have come to realise that he sold them down the river and let the power go to his head. He would have had the support of the country if he had a mandate but he didn't.
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JamesB
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Post by JamesB on Oct 2, 2012 20:53:21 GMT
Apparently he used to have a massive portrait of himself giving a speech off the back of a transit hanging up in his office. Can't think who that reminds me of...  Ah |
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Post by lambethgull on Oct 2, 2012 21:07:41 GMT
very ironic name for his QC, indeed. I started seeing my wife during the strike of 1984 and visited south wales frequently. Even though my point of view changed witnessing the real people suffering, it didn't change my view of the NUM and especially Scargill. Over the years even the south wales miners have come to realise that he sold them down the river and let the power go to his head. He would have had the support of the country if he had a mandate but he didn't. If you read about any miner's strike (here in the 1980s or 1920s, Northern France in the 1880s, Colorado in 1914, South Africa in 2012) you will see the same tactics and propaganda being deployed against working men. But let's blame it all on Arthur Scargill  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2012 18:29:14 GMT
Arthur Scargill didn't sell anyone down the river, Stuart. The strike was entirely about the future of the mining industry, and the NUM's position - that the government planned to shut it down and leave the pit towns and villages bereft - was entirely vindicated by what happened afterwards. Even the Nottinghamshire miners in the so-called UDM came to realise that fact, since the promises they were made - that Notts pits were so productive that they would survive the cull - were all broken within a few years of the end of the strike. That was why the UDM's founder Roy Lynk finished up sending his OBE back and staging a one-man sit in at the bottom of Silverhill Colliery in 1992.
The trouble with Arthur was that he was so unattractive a personality that he was food and drink to the media and the Thatcher administration. If he hadn't existed the Tory party would have wanted to invent him. I have heard him described as "charismatic" when in fact the opposite was true. He had a bullying tub-thumping style, a whiny voice and a daft comb-over which made him look ridiculous. If only Peter Heathfield had been in charge of the NUM it wouldn't have been so easy to paint the union as under the thumb of its aggressive and arrogant leadership.
The ironic thing after all these years is that maybe the demise of coal was good for the pit areas in the long run, since no young lads are going to spend their working lives underground any more. My friend Eddie stayed out on strike throughout the dispute and tipped a lorryload of coal onto Michael Heseltine's beautifully manicured lawn but now even he is glad that the pits have shut down. His own village now has an industrial estate in it, which doesn't employ as many people as the mines used to do but which in the past would never have been built, because the NCB wouldn't allow other industries into the area in case they provided alternative jobs.
Kes was not only beautifully written and filmed but it also gave an accurate picture of life in a Yorkshire mining town in 1970. It was a fact of life that when boys left school at 16 they followed their dads down t'pit. One or two exceptionally brainy or talented ones might escape their fate but for a good 90% the die was cast right from the start.
At the time of the strike, though, none of that was a consideration. In a village where 90% of the people were dependant for their livelihood on one industry, a threat to that industry's survival was something worth going out on strike and suffering for. Arthur Scargill didn't force those miners out; he was simply their leader and public face.
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Post by lambethgull on Oct 4, 2012 20:43:19 GMT
Cracking post  The trouble with Arthur was that he was so unattractive a personality that he was food and drink to the media and the Thatcher administration. If he hadn't existed the Tory party would have wanted to invent him. I have heard him described as "charismatic" when in fact the opposite was true. He had a bullying tub-thumping style, a whiny voice and a daft comb-over which made him look ridiculous. If only Peter Heathfield had been in charge of the NUM it wouldn't have been so easy to paint the union as under the thumb of its aggressive and arrogant leadership. The sold them down the river bit is obviously nonsense, but the President of the NUM would have been vilified whatever his hairstyle or however good a communicator he was. The problem with Scargill in my view wasn't his hairstyle, his communication skills, or that he was too "hardline" as some suggest. The problem was that he was tactically inept. Worse than that he was a typical union leader; full of his own sense of self-importance and a slave to the machinery of his union. A cannier, less sectarian (and syndicalist) leadership of the NUM would have focused more on broadening the strike, bringing in other sectors, and NOT reigning in wildcat action. The NUM leadership actively opposed those things. Scargill's manner and personality surely represented something of a PR coup for the forces that opposed the strike. But what many people don't understand (not you, btw, Wildebeeste) is that a union is only ever as strong as its rank-and-file. All union leaders realise this, and for different reasons, use it to their advantage. Scargill knew he could rely on his membership to back a strike, Bob Crow knows he can too. Both would have been out of a job if they did not call a strike when circumstances demanded one. The opposite happens to be true of most union leaders, whose six figure salaries are largely contingent on their rank-and-file NOT being organized and militant! The curious thing of course with miner's strikes is the ferocity and militancy of them. Whether in the US, Spain, Africa, the Far East or Northern Europe, mining strikes always become serious. To an extent this is due to the importance of the industry. But more important are the feelings of community and solidarity such work engenders. The divide between the men who create the wealth and the scum who hoard it is there for all to see. The people of Kent, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and South Wales may be glad that they don't have to work down a mine to put bread on the table. But somebody has to, and those people won't put up with it forever either. |
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Post by stuartB on Oct 4, 2012 21:22:14 GMT
Lambie why the vitriol and venom towards "scabs"?
Tomorrow morning I will drive along the "Heads of the Valleys" road A465 and just along from Merthyr Tydfil I will remember the totally innocent taxi driver from Porth who was killed by a concrete block thrown from a bridge. All he was guilty of, if you can call it that, was to drive a "scab" to work.
I know a union's strength comes from its membership mindlessly following the leadership but they are individuals and allowed to think for themselves. Just because they came to a different conclusion, should they die or be shunned in their village for 30 years? of course not, it's absolute nonsense.
the fact remains that if Scargill had got a mandate by getting his membership to vote for a strike, then alot more of the country would have supported him as they did in previous strikes. What was he afraid of? not winning a ballot?
I live amongst the most militant of all - Welsh Miners. They supported everyone elses strike going in the 70s and 80s. The steel workers, the electricity generators, the railway workers etc etc but in their hour of need, where were they to return the favour? answer, nowhere!! that is why it failed. If they had all stuck together like they did in the 70s the country would have been paralysed and they may have got their way.
That is one part of the 70s i do not miss. No telly, no lights, rubbish on the streets, unburied bodies etc etc. bloody unions, good riddance
yours, an ignoramus
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Post by lambethgull on Oct 4, 2012 21:56:23 GMT
Well first off, I don't approve of throwing concrete blocks from bridges. Shunned for 30 years? Well you make you choice, you live with the consequences.
Would you have supported the miners if they'd won a national ballot? Or would you have found some other grounds on which to oppose the strike?
I mentioned the NUM leadership's failure to spread the strike in my previous post.
I'm sorry about the ignoramus thing. I don't consider you to be an ignoramus. You did however respond like an ignoramus by raising the point you did in the context that you did.
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Post by stuartB on Oct 4, 2012 22:02:49 GMT
Well first off, I don't approve of throwing concrete blocks from bridges. Shunned for 30 years? Well you make you choice, you live with the consequences. Would you have supported the miners if they'd won a national ballot? Or would you have found some other grounds on which to oppose the strike? I mentioned the NUM leadership's failure to spread the strike in my previous post. I'm sorry about the ignoramus thing. I don't consider you to be an ignoramus. You did however respond like an ignoramus by raising the point you did in the context that you did. time to drop the ignoramus thing, agreed  I think alot more people would have supported a strike with a mandate but i probably would not have. i supported the families affected by helping to collect money and then buy food for the families. these are the real victims who are treated as political pawns. Scargill had his chances to do a deal but others think that Thatcher would not have done a deal whatever. We will never agree and no one will ever have actual proof unless they were there. Unions have a real purpose but negotiation is the right way, not holding people to ransom by striking. Bob Crow is top scum but he has represented his workers well to become very overpaid for driving a train that they don't even have to steer!! |
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Post by lambethgull on Oct 5, 2012 7:44:24 GMT
Unions have a real purpose but negotiation is the right way, not holding people to ransom by striking. Bob Crow is top scum but he has represented his workers well to become very overpaid for driving a train that they don't even have to steer!! Well Roy Lynk found out where the teacher's pet strategy got him. The let's talk about it over a nice cup of tea idea sounds very good, but your employer doesn't negotiate with you because he thinks you're a nice fellow. Your employer negotiates with you because you have some muscle. Negotiating without the threat of industrial action (or the willingness to follow it through) is like going out to bat without a cricket bat. You mention Bob Crow. I happen to know several shop floor organisers in the RMT (none of whom are train drivers btw - like the majority of RMT members). The idea that they do the bidding of Bob Crow is total BS, and betrays a lack of understanding about how an effective trade union works. |
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JamesB
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Post by JamesB on Oct 5, 2012 14:52:49 GMT
It is obvious that a union leader would want to make it appear that they have all of the union members behind them, because it's in their interest to appear to be a strong leader with the backing of membership. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have all of the union behind them
It's an inherent flaw, and one seized upon by the right in their demonisation of the unions in the 70s and 80s because it was so easy to make out that Scargill was representative of all NUM members, when he clearly wasn't. The same goes for the likes of Crow and Serwotka today. I didn't even know who the President of the NUS is until I looked it up just now
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Post by lambethgull on Oct 5, 2012 16:10:06 GMT
Many of the criticisms 'the right' make of social-democratic trade unions are valid - they are centralist, their leaderships are largely unaccountable, the salaries of union leaders and full timers are a joke (especially in the case of folk like Mr Sewotka).
But these are all empty, rhetorical criticisms. The point is that even if unions were organised differently the right would still be opposed to workers organising. Workers who organise are demonised by the right because they threaten capital, not because they are undemocratic.
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Post by aw on Oct 6, 2012 7:50:30 GMT
didn`t Scargill and Thatcher both do a Saville and shaft minors?
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Rags
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Post by Rags on Oct 6, 2012 11:20:52 GMT
didn`t Scargill and Thatcher both do a Saville and shaft minors? I'm sure sexual abuse is an hilarious experience, Aussie, especially by the victims who suffer physical and mental trauma at the hands of people they respect and trust. Got any more laughs for us? |
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