The 70's and Thatcher

M

Merrykoala

Well-known member
Was the situation with the Trade unions really that bad that we had to vote Thatcher in to gut industry to temper them?

I was born in 78 and my parents were very young so their anecdotes are a bit limited, I know the stories about the 3 day week and bins not being emptied etc but was wondering what the take was from people who worked in these industries when the unions were supposedly "running rampant and drunk on power" as some claim.

I just can't believe that it was so bad that we had to vote in such a wrecking ball.
 
I remember that time and in my opinion, Thatcher offered one of the Tories infamous ‘solutions’ - tame the unions and shut down inefficient nationalised industries and all your problems will be solved. She was pushing the free market.

She was in big trouble in her first term though but the nationalism surrounding ‘teaching the Argies a lesson’ in the Falklands gave her the boost she needed to win the next election.

No matter what die hard Tories try to say she was a national disaster on a historic scale.
 
there was an expectation that things would get better for workers pay and conditions , when inflation went out of control thanks to oil prices going through the roof Labour negotiated a wage freeze with the unions in order to reduce it. After that the Unions correctly wanted there pay to make up and went on strike after this was refused. At the time some Union leaders did seem a bit militant but knowing how right wing the media is I am not so sure.
 
I don’t know if you’re into podcasts, but I really like The Rest is History, they happen to be doing a 4 part special on 1974 at the moment. If you want context on rampant inflation, trade unions, Ted Heath, Wilson, North Ireland, it’s a great listen, and you can see how the ground is laid for Thatcher.
 
I remember the electricity being switched off & having to use candles because of strikes in the '70's

I was just a young lad, but remember - strikes - it seemed to dominate the news.

If Thatcher I remember 'free' milk being scrapped at junior school..

A little older when she was PM it was highest youth unemployment 35% just no jobs & endless YTS ( youth training schemes )

Thatcher & Regan - trickle down economics - (fail) & free market, de regulation of banks, sell off of nationalised businesses 'tell Sid' & conflict with Scargill & NUM..

She was very unpopular & heading for election defeat, when Falklands happened - Argentina invaded & swell of patriotism swept her to 2nd term & even more division..

Imho she & her ideals are the start of & continue to be, many of the issues we have today..
 
We, as a poorly educated nation led by a far right media, chose to inflict damage on the working classes who were looking for improve their lot after accepting pay freezes to help the country out.

Rather than looking to improve negotiations between trade unions, employers and the government we were easily persuaded to attack those within our midst, backed by a sweetener of cheap council house sales.

Nothing has changed since. We're still a poorly educated nation being led by a far right media.

During the same 'winter if discontent' Germany lost more hours to strikes. Their solution was more negotiation. They rightly didn't see driving down wages whilst increasing working hours as a solution to their economic problems, and rightly so.

Germany have just become the third largest economy in the world. When all of this neo liberal nonsense was inflicted on the country we were the fourth largest economy.
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
We, as a poorly educated nation led by a far right media, chose to inflict damage on the working classes who were looking for improve their lot after accepting pay freezes to help the country out.

Rather than looking to improve negotiations between trade unions, employers and the government we were easily persuaded to attack those within our midst, backed by a sweetener of cheap council house sales.

Nothing has changed since. We're still a poorly educated nation being led by a far right media.

During the same 'winter if discontent' Germany lost more hours to strikes. Their solution was more negotiation. They rightly didn't see driving down wages whilst increasing working hours as a solution to their economic problems, and rightly so.

Germany have just become the third largest economy in the world. When all of this neo liberal nonsense was inflicted on the country we were the fourth largest economy.
Click to expand...
Exactly this. Add in a sociopathic woman who lived for power and conflict, who happily used the police as her private militia to batter and frame strikers. Fast forward to now and she is the reason why whole industries disappeared, to be replaced by much poorer paid call centres and retail parks. Meanwhile the people whose livelihoods disappeared are constantly told by her media crooks to blame foreigners for their own poverty.
 
Derby_Red said:
In line with these points is the observation that the 'enemy within', the British worker, is nowadays a paragon of industrial virtue, powering the manufacturing base in areas like the car industry (though now foreign-owned). Maybe they weren't the problem all along?
Click to expand...
Absolutely, yet the problem still exists and their isn't a major political party looking to solve it.
 
I fully get that Thatcher and the Tories were never the right answer for the good of society.

I guess what I'm asking is was the scale tipped too far the other way with unions being able to grind the country to a halt or is it a case of history being written by the victors and painting a bleaker picture of life before Reganomics and Thatcher tore all the industry down.

I would like to think it's obvious to most that they destroyed industry and unions so we could never hold a gun to their heads again. Although a few people who managed to make a killing from the housing schemes she brought in might argue differently
 
The billionaires who made a “killing” did so as a result of neoliberalism, by which Thatcher represented their political class and economic interests.

Untitled.jpg
 
Last edited:
My old man god rest his soul used to manage a fabrication shop. Used to tell a story of turning up to work one day and the shop stewards were turning everyone back at the gate. The reason was a large puddle across the gateway that would mean your feet would get wet. If you walked to work that is, which zero of the workforce did.

Anecdotal of course, but the 70s were rife with such stories of workers taking the proverbial. I don't really blame them either, I think the fundamental problem was a complete lack of social cohesion. Three classes of restaurant at British Leyland? Stay in your lane and know your place was the Zeitgeist and that inevitably breeds resentment.

What Thatcher did was attack one part of this status quo - working class solidarity as embodied by Trades Unions. She rather cleverly disguised this as promoting social mobility (all those c0ckney barrowboy millionaire bond traders). As we know social mobility over the past few decades has gone the way of class solidarity. So we're left not with a working class that can mobilise to improve its lot, but with a compliant underclass, that shouts God Save the King and vents its frustration on itself.
 
Industrial relations during this period were bedevilled by our class system. In other European countries, management and workers were better able to negotiate their way out of trouble because there wasn't the same gulf separating the classes and they therefore found it easier to identify common interests. For all the talk about the "classless society" since then, it doesn't seem that things have changed all that much, if at all.
 
speckyget said:
My old man god rest his soul used to manage a fabrication shop. Used to tell a story of turning up to work one day and the shop stewards were turning everyone back at the gate. The reason was a large puddle across the gateway that would mean your feet would get wet. If you walked to work that is, which zero of the workforce did.

Anecdotal of course, but the 70s were rife with such stories of workers taking the proverbial. I don't really blame them either, I think the fundamental problem was a complete lack of social cohesion. Three classes of restaurant at British Leyland? Stay in your lane and know your place was the Zeitgeist and that inevitably breeds resentment.

What Thatcher did was attack one part of this status quo - working class solidarity as embodied by Trades Unions. She rather cleverly disguised this as promoting social mobility (all those c0ckney barrowboy millionaire bond traders). As we know social mobility over the past few decades has gone the way of class solidarity. So we're left not with a working class that can mobilise to improve its lot, but with a compliant underclass, that shouts God Save the King and vents its frustration on itself.
Click to expand...

Decent management would have helped, especially with the 'social cohesion' aspects, rather than in maintaining the class structure. Thatcher did as you said and attacked the lowest common denominator - her 'cleverest' outcome was to engineer the divisive self-destructive culture of setting worker against worker. I don't know if this was intentional as a driver of the ideology, or by accident.
 
Derby_Red said:
Decent management would have helped, especially with the 'social cohesion' aspects, rather than in maintaining the class structure. Thatcher did as you said and attacked the lowest common denominator - her 'cleverest' outcome was to engineer the divisive self-destructive culture of setting worker against worker. I don't know if this was intentional as a driver of the ideology, or by accident.
Click to expand...
Would not surprise me if this was intentional. The supposed bringing down of the Heath government by the Unions was still fresh in Tory minds. And although that gave Thatcher her 'big chance ' it fed into the 'enemy within' narrative that informed her entire industrial policy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top