Petrol rationing reminded me of the tanker drivers strike. Until stations ran out. I kept the car topped up. I was working 12 hr day shifts. 3 days on and varying from 3 to 21 days off. I was on a part of the pattern where it was just 3 on 3 off. I only used the car for work. I'd walk the 2.5 miles into town on shopping trips and catch the bus home. I just stretched out the fuel. I was in reserve on the gauge, when I found a station with petrol.

I remember being sent with my cousin to buy paraffin for the heater in his house, and watching blazing rows as people queued to get their two gallon ration. I think I was around ten or eleven at the time so that would have made it around 76/77?

I remember the three day week, constant blackouts, sugar rationing, Green Goddesses on the streets and various other industrial abuse issues at the time. And it was industrial abuse - not action.

I was standing next to my Dad one day when the man, Mr McEwan from across the road, stopped to talk to him. Mr McEwan worked in British Leyland, Bathgate - just a regular man trying his best, a young family of three and a bought house on "Spam Valley."  British Leyland was crippled by industrial abuse.

"I just saw you going to work an hour ago, Jimmy - why are you back?" asked my Dad.

"Strike, strike again, someone left a bottle of Irn Bru on the crane gantry, and the union called a strike to protest against health and safety abuse."

"Could someone not just have went up and got the bottle?"

"It was nothing to do with the bottle, that was only an excuse to strike," said Mr McEwan, bursting into tears. "My weans, my weans, my house - how am I supposed to pay for them if I'm always on strike?" He said. I'll tell you, I think that was the first time in my life I saw a grown man cry - unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. We walked away, and my Dad - who was the chairman of the ASTMS union said -

"I'll never understand it, all they're going to do is shut down their plants and end up with no jobs. All they have to do is work to rule, no need to strike. Look at that poor man in tears, Blether, all because some idiot called a strike over a bottle of Irn Bru."

There's a genuine split between people's views on industrial action/abuse - and way too many people lend support to the miners strike. Those that lend the greatest support, and express a visceral hatred for anyone that has a conflicting opinion ( ie, me ) are those that weren't there. They make up some romantic "man of the people/salt of the earth," rhetoric and hold onto it for grim death.

The problem is, those of us that were involved in the heavy industry nationalized companies know the truth - the level of abuse and literal sabotage perpetrated by the workforce(s) was beyond belief. And anyone that worked in the heavy industries and denies that is a LIAR.

You want to have seen the fights where I worked, at the strip mill in the Ravenscraig, guys punching fork out of each other. One guy trying to his job, the other sabotaging - it was beyond belief. I even saw fights break out at union meetings ( eh, I might even have caused one ). The level of self-interest was staggering, unbelievable.

The British working man forked themselves up, no one else to blame but themselves.     

We steelworkers were ambivalent to the miners during the strike as they hadn't supported us in our 1980 strike under the terms of the Triple Alliance agreement between the miner, rail, and steelworker unions. That's a fact that a lot of people that the supported the miners strike can't handle or understand.

The miners strike was a shambles from the get go - with Scargill marching ( some ) of his men up the hill, and marching them down again.

Forkin' prick.

And to this day, some miners are so deluded they can't accept it was their own fault - while those that saw through it are called scabs.

Pathetic.

 

Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, was walking through London one day when he saw a brass plate with the name on it:

John Lewis Partnership

A retailer in partnership with its employees? He was blown away. He couldn't wait to get back to the US to introduce the concept to his company. In his autobiography, he named it as the biggest single difference he made to his company - unleashing employee ownership launched his company into the stratosphere.

While he was doing that, the British working man, involved in the monolithic industries, was resorting to the blunt weapon of strike, strike, strike. They struck themselves to destruction, self-harming more than a frenzy at a masochists tea party.

The Japanese, for example, weren't better at making cars - the South Koreans weren't better at making ships, the Germans weren't better at making precision engineering tools - they were all better at one important thing, though.

Industrial relations.

We Brits had everything, except the ability to pull together for the common good.

Sad.

We posted at the same time, just read your John Lewis thread. Agreed.

Smokie watched me interrogate a young lady last night in my local - "Are you a student?" I asked -

"Yes, doing a degree in community development, art projects in the community blah, blah."

So we listened to her wittering on about LGBT performance groups, street art, teaching junkies how to paint, blah blah.

How the fork is that a degree course?

We're creating false degrees, creating false jobs, and every single one of them is at the expense of the public purse cos no commercial activity would be as stupid as to waste money on this crap.

These, at best, are college courses for people who wish to volunteer in the community. Not full time jobs -

Anyway, the young lady looked at me with a doleful expression and said "Glasgow City council has paid off 1,500 people involved in community work."

Thank fork, I thought to myself.

Maybe I'm just an old cynic.