7 ms·
why luckily?
by zwirbl 5y ago
why luckily?
- swarnie 5y agoBecause they had an amazing crack at trashing the country and needed to be put down. 3 day work week, rolling black outs, propping up of old dead industries. Not to mention all the dead companies they striked in to the ground. Bloody criminals the lot of them.
- switch007 5y agoPut down. Interesting choice of phrase.
- swarnie 5y agoInteresting that my phrasing is the only thing you seem to have issue with. I assume you agree with my general analysis of the unions effect on Britain?
- switch007 5y agoWhy interesting? I simply decided to call you out for calling for the murder of union members. It was before I was born and I don’t have much of an opinion. I do have a very strong opinion that nobody should advocate the murdering of union members, though.
- swarnie 5y agoNone of the 11 definitions offered by google mention the murder of people, maybe your confused? The closest answer is the 3rd: put down phrasal verb of put 3) suppress a rebellion, coup, or riot by force. "the security forces put down a coup attempt in the capital"
- throwaway525142 5y agohttps://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=put_down&oldid=63914349 https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=put_down&oldid=6... 4th definition: (euphemistic) To euthanize (an animal). I'd say it's not out of question that this could be applied to people as well.
- makomk 5y agoYes, what people need to understand about the history of British unions is that they effectively shut down the entire country repeatedly to try and force the Government to keep coal mining which wasn't viable anymore going. That's basically intolerable in a democracy. Thatcher's breaking of the unions only happened after previous governments who thought the unions could be negotiated with were brought down by their inability to deal with the damage being done. (There's also some impressive double-think on the British left around this and global warming, since of course dealing with that means that coal mining and use has to go away.)
- sprafa 5y agoUnfortunately even left wing folks in the UK remember that the coal unions shut down the country regularly in the 70s. I’m not from here, but I know a very left wing crowd and the older ones remember how they would dine in candlelight during the big coal strikes. Tatcher was a reaction to this.
- swarnie 5y agoI'll be honest i didn't expect this forum of all places to be so pro-union. I understand why some people need collective bargaining to raise their position in the workplace but i thought this forum was full of talented professionals.
- sundaeofshock 5y agoThere are plenty of talented professionals over 40 who wish they had union protections.
- zwirbl 5y agoBeing a talented professional and being pro-union is not mutually exclusive. Unions can (and oftentimes do) serve as a counter to employers leverage, while admittedly reducing workplace flexibility. Unions have achieved worker-rights that are now taken for granted, keeping these will need entities working towards that
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoThe right wing have been sending troops and tanks and other kinds of hired thugs out to keep miners in their place and force them to accept pay and work conditions that were often illegal for a long time. Generally with the benefit of hindsight, the miners were in the right. So its probably ahistorical to suggest that Margaret Thatcher, only attacked the unions because they went too far. Maybe she just wanted to keep the money for herself and her political connections rather than pay the people risking their lives to mine it a fair wage.