Coal Not Dole

 

Coal Not Dole

In Today's Issue

Industrial Action

Coal
Coale Not Dole
That's Amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing
Random Joke

INDUSTRIAL ACTION AN OPINION

That the UK is a low-strike society and a low-pay economy is no freakish coincidence. In-work poverty is at a record high in large part because working days lost to strikes are at record lows. When unions were smashed by a combination of legislation, defeats and mass unemployment in the 1980s, 

we lost the most effective means we have to ensure that workers get a fair slice of the pie they make.

That’s why the Governments proclamation that work is the best route out of poverty is trolling the nation from the prime ministerial pulpit. Most people living in poverty are in work. They may brag about healthy employment figures, but the fact that they are accompanied by an unprecedented crisis in 

living standards exposes the inequality baked into our economic model as people’s wages cannot meet the rising inflation in prices.

Millions of workers are deprived of a comfortable existence in large part because organising for better wages and conditions has been 

made so deliberately difficult. That the Tories are planning to further hobble an already battered labour movement should be understood as yet another assault on workers’ living standards.

In response to the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport balloting its members in support of industrial action, ministers are threatening legislation 

to make effective strikes illegal. The motivation for the proposed action is very straightforward: pay freezes – or, given inflation hit a four-decade high of 9%, a real-terms pay cut – and 2,500 job losses.

Those opposing the action highlight the supposedly exorbitant salaries of train drivers, which range from £20,000 to £65,000. They are the same people, of course, who wail about the “politics of envy” if the booming salaries of millionaire bosses are questioned. But the wages of train drivers are an advertisement for striking, not against. By taking industrial action – rather than being resigned to their lot – drivers have succeeded in driving up their pay.

The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has pleaded for workers to exercise “pay restraint”: an easy demand to make when you’re paid half a million each year, rather than say a care worker on £17,000, nearly 30 times less. However, surging prices have not been caused by rising wages, but by supply chain issues in China, rising energy costs and companies taking home windfall profits.

The response of workers to a crisis imposed upon them should not be stoic acceptance of their lot. We’ve had, regrettably, far too much of that. According to the High Pay Centre, the median CEO is paid 111 times more than the lowest-paid worker. We spend tens of billions of pounds a year on in-work benefits and personal debt has ballooned to unprecedented levels.

Workers who are unionised benefit from a so-called “wage premium” of between 10% and 15%, while the pay of non-unionised workers is dragged upwards by trade unions, too. The government doesn’t lack tools to fi​​x the cost of living crisis, such as hiking the minimum wage and social security entitlements, but strengthening unions is a no-brainer. After all, does anyone really think that countries such as Sweden – where nearly nine in 10 workers are covered by collective bargaining agreement, and where living standards are substantially higher than our own – are economic disasters?

Expect an escalating media blitz against the unions. Ours is a society in which working-class people are demonised for being too weak – for supposedly languishing in poverty because of a lack of aspiration; and for being too strong – for daring to fight for a just share of the wealth they create with their hard graft.

Yes, strikes are inconvenient, but is a day of disruption a more painful intrusion into millions of lives than leaving working people without enough money to pay their bills or feed their families?

If an example is to be made of Britain’s train drivers, it should be that they provide inspiration for workers to fight back. Low pay is a scandal and a national emergency, and it can be addressed if workers have the strength to demand what is rightfully theirs. If train drivers have the courage to reject collapsing pay, then so, surely, should a workforce that has resigned itself to stagnation and decline for far too long.

COAL

I work in the dark, deep underground

I toil in the muck where all light is drowned

In the dirt and the dust

I hack and I pick.

Shovel and crawl

My blood it runs thick

My skin eats the dirt

Tattooed with coal

The carbon that eats

Right down to my soul

But now it’s all gone

On a political whim

We import our power

From some pseudonym

The men were so proud

To toil for their pay

To ensure we had the means

To turn night into day

They worked underground they worked in their sweat

We owed them more, forever in debt

The 1984 Miners' Strike was a last attempt by the mining unions to stop mining closures and the loss of jobs.

The biggest strike in the post-war era (at its height, 142,000 mineworkers were involved), it was also one of the bitterest industrial disputes in British history

The strike ended on 3 March 1985 with the NUM having failed to achieve concessions from the government

In March 1984 more than 187,000 miners came out on strike when the National Coal Board announced that 20 pits in England would have to close with the loss of 20,000 jobs.

It was the start of one of the most confrontational strikes ever seen, marred by picket line violence and clashes between police and miners.

Miners in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire eventually followed Yorkshire pits and came out on strike.

But some miners continued to work and were branded as "scabs" by their colleagues when they crossed picket lines.

The Government branded the striking miners as "the enemy within".

When the strike ended 12 months later, it was estimated that the total cost had been £3 billion.

Over 11,000 people had been arrested, and around 5,000 miners stood trial for a variety of offences.

Many of the threatened closures took place in 1992.

Mining communities throughout the country were scarred, and many never fully recovered.

It was the end of the industry that had once been the backbone of industrial Britain.

Collapse of an industry
In 1984 there were 170 collieries in Britain, employing more than 190,000 people.

The last deep coal mine closed, in Yorkshire, in 2015.

THAT'S AMAAAAAAAAZING

The record for filling a 508 kg (0.5 ton) hopper with coal using a banjo shovel by a team of two is 14.8 seconds, by Brian Coghlan and Piet Groot (both New Zealand) at the opening of the Brunner Bridge, South Island, New Zealand, on 27 March 2004.

Random Joke of the Day

I went to the palindrome shop yesterday. “I’d like to make an exchange please” “What are you offering?” “A nut for a jar of tuna”

Bargain Book

Did you get a kindle or e-book reader for Xmas? Then as a New Years gift from me you can now buy

my recent release, "Tales of the Unexpected" for the amazing low price of £1.99 (cheaper than a cup

of coffee) 

CHECK OUT THE 5 STAR REVIEWS -

B Silver
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat diverse short stories
28 October 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Love this writer I bought his previous books and in my opinion this is the best so far. The stories are much more diverse than the others. For a book of short stories there are a lot there, great to pop in and read as and when you want to. Read mine on the train, I laughed out loud at one point making my fellow passengers jump out of their seats. Recommended read....

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07YSVC6TT…