O/T The Price Of Coal 1977 BBC Drama

[Brin]

Attachment 10921

Wow! Where have you popped up from?

The mines Wilson closed were way outdated and way out of the modern era to sufficiently produce coal at profit. Made sense to close them and invest more modern technology on mines that would return a good profit to the taxpayer.

Over to you....

[Exiletyke]

Wow! Where have you popped up from?

The mines Wilson closed were way outdated and way out of the modern era to sufficiently produce coal at profit. Made sense to close them and invest more modern technology on mines that would return a good profit to the taxpayer.

Over to you....

That's a very uncomfortable argument for Thatcherites to swallow Brin & proves it was ideology & revenge that drove her agenda

[gkotw]

And let's not forget the ideological attack on the steel workers a couple or so years earlier. She even used the same hatchet man, Ian Macgregor.

Ive always said Rotherham got a real double whammy from thatcher. First she decimated our steel and then she went for our pits!

[Exiletyke]

In a perverse sort of way when ideology is your agenda I can to some degree see why but it's what happened afterwards that grates
no atempt to revytalise the area or invest properly in rebuilding the damage
Britain did more to revytalise [wont' let me spell it properly for some reason] Germany after the war & look at the consequences of that leg up

re*****ise [see what I mean]

[twinCAT]

Wow! Where have you popped up from?

The mines Wilson closed were way outdated and way out of the modern era to sufficiently produce coal at profit. Made sense to close them and invest more modern technology on mines that would return a good profit to the taxpayer.

Over to you....

That's exactly why they were all closed; because they weren't profitable in the long run. I'm friends with many fitters/electricians who served their time in the industry, and from their tales it's not difficult to understand why it wasn't profitable. They all agree it was the best job they've ever had, the best paid job they've ever had, the best pension scheme they've ever had, while also telling stories of how often they were skiving, and did very little work. It was never going to be sustainable with that work ethic. Why should the government have subsidized it? Welcome to the real world now, it must come as a shock to you.

[Exiletyke]

That's exactly why they were all closed; because they weren't profitable in the long run. I'm friends with many fitters/electricians who served their time in the industry, and from their tales it's not difficult to understand why it wasn't profitable. They all agree it was the best job they've ever had, the best paid job they've ever had, the best pension scheme they've ever had, while also telling stories of how often they were skiving, and did very little work. It was never going to be sustainable with that work ethic. Why should the government have subsidized it? Welcome to the real world now, it must come as a shock to you.

And that is down to rank bad management which I will give you
How much have we subsidised the banking industry where all those employed really put a shift in don't they?

[twinCAT]

And that is down to rank bad management which I will give you
How much have we subsidised the banking industry where all those employed really put a shift in don't they?

There's only so much that an industry can be milked before it collapses. The mining industry got milked. What did you expect?

[millmoormagic]

That's exactly why they were all closed; because they weren't profitable in the long run. I'm friends with many fitters/electricians who served their time in the industry, and from their tales it's not difficult to understand why it wasn't profitable. They all agree it was the best job they've ever had, the best paid job they've ever had, the best pension scheme they've ever had, while also telling stories of how often they were skiving, and did very little work. It was never going to be sustainable with that work ethic. Why should the government have subsidized it? Welcome to the real world now, it must come as a shock to you.

No, vast majority were very small operations, with dwindling reserves, or reserves which would be much easily won by combining the small pits into bigger concerns.

As for you mentioning the tales of fitters/electricians, do you still believe in santa claus as well?no doubt there's an element of truth in some of them, embellished for effect, but as ever, while those fitters/electricians are sat doing nowt then it's therefore logical to say the machinery was working, the colliers were mining, grafting, earning their corn so to speak......

You mention best job, best pay, best pension why do you think that was?? I'll tell you why, because each and everyone believed in the union, and each other, and action created the better pay, the better conditions, the better pension, what were you doing to make your workplace better? Best job?? i think you'll be hard pressed to find many miners who say it was a good job, great in terms of cameraderie and 'the craic'. All said and done, that same job was also open to you, couldn't hack it though eh?

Another reason British mines may have been more expensive to run, again due to the miner's and the unions, was that they were the safest in the world, something i'm sure you'd be happy to go with??

Someone mentioned the gov't subsidies and the banks, fella we've spent more money bailing banks out than we ever did subsidising the pits...

Real world eh, yeh, real world....some folk will gobble owt.

[Exiletyke]

There's only so much that an industry can be milked before it collapses. The mining industry got milked. What did you expect?

That is so true
Now just apply that logic to the banking industry
How odd that we still have a banking industry

[twinCAT]

Yes it's similar. The difference being that it's in the interest of the general public for the banks to remain open for the whole economy not to collapse. It was only in the interest of the cash cow miners for the pits to remain open.