A tear springs to my eye when I remember how they used to pour oil on the web (paper) so that it broke and halted production. Or how a printer violently smacked my hand when I accidentally brushed some lead type. Or how a rather pathetic machine printing out City prices - I was once a financial journalist - was examined by union bosses who feared it might jeopardise their second keystroke monopoly. Or how we'd slave all day to put the paper together only to see it all lost in some petty power play. Or how people named Mickey Mouse could pick up pay packets. Or how 'Old Spanish Practices' could keep whole families in non-jobs. Or how journalists got threatened and beaten up when Murdoch moved to Wapping. Or how a whole industry and culture existed in a state of permanent blackmail. Good times.
Then there was Jack Jones, once thought to be the most powerful man in Britain, who was passing Labour Party documents to the Soviets. There was Arthur 'combover' Scargill saying the miners won just because they had a strike. There was Tony Benn, condemning violence but only away from the picket line. I could go on for pages and pages.
I hope nice Mr Woodley of Unite remembers those times as clearly as I do. I am not entirely convinced that he does.
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I do not know the full story. But having a kitchen building business or marrying a person from another land, is not on the same planet as what went on in Fleet St. And for heavens sake, thinking about it surely Nurses getting hitched to Doctors is in the same ballpark as a flight steward having a husband in another country. And thinking about it even further, the BLISS of sending her off, having her return a week or so later should be the goal told to any teenage boy.
ReplyDeleteAll of which is right, Bryan. I like union baiting as much as the next liberal minded guy who doesn't want anybody telling him what he can or cannot do. It's when you work in a shit-end job, with no union protection, on barely more than minimum wage and with your every entitlement taken from you, that you begin to wish that you had somebody in your corner. The ideal of the trade unions is one I can live with. It's just the reality that makes me realise that nobody truly gives a damn and it's all about lining your pocket before you get caught. And the world if full of Bernie Madoffs who never get caught. My grandfather only treated on book as a Bible and that was Tressell's 'Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'. It's taken me many years to understand why.
ReplyDeleteMost modern unions are rubbish - they are only powerful in large corporates or the public sector. They make health and safety into a fetish and make it difficult for crap people to get sacked. They bleat about 1% pay rises in the public sector when many private sector employers have had to operate on 3 day weeks or enforce pay cuts to stay in business. They're going to be busy when a new government starts slashing spending though. Cameron's Britain will be much like Heath's in my view.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry it will all be much better when Iberia takes them over.
ReplyDeleteThen they'll know about "Spanish Practices"
You are right obviously. No one needs trade unions we should all learn to love big brother. I have a relatively low paid job as I have had sole care of my high functioning autistic son, I spent today smiling through humiliation - you will keep me going for another day.
ReplyDeleteThis is surreal. Is there some level of irony in this reaction to Mail-bate that I have missed?
ReplyDeleteThanks. I never grasped where history begins and paleontology ends - I was once thrown out of class for asking what the war had to do with me. I found the Germans to be okay people, as it happens. He was an old soldier too, I discovered much later.
ReplyDeleteI was working in Fleet Street during the 70's and 80's and yes, the nostalgia flooded back. I particularly remember working for LBC, the radio station and being unable to broadcast a programme because the engineer had gone out for a fag and, woe betide me if I so much as thought of pressing the "play button" on the tape machine.
ReplyDeleteAll the printers, subs, layout people and the rest would sign on in the morning, at the main dailies, and then clear off for a drink at the Mucky Duck. The more enterprising ones moonlighted on other papers.
It was utter tyranny and it was one of the most nasty professional experiences I ever had.