Chapter 1544 Segregated Strikes

The steel industry was extremely important to a country, and no one had ever said that it was not important, not to mention that Britain was the country that initiated the Industrial Revolution and had an even deeper understanding of the matter.

The British steel industry has a long history of development, is the birthplace of the modern steel industry, long time male global steel center position. All this is inextricably linked to two revolutionary technological changes in the field of steel.

In fact, in the oil crisis broke out that year, the United Kingdom also specifically formulated a ten-year development plan for the revitalization of the British steel industry, allocating three billion pounds aimed at the use of large-scale backward equipment, consisting of a number of small-scale production plant British Steel, upgraded to a strong market competitiveness, a more compact enterprise.

The strategy also proposed that British steel production be concentrated in the five regions of South Wales, Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Teesside and Scotland.

It was also at that time, because of the outbreak of the oil crisis, some of the UK’s industrial sectors, which would be known as sunset industries decades later, began to gradually fail to make ends meet.

The quality of Britain’s domestic iron ore is just so, it can be compared with the domestic iron ore of a big country, if there is no support from the state, under normal circumstances, it will not be able to compete with other countries.

Australia’s iron ore quality is very good, but that distance? It’s not even as good for the UK as selling iron ore from the US.

Australia’s iron ore to Malaya’s Kuching iron and steel base, on the contrary, has a great promotion, can be called the entire East Malaysia industrial base of the bread and butter.

In fact, Alan Wilson understands very well that the British steel workers and British absenteeism in this matter is wearing a pair of pants, no matter whether it is a coal mine or steel, the United Kingdom relies on local resources will cause the cost to become higher, and other countries of similar products are not competitive.

But even so, three billion pounds of funding does also play a big role, now British Steel has a premier steel production equipment, the shortfall is the same with the strike more and more habitual steelworkers, which can be adjusted, as long as these steelworkers to roll on the line.

Layoffs and then privatization, is still the only way to solve the problems of British Steel, from this point of view, the steel workers brewing strike, for Alan Wilson is also just the right time.

“Did you know that privatizing the steel industry requires the passage of a legal eucalyptus to do so.” Margaret Thatcher was very surprised to hear this, of course she would have liked to privatize the steel companies, but steel and coal are after all different from oil, the workers in these two industries are quite large, and her support is now unstable.

“Then the privatization proposal will be put on hold for now.” Alan Wilson replied after two seconds of silence, not that he cared about the prime minister’s perception, the main reason for this proposal was that if it took more than ten years to gradually complete the privatization, it was a little too slow.

Alan Wilson did not shy away from saying that only rapid privatization like the Soviet Union can best reflect the strongest, who is the strongest? The biggest strongman in Britain right now is of course Ms. Pamela Mountbatten.

But obviously if you do this, it is indeed too risky, the Soviet Union so dry are dried out, the United Kingdom this small arms and legs, really not necessarily than the Soviet Union to grow strong much. What if there’s a big mess? This kind of thing is not afraid of ten thousand is afraid of what might happen.

If in accordance with the history of Margaret Thatcher privatization time, with more than ten years of time to privatize all the British industry, it is not impossible, even more secure. It’s just that there may not be the fulfillment of skyrocketing wealth.

The most important thing is that his wife is not in London at this time of the year, and the last time she was in London was when she stayed in London specifically for the winter because of the sale of the state-owned shares of British Petroleum, and ended up getting sick.

The richest woman obviously also knows to history as a mirror, so it resumed the habit of running both ways in Perth London, Alan Wilson also thought, is not to let the two idlers in the family to step in, for the mother of the two people to take the place of once.

In order to do know your enemy, Allen Wilson took advantage of the time when the strike was still brewing, but also the Institute of Metallurgical Engineering and Technology, which is the parent organization of British Steel, to study the seminar on the development of the British steel industry.

Cabinet Secretary personally, the Institute of all department heads naturally attended, thirteen first-class units and twenty-four sub-units, including the Research Center, Environmental Protection Center, Energy Conservation Center, Water Conservation Center, Technology Renewal Center, Cleaner Production Center, and so on, the director of the Center enthusiastically spoke.

Alan Wilson has an intuitive understanding of the British steel industry, it is time for privatization, a British Steel put almost forty units, is indeed a bit excessive.

This kind of organizational structure for a large corporation with a cloud of two hundred and seventy thousand workers? While not completely incomprehensible, it is more understandable why it is not profitable.

The people around Alan Wilson, the steel company thought things Whitehall officials, but in fact, these British Steel people do not know, a few look like an insider’s entourage, in fact, are from the Mountbatten Steel Company, is specifically to visit the British Steel Company, is making an assessment of the local steel industry.

“Sir, to be honest, given the efficiency and profitability of British Steel, it would take at least half a dozen layoffs to turn the workforce into 130,000 workers to be a normal size for a steel giant. Just looking at the poor steel production on the mainland right now, nearly three hundred thousand steel workers is definitely not appropriate.”

Leaving the British Steel Company’s factory, a few overseas people who had been following Alan Wilson’s mapping of the British Steel Company immediately spoke up, “If we don’t lay off the workers, it would be the group merging this company, which would merely increase the group’s burden, and this is a point that we will clarify with the president.”

“Well, you guys can probably explain it to the president. Because before you guys explain it, I’ve already explained it first.” Although a few salaried executives spoke out of turn, Alan Wilson still forgave them. People are just a corporate executive who receives money to do things, isn’t it normal to snitch to the boss? “Laying off half of the workforce is a big job.”

Although the strike at British Steel was not well understood, but since professionally it was necessary to lay off 130,000 employees to meet the healthy profitability standards of an industry giant. Alan Wilson reckoned that Margaret Thatcher should have historically made it.

Alan Wilson was still aware of the biggest strike of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure, a coal workers’ strike, which Margaret Thatcher’s repression had also resulted in bloodshed. From a humanitarian point of view, he wanted to avoid this confrontation with its widening influence; steelworkers were still better bullies than mineral workers.

If the success of the steelworkers’ crackdown could be used to deter larger absentee strikes, it would be a victory of sorts.

But you can’t have it all your own way, and if the absentees ignore the deterrent, it’s just that what was once a blood eucalyptus has now become a double one.

In the Whitehall clear energy supply and transportation smooth preparation, to prevent the winter of discontent again, in the last day of the year, Alan Wilson after work came to Monroe here.

Monroe was having dinner with her son and opened the door to see the man surprised and delighted, “Why did you think to come up to my place today, and didn’t say anything.”

“Come to see you.” Alan Wilson reached out and touched Monroe’s short blonde hair, “I’m just suggesting ah, in fact, there is no need to dye your hair so often, it’s always bad for your hair.”

Currently can say that almost all and the wife of the same status of the ladies, have retired from the circle, do not always appear on the screen, naturally do not always do image management.

The big photo of Monroe stroking her pregnant belly in the middle of the bedroom is in danger of being such a bit of breaking news, but people like it, and Alan Wilson is too embarrassed to say anything.

January 1 is New Year’s Day, and the supreme authority has appeared in the home of the Ballflower, “Steelworkers are about to go on strike, tell Sheen not to go around.”

The steelworkers of Britain still knew what they were doing, and left the citizens a day to celebrate the New Year, and on the morning of January 2nd, the steelworkers’ strike officially began.

Steelworkers in South Wales, Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Teesside and Scotland took to the streets, at this point perhaps remembering the glorious history of the Winter of Discontent that ousted Callaghan from power, proudly puffing out their chests and chanting slogans.

Alan Wilson, for his part, was meeting with the heads of the police staff before heading to 10 Downing Street to inform the Prime Minister of the preparations that had been made for this one, “To be honest it’s the steel companies that are shutting down for a year, and relying on the backlog of steel from Malaya over the last couple of years, that’s enough to take care of the UK’s steel needs. And before that happens we have sent to bring the coal reserves of the steel companies under control. It is prevented from being occupied by the workers.”

“Since the strike started in winter, winter can have an effect on a wider range of citizens, but since we have prepared for it, we can also direct that negative effect to only the families of the workers, and I’d like to see if it’s not the case that these workers can’t freeze to death.”

“Sir, you did do all that could be done.” It was impossible for Mrs. Thatcher not to be nervous when she learned that the strike had begun, but there was no reason to be relieved at the sight of the man’s presence.

“I will certainly be behind you with my firm support.” Alan Wilson made a solemn promise, only this kind of promise sounded strange.

Since transportation paralysis could cause harm to the citizens in the ripple effect, which in turn caused the government’s approval rating to fall, it could also be used by the government in turn, Allen Wilson, who had already used MI5 to map out the energy problem of the steelworkers’ living quarters, forwarded the battle plan formulated by the Permanent Undersecretary of Defense Makins to Scotland Yard, ordering Scotland Yard to unify the command of the nation’s police force to ensure that none of the supplies, especially the energy, would be able to flow into the steelworkers’ residential areas.

“Cutting off supplies to the workers and their families will be a key step in dismantling the strike under winter. Care must be taken to steer public opinion in such a way that this de facto blockade is portrayed as the result of private owners’ fear of risk and their unwillingness to do business with striking workers. At the macro level, it is important to emphasize that the steelworkers, by striking, are destroying the British steel industry and that they are traitors in the name of patriotism.”