Chapter 1610 Strikes and Interrogations

“It is unlikely that the dangerous hazards of coal will be eliminated in the foreseeable future, and as a trade union leader Mr. Arthur should be well aware of the fact that there are accidents in coal mines almost every year, can you deny that?”

Without waiting for Arthur Scargill to answer, Alan Wilson had turned to the next subject saying, “And a comparison with the average mining costs in the world, as well as an accounting in terms of labor, makes Britain’s income at the present time extremely unsuitable for the retention of the mining industry, and fortunately Australia is a long way from the United Kingdom but even if coal were imported from Eastern Europe, it would be far cheaper than the indigenous coal. ”

“Safety accidents and cost issues, the stranglehold on coal is what is killing the government, and if the UK is getting richer, the negative impacts caused by coal mining will only increase.”

Safety and cost is Alan Wilson focuses on the discussion of the problem, and then added the environmental protection, coal is indeed a very serious pollution industry, should be replaced by natural gas and oil in the field that can be replaced, the United Kingdom is not Germany, itself the North Sea has a distribution of natural gas, it can be completely done to carry out the substitution.

Alan Wilson said this even took out the diary with him, next to the aide, and even the people in front of the TV think, at this time the Cabinet Secretary is in the record of the speech, to prevent the implementation of the subsequent forgotten.

Respected British citizens are mistaken, it is true that it is recorded to prevent forgetting, but the main reason is to be implemented in the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom has its own gas, although the share is not as much as in Norway.

But Germany did not have it, and he hoped that the Soviet Union would be able to import the gas to raise the price and add to the steady stagnation of the German industrial system.

In fact these speeches were enough to conquer most of the audience in front of the TV, but many issues are not a question of who has the sense, it comes down to the ass, the Cabinet Secretary said it so well, so sensible, but still did not conquer Arthur Scargill, even if the gas successfully absorbed the coal workers back to work, so what?

The gas industry unions have their own union leaders, he is the leader of the coal union, it’s not like he can oust the gas union leaders and lead the gas union himself.

The forced closure of twenty mines last year, resulting in 20,000 miners losing their jobs, has long since planted a fire of discontent in the hearts of the miners. What’s more, Arthur Scargill, who has already made a promise to let the government compromise on the promise of a fifteen percent pay rise, will not compromise until then.

This justification for the government’s lack of respect for workers’ rights ushered in a condescending look from Alan Wilson, who truthfully counseled, “The spirit of resistance is honorable, but you can’t win.”

“Never have I seen such an arrogant statement!” Arthur Scargill spoke up angrily, “The government wants to take away the work we love, but they want us to do nothing about it.”

“Times have changed, the Great Strike of 1926 was a time when coal was the near only energy option, now it’s different.” Alan Wilson responded calmly, “The government is prepared for anything, and the coal unions are not going to be able to win.”

Since the words did not go well, the Cabinet Secretary could only express the government’s tough stance, hoping that the coal unions would hang in the balance, it would not do to say otherwise, the wives and their wives’ ladies of equal stature might be watching the TV, and image is important, especially Monroe, the big dumb girl who is very much sympathetic to the underclass, and has to be benevolent to do the right thing.

This very much noticed communication, finally in a heavy-faced cabinet secretary general watched under the rupture, things have come to this, who is wrong and who is right can only let time to prove.

Alan Wilson’s last words were that the door to negotiations would never be closed, and that even with this victory over the unions, Whitehall would still do its best to complete the industrial upgrading of Britain.

After a quiet fortnight, 100,000 workers in the country’s eighty-one mines took the lead in a powerful strike. Striking workers in some mines even clashed face-to-face with the police.

Alan Wilson, at this time, was expressing to Hepburn that he had run out of steam for Britain, so Hepburn should provide superior logistics.

While Mrs. Thatcher pressured the Metropolitan Police to arrest her loyalists, he was already lying in the middle of Monroe’s residence, watching Arthur Scargill, the leader of the coal union, make a big splash on television.

In a few days, the strike had expanded to one hundred and forty mines. Eighty percent of the nation’s mines were shut down, and the coal miners involved in the strike were about ninety percent of the total number of miners.

Arthur Scargill, the strike leader and president of the Coal Miners’ Union, immediately became a political and media sensation. He traveled from mine to mine, calling on workers to unite and fight until the government was forced to withdraw its order to close the mines.

Scargill then openly declared that if the government was ordered to close the mines and did nothing, workers’ rights would be violated even more, the prestige of the trade unions would be swept away, and the Thatcher government would suppress the workers’ movement with impunity.

“How long will this strike last.” Monroe sighed and looked at her man with a solicitous gaze, “Does it have to be such a drastic situation to fight it.”

“It could also be like the United States where private armies are used to clean up the workers as well, but the country is different, something like this in the United States is easy to hide, and the British mainland is too small.” Alan Wilson opened his mouth, “Our aim is not to put workers out of work, the approach taken by President Reagan is not suitable for Britain.”

The so-called approach of President Reagan is that three years ago, PATCO, the fifteen thousand member professional air traffic control union in the U.S., declared a strike.PATCO members are federal government employees and are employed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The government rejected the terms of the strike and President Reagan ordered them to return to work within two days. The union did not accept, and the government fired eleven thousand workers and stipulated that this group of workers would be barred from working as federal employees for life. This was the famous PATCO strike in American history.

First of all the size of the US Air Traffic Control Union is not comparable to the size of the coal unions in the UK, and the rest of the story must be about the benefits of having a large base.

In terms of the size of the United States, fifteen thousand people making trouble is really not a big deal, and the reason why it affects is that the travel of many Americans is affected.

As for the vacancies left by fired employees, the United States of America has its own national conditions here, naturally outsourced to solve the problem, the federal government gradually outsourced part of the tower services that used to be managed by government employees. Outsourcing saved money and created a path of dependence, and then the United States began to outsource a large number of jobs, which had an incalculable effect on hollowing out American industry.

Alan Wilson was not prepared to make the coal workers unemployed, first of all, too many people, may cause social instability in the United Kingdom, from Margaret Thatcher came to power, the United Kingdom’s crime rate is gradually rising, but this matter should be divided into how to look at it, the demand for surveillance equipment is also a part of the demand for the electronics industry to boost.

Alan Wilson believes that with perseverance, one day a society like 1984, with an airtight surveillance network, will be realized in Britain.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was originally written about Britain, and the Cabinet Secretary would have been committed to making the society under this book a reality, and he even believed that it would have been of great benefit to Britain.

If one had to be brainwashed by a government, it would certainly be the British government that would do the job, and if the British government did nothing about it, there was the fear that Washington would one day call the shots in London’s place.

Alan Wilson was not only busy with manned spaceflight, he was also deploying supplies, especially energy reserves, hoping to fundamentally make the coal workers understand that, at least this time, they were absolutely unable to fight the government, the strike itself will hurt the community, if it is a British fist industry workers go on strike, then the British government may still be a little more considerate.

But an industry like coal workers, which has been recognized to be phased out sooner or later, has the inability to cause social costs to rise at a time when the government is already hoarding energy, and the government is definitely not going to take a step back.

Safety, efficiency and environmental protection, frequent appearances on television and various public opinion above, Alan Wilson put the coal industry needs to be retained as the British citizens to discuss the issue of the big problem.

By the way, also and labor party members of parliamentary war of words, the supreme authority never said to eliminate British industry, industry is divided into many kinds, India even handicrafts are considered industry, is not the United Kingdom also want to follow the example?

In quoting data, Alan Wilson is not like Margaret Thatcher, he quoted data are true, not like the female prime minister as a nonsense, while defending Margaret Thatcher’s policy on coal unions, while using the facts to speak, Britain’s industrial capacity is absolutely can be optimized.

“Many people say that the Conservative government is not interested in the rest of industry except for finance. What does the Cabinet Secretary have to say about such claims.” James Callaghan, the former Prime Minister and now resigned leader of the Labor Party, rose as a backbench MP to question.

Alan Wilson couldn’t wait, although James Callaghan was no longer Prime Minister, in the current British House of Commons Callaghan was the longest re-elected MP, having been elected for thirty-nine consecutive years from the start of the Airdrie Cabinet in 1945 until now, so Callaghan also had a title as the Father of the House of Commons.

“The Honorable Member for Callaghan, there is indeed such a thing. I am not sure that the Cabinet has reached a consensus on this, but Whitehall is firmly against this kind of decision-making and will certainly fight it to the end.”

Alan Wilson replied in a loud voice, “Britain has to be a high-tech industrial nation, although the income from the financial sector is more appealing, it cannot cover a wide range of citizens, and for a society to be wealthy as a whole, it is still necessary to take the route of an industrial powerhouse.”

“My Cabinet Secretary, I hope you will not succumb to political pressure in defense of the national interest, as you have done in the past.” Satisfied with this reply, Callaghan completed this double act of backbenchers and Cabinet Secretaries.