And this is where I agree with Welsh Goddess's excellent post. The Unions have done an enormous amount of good in the past - they were absolutely necessary when the workforce was bullied and downtrodden. However, they then became the bullies. Growing up in S Wales, my Dad was a Steelworker. People were forced into joining the Unions, they had little choice, it was compulsory.   At that time of the strikes, he knew he couldn't afford to take part, but had to. The steelworkers were on strike for months (as were the miners). The mortgage and hire purchase companies had little sympathy, our car was repossessed and we ended up having to sell our house at way below the market value because he couldn't keep up the mortgage payments. I can remember my Dad watching his car being driven away, trying to contain his sobs. That memory will never leave me, and that was just the start of it. This was the power of the Unions, doing this. You couldn't break the strike, no matter what your financial situation. Our family were not the only ones, people committed suicide over similar situations. And yes, as someone also said above, blocks of stone were thrown from motorway bridges by militant striking miners. It was a horrible, horrible time. But I still am of the opinion that the Unions were holding the entire country to ransom and they were to blame for a lot of the bloodshed and heartache of that time. I actually belonged to the Socialist Worker's Party at the time, and was on our Union Committee. I changed my mind!!

Sorry to hear. I’m sure there are many similar stories.  Just wondering, as I don’t live in South Wales, is the general view from local steelworkers and guys from around the pits nowadays that the Unions in the 80s were the Spawn of Satan and Thatcher’s policies were not particularly relevant? Because I’m not sure these guys would quite share that narrative:

http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/forum/read.php?14,51427,page=1

I agree with you on how militant some unions became. I guess niceties went a bit out the window with leftie infighting and lacking leadership, compounded by the fact that many communities were facing entire economic devastation. All whilst Thatcher and some Union Leaders were deciding to use sledgehammers to crack walnuts in some instances.  But I think it’s a bit more complex than simply reducing the “blame” to focus solely down to “the unions” or other “Trots” – as some people and outlets seem to be doing. Desperate people do desperate in things in desperate situations, and sections of the police in the 80s resembled something like a rogue paramilitary wing of the Conservative Party.

The end game was always going to be the same; it was only a case of timescale - it was inevitable the coal and steel industries were going to end up on the scrapheap – especially when competing with other countries that were still subsidising primary industries. Whether Unions were around or not, the very areas affected were always destined to become Ghost Towns or approaching third world sweatshops – especially with Thatcher’s appointment of Ian Macgregor (red rag to a bully). The miners had seen what he did to steel and knew the same would happen to coal.  It wasn’t the unions who ordered the closures or cut subsidies. It was all or nothing. And as I previously mentioned, the absence of any regeneration funding or subsidies via the North Sea oil boom to cushion closures is the vindictive “bullying” part imo.  But maybe not quite as bad as Thatcher’s defence of a scumbag who had a policy of *disappearing" tens and thousands of people and throwing pregnant women out of planes

The sad and troubling thing is, Thatcher’s unpopularity spiked publicly and "within" during the Brixton riots in 81 and the poll tax riots in 90 - if the striking miners and steelworkers had rioted en-masse in London instead of withdrawing their labour at great hardship to themselves and families, they’d probably have brought down Thatcher much sooner.

Think this is a very fitting tribute to Thatcherism in more ways than one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDcoJN9fnVI