Secret History: Winter of Discontent
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- Over the winter of 1978-79 a series of industrial disputes over pay rises caused major disruption and had a significant impact on the popularity of the Labour government. Secret History explains the background and speaks to many of those involved.
Preceded by Channel 4 trails for 'Arthouse' and 'Equinox'. Transmitted 13 July 1998.
Nobody ever gives Harold Wilson credit for his incredible sense of timing. He knew when to be somewhere and when not to be.
Callaghan couldn’t get out of his own way…
@@tdtvegas You know history is filled with guys like Callaghan- John Adams, Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush. They were all too stubborn to change tactics to do the politically expedient thing to win because they mistook their stubbornness for principle. I'd even put Trump on that list.
He was useless
@@gregmatic2861 GHWB?
@@seansands424 If it's Wilson you are calling useless, I would say that he certainly wasn't useless in terms of winning elections. He won 4 elections out of 5 and is one of only three Labour leaders to have ever won an overall majority at all at a general election.
In terms of how he performed as a Prime Minister, obviously opinions vary and many would support your view, but there are also many who would argue otherwise. It usually depends on where people stand in the political spectrum as to how they view him.
I feel so honoured that I now get to repeat what my parents lived through.
Things have not yet got as bad as that (assuming you are referring to the 1970s).
Inflation has not yet reached 24-25% which it did in 1975, mortgage interest rates are still well below the 11.75% they reached in 1978 (and got significantly higher in the years after that). We don't have power cuts. We still bury our dead, there are not mountains of stinking rubbish in the streets, hospitals are not just accepting emergency patients only, there is no bread shortage, and thankfully the winters are not as cold.
Also, noone was given any help with their power bills/cost of living crisis, and I think it is fair to say that noone expected or considered it a governmental obligation to give us any such help. Our bills were our responsibility. That is how it was seen.
That is not to say that there aren't growing similarities in the situations.There are. And at the moment we are heading in that direction, but we are still a significant way off from the dire situation reached back then.
We can thank the CCP for letting Covid run wild and then that bald cunt Putin for his stupid invasion of Ukraine.
They’re the reason why we having this winter of discontent of high inflation, strikes and “current thing” puritans running wild on our motorways!
I remember, don’t think was as bad as , worked in a supermarket and we were able to sell stuff and that ,
I don’t remember everything happening at once anyway ,
@@jaysonlowery3749The average Interest rate for new mortgages went up to 11.75% in June 1978. It remained at that level for a year and then went higher.
The inflation rate in 1979 was 13.5% and rising (after falling for a couple of years). The following year it was almost 18%.
The well documented 'winter of discontent' took place in 1978-9.
And there was a wage rise restraint policy. My memory is that it was £5 per week, but it could have been 5%. Either way, it was below inflation and the Unions weren't happy. Hence the 'winter of discontent'.
A lot of things did happen at the same time.
love the adverts from 1999. Brings back a lot of good memories
Thank you for posting this, more people should know the real history.
Shame that there was no mention of the 1976 IMF crisis also caused by the Unions ramping up inflation, and the Labour Government's reckless spending, until US and German Bankers stepped in and curtailed the spending excesses causing the crisis. Even THEN, Callaghan STILL let things slide and created such chaos there was strong rumour of an impending coup. Instead, Margaret Thatcher came to prominence. Well done TUC
Exactly. I am getting sick and tired from comments and replies from 21dt century babies watching videos of sitcoms from the 1970s and saying how life was better and more similar back then.
They seem to think everyone lived like Mary Poppins back then.
I was 4 years old that year, I almost died of a seizure as the there were hardly any ambulances, luckily a nurse lived across the street and helped. My dad said the roads were slippery because no one was putting salt on them.
Wtf? That even right there should have told the strikers in the government to get their acts together.
I know an old granny told me that her dad died because of ambulances strikes. Her dad had a heart attack during the strike, and there were no ambulances came in. Her dad was only 49. These unions are murders. Nothing more to say
@@buzzlightyear6803 My mother died of a massive heart attack in February 2019. I called for an ambulance at 5:18 am and had to wait 95 minutes for one to show up. Can't blame the unions for that. It's the system that's f8cked, but few seem bothered enough to try to change it.
Please hold an election in October as we plan to F you and the country over in the winter!
@@ryangarritty9761 no, mate. All the nurses were outside having a moan. Do you not think 40 years apart these events might not be linked?
West Germany had it better than Britain in that management and labor had a tradition of closer cooperation, so there was more mutual trust and willingness to make compromises on both sides. As for Britain in the late 1970s, I can see two main villains: (1) the management of Ford, which greedily took an 8% raise for themselves, not realizing or caring how much this would undermine the 5% deal the government needed in order to be able to fight inflation; and (2) the union leadership, which didn't care a fig for the government's desperate need to fight inflation, a fight that would have ultimately benefited the workers themselves.
(2) is sort of correlated to Old Labour's predicament about how overreliant the party was on organized Labour parties, the TUC, rising inflation rates in Western world, OPEC oil shocks, and the fact that if you remove the Winter of Discontent of 79 from the equation, UK economy from the late 60s to late 70s had been hit by industrial strikes, rising union Militancy, labor leaders and management calling strikes that led to 3 day work weeks, power outages all over the country, declining levels of efficiency, productivity, innovativeness compared to more modern Common Market economies of Germany, France, and Italy. Lack of investment from the private sector and the government and the outdatedness of Britain's industrial grid sector hurt it in competition with US, Japan, West Germany, and Canada.
@@davidroberts7282 Just to make it clear that the period of "3 Day Weeks" happened under the *Tory* government of Edward Heath (1970-1974), and have nothing to do with the period described by this documentary. I'm sure you know that, but people reading your comment may know realise this.
True, but Germany also profited from some British advice, given through the military government: organise your unions not along individual companies or vocations but along the large branches of the economy: so carpenters at Mercedes weren't members of their own carpenters' union but rather along with all workers at car manufacturers members of the metal union. This way, strikes could not be called by small minorities.
@@mikewellwood1412 So nothing that happened before 1978 had anything to do with what happened later? I don't think so.
the GDR was the worker’s paradise. no homelessness, no hunger, and fair wages
The Union movement brought all upon itself and the overall vote of the people decided Labour can no longer rule. Thatcher came to power and the Unions had the biggest thrashing of their lives, from which they have never recovered.
& working conditions plummeted.
Came for the warnings about Unions having too much power, stayed for the 90’s adverts.
yup a right blast from the past. I worked in the industry at the time and it was great fun! 'Mega' as they used to say.... before they got short haircuts, tatts.& awful beards!
I was a schoolboy age 13 in 1978-9, and it is a measure of the impact of that time - the Winter of Discontent - that I can still name every major trade union leader of the period and the union they ran! Trade unions have slipped so far from the public consciousness and news coverage today that I can't now name a single major union leader or the person who heads up the T.U.C.!
little wonder life for ordinary people now is much worse
Really fascinating, brought back memories from 40 years ago such as the gentleman who complained at the 'communists' in the trade union movement - I remember laughing about that at school. Also I now know where the line 'Crisis - what crisis?' comes from. Twenty years later as a publisher of a business magazine I used it myself - I must have heard it on the television and remembered it!
The phrase also appears - in a different context - in the Day of The Jackal film (1963).
@@alisonleaman333 I did see that around the same time so maybe I got it from there!
There are and always were communists in the trade unions.
It wasn't just 1978-9. These issues had been going on all through the early to mid 70's. I remember the Fireman's strike 77-79. Old oil drums blazing red hot outside every fire station while the sleet fell. The stink of uncollected rubbish bags. Picket lines we were forever dodging to get to a job on time. The threat of fuel rationing. Not being allowed on a site because of strikes. The sense of disbelief at some of the pay settlements.
A common joke at the time was; "I see the daffodils are out." The reply being "Yeah, I heard British Leyland just came out in sympathy."
scab
@@AB_Deck I'm a working man who wasn't part of your club. Never was, never will be, because I've seen with my own eyes where that ends.
@@billsticker You are 100% correct. Every night on the news it was 'British Leyland are on strike.' The buggers were never there! Then there were the bread shortages, sugar shortages, candles on saucers all round the house........what a time to live through - and now the bloody Left want to take us BACK to it again.
Yes, don't forget the rolling blackouts and 3 day work-weeks too. And British Leyland workers walking out because the coffee machines ran out of cups :(
@@bryn494 Not just British Leyland ford as well
The unions in the seventies. Made their own bed, lay in it - and then were given a goodnight kiss by Margaret Thatcher. Have they woken up yet ?
Not the ones being interviewed in this documentary
And yet the unions were all-out for what they could get. Some socialism that. Oh the irony
Union workers understood that inflation was eating into their standard of living. Unfortunately they could never figure out or accept that they were also the major cause of that inflation by continuing to demand a standard of living which the country could no longer afford following the end of the post-war boom. Not only did they insist on higher wages but also on subsidies to prop up completely moribund industries which were starving more viable future technologies of capital.
Ford was making plenty of money. That deal was fair. The policy of the gov. was silly.
Yet the chairperson got an 80% pay increase at Ford? Record profits for Ford? Well, what were the workers supposed to get?
Callaghan should have called an election in the autumn of 1978. He was ahead in the polls and would have probably won with a modest majority. Gordon Brown made the same mistake in 2007, the polls were on his side and he would have won. Even 37 years after 1970, Labour was still haunted by the one election where the result went against the opinion polls.
Callaghan had at least a reason to worry about calling an election Callaghan was a main figure in the 1970 election but don’t forget in October 1974 Labour was predicted to win a 50-60 seat majority and won with less then a 10 seat majority
@@liamcosgrave2937 Overall majority of 3 in October 1974.
Possible he may have got a minority, but the media was very anti Labour, even in those days and there was I remember in the autumn the posters with the 1 million queues
Callaghan knew in the autumn of 78 Labour were unlikely to have won a majority had he called an election at that time and he had had enough of wheeler dealing and went for broke by waiting until 79
@@dlamiss The old Roman historian Tacitus had a comment on a Roman Emperor which would have applied also to Callaghan......by common agreement he was fit to govern - if only he hadnt.
Coming back here, 24 Sep 2021, it feels as though there'll be another winter of discontent - gas prices coming up, high unemployment, long nhs waiting list.
Seeing similarities myself. Was only young but remember those days as if only yesterday.
good guess mate country is fucked
The words of the Union Rep near the end of the program, "... it's better to have a bad Tory government than a bad Labour government."
Exactly.
Then is it better tuh have a good devil than a bad devil?
Don’t give me that false dichotomy.
Your wrong look 👀 at Brexit a Conservative wet dream, a terrible idea. 🤑💩
The WORST Labour government is still preferable to the BEST Tory government.
Classic, all the strikers blaming the gov't... All about the 'self', the 'individual' not what might be good for all. Happy now?
Divided we fall...
ironic considering the founding principles of thatcherism no?
Well done and thank you for posting this David.
Lord McNally's comments at the end really summed it up. Labor had basically turned the economy and domestic politics over to the unions, the unions were unable or unwilling to act in the public good and they got what they deserved. Lord Shore with a great summary, too.
i'm a die hard labour supporter but the unions back stabbed sunny jim and handed thatcher the election who destroyed them.karmas a bitch
Nothing summed it up better in my opinion than that election poster "Labour isn't working".
It wasn't just a problem with the labour party. It was a basic problem of trade-union socialism. The individual unions existed to serve the best interests of their members, not the best interests of the labour party, the country or society as a whole. From the union point of view, there really is no public good.
The Unions also disliked and plotted against each other constantly. Many times, the public fights between labour politicians were proxy fights between union leaders in the movement. Even within companies, there were constant "jurisdictional" disputes between unions. Each would fight to have as many workers and as much of the work as possible done by their union.
The other sad truth is that many of the union bosses didn't care about inflation or the value of the pound. As long as they got wage increases (via government policy) to stay even with inflation, they didn't care about anything else.
Its worth remembering that for many people in the union leadership, the greatest golden age of British history was the postwar period under Attlee when food and fuel were tightly rationed.
@Paul Gavin What the hell so you know? The Ford Chairman set a good example with his 80% did he not? Why should the people who produced the profits not get a fair share in them? You people have been brainwashed.
@@Jim-Tuner What business is it of anybody else? Ford continued to make good profits. Why would not the labour force not get a fair share? The Trade Unions were undermined by Thatcher, a traitor to her country. She allowed subsidized foreign imports to wreck British industry. So the Tories (in which you can include Tony Blair), got their way. Now where are working people today? Look at the gap in incomes, at a record high! The Trade Unions were peoples only defense. You people are totally brainwashed.
If only we could have a 5 per cent pay rise today
Steve Hillier Indeed. But without an empowered Trade Union movement to fight for it, it’s a dream. As it would have been then.
pgI0897 indeed.
But for the fact that the UK inflation rate reached a high of 17% in 1976 and 16% in 1977, so that 5% increase was not so lucrative.
lenny harry totally agree
they are just following the examles set by their forbearers ...
I am old enough to remember that winter. It was ghastly. The stupidity of those ever escalating wage demands reminds me of the old saying: "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
There was 25% inflation with no such increase in wages meaning they had realistically lost a quarter of their wages so they were asking for the same pay they had been on before. Hardly greedy.
Also even if you were right it would have had to even out eventually anyway or there would be NO jobs. By this logic the working person of Britain got to have representation once before losing it but how many times have governments wrecked the economy without anyone suggesting they should be broken. There was a lot of dirty tricks going on including the BBC and News at Ten showing miners charging the police, I was disgusted and embarrassed but it turned out it had been the police who charged the miners both news services said it was a editorial mistake but there is no way one of them would have made that mistake let alone two. The tories have always treated the BBC as their own fiefdom while continuously screaming left wing bias but let's face it those who run the BBC do not all go to the same comprehensive schools do they?, no they went to the same schools as the tories and most everyone else. Blair, Cameron and Bojo all attended the same class in Eton?....now that is democracy for you.
@@bobux1987 the reason why there were no TV cameras from the miner’s perspective was because, if I remember rightly from a documentary on Thatcher etc, the miners wouldn’t let them film from their perspective. So it was their fault in the end
@@jamiengo2343 the editors still had a duty to show the correct context and the fact they behaved like that explains why the miners would not have the cameras there.
@@bobux1987 Asking for 25% is always greedy. It was also stupid as they should have been aware of the link between wages and prices and what actually causes inflation.
The irony of the Audi advert on the first break. Wonder where all the Ford jobs went in Europe? Always remember that the guy who works for the union still has a job long after he has lost you yours.
They all went to Germany.... Where Unions have representatives on the Board of the firms...Run training for the work force... work 8 hours a day AND NO MORE...Businesses like BMW and Siemens focus on returns on capital employed over decades not the next quarter, very few are registered on capital markets.
Nah mate - I worked for Ford and they now build the Transit (as one example), in Turkey, actually
@@oliverdesvaux I know they do, the company I work for sells them their cranks. The Escort and fiesta were made in England but the focus is now built in germany and the fiesta in Spain
The Labour party went down to FOUR general election defeats in a row thanks to the genius of Len Murray. I assume Len was being directed by Conservative Central Office.
Video a good summary of many reasons why I would never ever vote Labour.
It's idiots like you who vote in idiots. No surprise Truss is most aligned with your views.
Most of the Ford plant at Dagenham now gone to be replaced by Tower blocks.
I was Ten when this happened, Seven year's later, manufacturing was well on it's way abroad.
Can you blame the companies?
@@kb4903 I believe the industrial transfer to China was planned in the early 1970s (Rockefeller/Kissinger industrial transfer to China, Nixon government). The mass strikes gave them (The elites) the excuse to implement that plan (Reagen/Thatcher governments). The only losers being the working class. Economic neoliberalism (Explotation of the masses).
@@jules151968 agree with a lot of that. But they did themselves no favours with the unions. High level specialised industry like we have now is more suited to us now.
We are farther in time from this documentary, than this documentary was from the Winter of Discontent
Too true but its a historical documentary from when all the main players were all still alive so is important and still very valid
do you have any more profound sounding but pointless observations?
Insightful and revealing documentary. After the gravediggers dispute was resolved there was a huge increase in the amount of cremations that
The unions held the country to ransom and the country won. They didn’t care about the misery they caused, even sounding quite proud of it, and as a consequence the unions were eliminated. They did this too themselves. Here in Sweden where I now live after having lived in England more than half my life, I can say the unions are quite influential but they are not crazy, they saw what happens when you push to hard.
1978 was mainly wildcat strikes I think
It seems in Sweden and Germany that trade unions are more interested in helping their business survive than class warfare.
Thanks for the subtitles, you are so kind! 😊
Thanks. CZcams had analysed but wasn't showing them for some reason but I fixed that and am working through editing them to remove some transcription errors (lots of references to "Tea you see").
@@DBIVUK Lol, “Tea, you see”. I’m used to these. They’re quite funny really. Thanks again for adding the STs. I know there’s a lot of work involved in adding captions. I really appreciate that. I’ve watched a lot of your stuff. Excellent range of political videos. Like a personal history to me, being of a “certain” age group.
@Ron Balo I've not identified it but I think it's by the Tom Robinson Band off the album 'Power in the Darkness'.
27:00 "The Crisis What Crisis?" phrase comes from the film Day of the Jackal (1973).
And then also the Supertramp album title (1975).
Marco Di Franco are sure !!!
Jim Callahan me thinks ?
He didnt say those words, but they were paraphrased in the newspaper
Marco Di Franco I thought it was connected to the sterling crisis when people asked him about the sterling crisis
Devaluation - The Harold Wilson thing?
Similar, no he went on a Foreign conference in the Carribean during a bitter winter where he was seen swimming in sea and at cocktail parties. When he returned he was interviewed at Heathrow and said that the matters at home were "parochial", which were written up as that headline.
Had a lousy. horrible job in a textile factory at the time, like a bloody ice box it was that winter, and a sauna it was in the summer Missed the last bus from Derby one night after going to a concert and trying to hitch a ride in far below zero temperatures
How is it possible that almost all of these cabinet members and advisers (of a weak government that let irresponsible trade unionists blackmail and harm an entire country) ended up with a peerage?
A lot of it, most at first was wildcat strikes, unions had a deal with govt
A bit like Boris and his PPE pals.
They talk about Hull being 'siege city' as nothing went in and nothing came out - and they show film of the Humber bridge. The bridge wasn't there in 1979, it only opened in 1981 - two years later.
Did anyone else notice the error (perhaps they'd call it poetic licence) when discussing the strikes in Hull (28:57 onwards)? The camera shot is seen crossing a Humber Bridge that wasn't to be opened for another two years.
and did you know the Huber bridge pictured on Mick Ronsons Heaven and Hull album, is actually a New York Bridge
It’s amazing how arrogant and foolish the trade unions were during this time. They got no one to blame but themselves for Thatcher waltzing in to 10 Downing Street.
I agree to a certain extent, but let's not forget the secret serveses including the CIA had agents in all the big unions, the head of the TUC was an MI5 asset. Many people find this difficult to except. A family member of mine was arrested and tortured by special branch on trumped up charges, he was a senior engineer for rolls Royce. He was set up locked up for years because he helped organise union members. When his case was eventually over turned he fled to Cuba then moved to spain. Obviously theirs lots more of the story I can't mention. Special branch set up hundreads if not thousands of union members.
@@kingneptune8937 Ummmmmm, whatever!
scab
Quite. As an example of how to commit political suicide and consigning themselves to oblivion, the Winter of Discontent is an unbeatable example. As you say, none but themselves to blame…
Thank goodness for Maggie who came along and put this all right.
Channel 4 used to be so cool
I was 5 when this happened...in Liverpool. The grave digger is right when he says that it caused ill-feeling towards grave diggers for years afterwards
served him right, It shows you how stupid working class people were in the 70's. It didn't help their image either for th enxt decade.
This is one of the most one sided documentaries I've ever seen, but the delicious irony of these dinosaurs still trying to blame it all on Thatcher while moaning about not getting paid enough is hilarious to watch.
So proud of shutting down the country and making the populous suffer as if it’s a noble venture.
@@kb4903 unfortunately that's what they do and unfortunately that's what they enjoy
@@attiepollard7847 And they pay footballers &1000s and you don't say f;ck all about that
@@seansands424 even over here in the United States we got Bernie Sanders the socialist Democrat who complains about sport athletes getting paid millions of dollars real teachers get paid hundreds. Does he not see why they get paid that much?
@@attiepollard7847 That's a little childish. They enjoy???? GB News I take it.
Great video, thanks for the upload
Where is Ford in the UK now? where is British Leyland, where are the unions now? where are pay rises for workers? The reason you can't get a payrise now is because the Unions were unreasonable arseholes then. employers and the government have been rubbing workers noses in it since. Very annoying to watch unions asking for 20 to 30% pay rises, our kids are suffering for it now!
Same issues in the United States. A few years after your debacle in the UK, our Air Traffic controllers went on strike. Reagan fired them. I'm a Union man myself, so I'm not anti-Union, but Unions only have so much power as the management can afford, and when the executives have nowhere else to turn. GM could afford to pay all those lovely raises and benefits when Americans weren't buying Japanese cars. Same applies today, want to strike? Fine, there are plenty of Chinese or Bangladeshi workers that will love to have your job, at a mere fraction of your wages. Point? Be reasonable in your demands, and realize that when you inconvenience the general public, you're liable to lose their support.
26.11.2020 according to scientists icehouses are melting
The outcome of this is "don't bargain, just do what the employer says"
@@BadMouseProductions commin g or comming out just do what player says, and Merry Merry Xmass who gains again who gains.
Car makers now are highly skilled where at that time it was outdated and decaying. They wanted more pay for jobs that were outdated.
I was in haulage in 78/79 and I was never involved in a strike or recall pickets anywhere, even in the north.
We lived in York at the time and, like you, never saw a picket and the supermarkets and farmers were ok.
Some people probably had more respect.
The vast majority of unionised working class people worked for very low wages while employers got rich we in the working class owe everything we have to the trade union movement without it we and our children would still be living in starvation in rat infested slums while the employers enjoyed a life of luxury facilitated by our hard work capitalism is now always was and always will be evil based on the law of the jungle survival of the fittest at the expense of the weakest human beings can do better than that
I'm reading a book called the rise and fall of the working class 1910 - 2010
It puts many things in to perspective
Love the ads on this memory lane
42:50 now that is the British gentleman we will listen to on these matters
Another comment then 75,000 worked for Ford in the UK, now I think its sub 20,000
Rot had already set in, that Civil Service Granada was being built in Germany, by the end of the 70s, a good % of Fiestas and Cortina and all Granada and Capri were being built abroad. The fact that a Cortina cost 30% more to build at Dagenham than Belgium, principally because of policy of demarcation imposed by the Unions over the more flexible working processes on the continent, is why Ford was winding down its UK production.
@@grahamariss2111 and that ladies & gentlemen is why buying foreign was cheaper becasue of the Unions!
Did anyone work in the seventies, they certainly did in the eighties, thanks Maggie lights on again
Here is something that is never spoken about: ALL the economic problems of the late 1970s were caused by right-wing incompetence and military adventurism in the early 1970s. In 1972 the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber initiated what became known as The Barber Boom, in which he basically "liberalised" the banking and credit sectors. If you were from a nice, upper-middle class background, you could now quite easily get a loan or mortgage to buy a run-down property in Islington. This was great for them, but for everyone else, it sent a shock-wave of inflation and house price increases throughout the economy. The long-suffering and hard working coal miners were forced to go on strike as they saw their wages fall below those given to new secretaries. Then in late 1973, the Egyptians and Syrians launched an attack at Israel. Nixon, influenced by Kissinger, supplied the Israelis with vital military intelligence, enabling them to defeat their attackers. All well and good, you may say, but all actions have consequences: the Arab nations got together and decided that the west could now pay through the nose for oil - sparking what became known as The Oil Crisis. Overnight, oil prices went through the roof, causing a domino-effect which raised production costs and led to yet another wave of disastrous inflation which lasted years. Workers scrambled to make wage claims to compensate for their rapidly shrinking purchasing power. ALL this happened under Edward Heath's Conservative government. It was the Wilson / Callaghan government that had to deal with the fallout.
The pay negotiations at Ford during the Winter of Discontent were a big test, with the challenge of keeping workers to a 5% increase despite the company's £258 million profit and 80% rise for the Managing Director.
If Jim Callaghan had courage, he should have called the general election for June 1978. Thatcher was not prepared, and the economy was going through a brief surge, and Labour probably would have become the government once again, with a majority of around 35. Workable, and useful for them, and it would have caused Thatcher probably to have been forced to resign as leader of the Conservative party. Callaghan's weakness and lack of courage cost him and Labour 19 years of turmoil.
Callaghan once said the reason why he didn't was his advisors told him he would not have got an overall majority had he called one.
Fk Labour..it would have cause many more years of the same turmoil FOR THE COUNTRY. The priority is THE COUNTRY Not the Party.
Don’t think he would, unemployment was rising then and there was all Tory posters , the media too even then very anti Labour
I came to the UK April 1976 was two months and it was not a migration , it was a diplomatic post of the late paternal parent . Meant to be two years glad it was longer . It was James Callahan , the ONLY thing I remember of Labour was the Winter of Discontent of 78 and 79 was two and three years old , and all I remember were the garbage piled in the streets ,because of the strikes and the blackouts , etc . I also remember the famous Sacchi and Sacchi billboard of a long que of people with the famous caption "LABOUR ISN'T WORKING '. May 97 election time thought being an unregistered Tory vote Labour to really experience a Labour Government . They won sadly two months later left the UK to come back to the US . December 2004 came back to the UK Blair was still in , and then came Gordon Brown. Under Brown was not so bad , what was bad I stupidly left November 2009 .
48:46 "while it's a *grave* affront" Dear me, heh..
He does seem to have a talent for putting his foot in it
How they could take a huge bonus and pay rise and then expect the workers to take 5% says a lot about the quality of management in the UK at that time. The German model of union representatives on the board has a lot going for it. But then the shop stewards just looked after their members without looking at the big picture and that played a big part in bringing in Thatcherism. That was a disaster for their members. Interesting Roy Hattersley talks about how multinational companies do what they want - nothing changes.
If only management treated workers as an asset that should be invested into rather than an expense that should be minimalised than maybe they wouldn't be looked soon with such contempt. Same with unions if only they could consider the long term sustainability of business rather than short term benefits at the expense of stability than maybe industrial Britain wouldn't have been laid to waste
Ford Germany workers said "thank you for that" in those days. Daaaanke hahahaha
What's the name of the song at 13:32?
'The Ford Strike Song' by OHC and the Gappers. See lyrics here: colinville.blogspot.com/2014/12/ford-workers-on-strike-ep-1978.html
thank you for letting us see this programme again; most apt at the moment.....but for other reasons [2022 and Liz Truss]
Is it just me or this very apt for the current period? (September 2021 fuel delivery issues)
Out of around 8 billion working days in 1979 there were about 29 million lost to strikes, or around 3%. While that is a high figure historically it is nowhere near the level of chaos being depicted in these documentaries or by the media generally.
Yeah but that's a bit like saying that a human can live without blood because it's only a few percent of the body weight. The number of people hauling petrol might not be large, but if they can dry up supplies, everything else will ground to a halt. Same with lorry drivers.
The time when the inmates took over the asylum and proved that they had no greater grasp of moral decency than the Management that they so despised. Blackmail is blackmail however you dress it up.
But blackmail is illegal...that was legal...it wasn't blackmail
@@sylestermajor783 legal blackmail is merely the factual term for heated negotiations.
A bit like Boris and Lizz oddly.
@@brianwarden7250 I think we have a winter of discontent coming for sure and the lunatics are certainly running the show currently too but I remember the sense of anger at the unfairness of the period that pervaded society, it was palpable.
Their selfishness has had disastrous consequences for generations since them, anyone who took part should be ashamed of themselves.
scab. did you not see one of the newspaper editors saying he completely conned the general public: you included!
The old saying 'Things can always get worse' was so correct. They got Thatcher.
Wages have flatlined since, people can't afford their own homes, millions on food banks, zero contract hour jobs, wealth inequality out of control etc.
Good reminder for industrial Relations students who were born from the year 2000 onwards and would be 24years and doing Masters and PhD
Always good to hear Sparks (in one of the adverts). Perhaps the song describes Callaghan and Thatcher at the May 1979 Election.
then all the workers who wanted +30% saw their jobs go to continental europe/asia and went on the dole. really, they were totally clueless about the political climate. too bad though bc in the end only the country's top 1% "won" - and in a big way. for the rest it's much more work for less money and no benefits.
43:22 jamie morris' actions = why the unions fell. "i took my orders from my members - not the union officials." i guess, mr. morris, it wasn't a "union" after all. (56:38 he's still a fool.)
Don't forget the high inflation rates of the day .The unions were not responsible for that
The result of corporate power not trade union power. The US never really had trade unions and they got the same treatment.
@looes74 looes74 I did not mention Trump and Trump is not relevant to this discussion. Corporate power has been growing since the 80's aided by the politicians they bribed.
@@johnnagle7702 They were. The large pay rises resulting from strikes under Heath caused it. Millions suddenly had increased spending power which had the inevitable effect.
Just seen this program about the sort of Britain Corbyn and McDonald created as young men.
As 9 Year old at the time i remember being sent out searching for a loaf of because of bread strike April 1979 and when i found one they would not sell it to me because of my age and feed me the line i would give it to the ducks? So it was my Mom tried to make bread which failed miserably. When the Conservatives gained power as a child Television programmes became watchable because they were not repeats and i could get hold of skin tight Jean`s.
Really interesting, thanks for sharing this. 👍
So they basicaly in the end priced themselves out of there jobs by asking for more and more wage increases,not a very intelligent thing to do realy is it.
Trouble was that inflation was going up so fast that, if you didn't ask for a big pay rise, you were left behind and screwed.
But as you say, it ended up with the inevitable of wages being unaffordable. The irony is that the people who were striking back then were far closer to the management in terms of what they were being paid than the equivalent now. Occasionally, I watch 1970s editions of Top of the Pops on CZcams and there are always people commenting that they wished they could back then. I lived through that time and I don't want to go back.
@@domoreilly5147 Good point,i do have vague memories of overhearing my parents in the early 80's stressing over money at the time,both were ceramics factory workers.
@@domoreilly5147Callaghan believed that if pay increases remained small, inflation would stop.
Jesus these ads are so stereotypically 90s Britain.
The biggest mistake Jim Callaghan ever made, not to have an early general election in the autumn of 1978.
John King agreed. He had at least 1 election, solidly in the win column
John King The Labour Party when it least you felt it had the interest of the working of the working class British people in its sites
+David Pickering Unlike now.
Correct - if he had gone to the country in October 1978 then we would never have suffered Thatcher. Gordon Brown repeated the same mistake in the autumn of 2007.
A quick second was the interview at Heathrow
Most working class workers in 2018 could only DREAM of 5% ... This is what caused the rot from within ....GREED
Different inflation levels
There was a time when it was said that Labour was run by the TUC. Nothings changed. I can remember getting a pay rise that just enabled us to stand still. Overtime was pretty much knocked on the head, since Government took it all in taxes.
Please, is it possible to upload this with subtitles? I remember watching this when it first aired but, since then I’ve become profoundly deaf but would love to watch it again. If someone knows how to do this, I’d be really grateful if they would tell me how. Thanks 🙏
On the top right of your screen is CC. Press that and the subtitles come on. Not all videos have it but a lot do.
Im a conservative but Mrs. Thatcher took it to a whole new level. However, the UK is an entirely different type of country.
Quite apt to see an ad for the Rover 200, a Honda Civic in all but name :-/
Jim Callaghan was the British version of Jimmy Carter.
Without making peace between Israel and Egypt
Organized Labor is a wonderful thing, and should be a protected right... but safeguards should be in place when labor goes too far, and a few people destroy everything. So, when that happens you get 12 or 13 years of Margaret Thatcher and we got 12 years of Reagan and Bush
Parallels between Labour today and then are very apparent.
I remember those power cuts, loved playing finger shadows by candlelight!
There were no power cuts in the Winter of Discontent. (There were during the Three Day Week, and occasional power workers strikes outside wider disputes.)
@@DBIVUK We had a few in the Northeast in 78. I remember them.
That's looking at the bright side.
😀
That reminds me...I've got to go to the store and buy a roll of film for me camera. Thank god they left the old adverts in.
How terribly depressing Britain was in the 1970s!
The actions of the unions led to the Tories gaining power and the Tory govt annihilated the unions. Such a stupid move! Its like committing hara kiri.
I’m afraid this next Labour government will be catastrophic for our workers.Starmer is focused on immigration,not to halt it but to attempt the voters to accept it.The economy will crash if immigration rises as the Training standards in Technology will be cast aside in order to accommodate cheap immigrants unskilled but willing to work for a pittance.
Just like the British auto industry, unions and poor leadership/management caused the demise of Britain's global leadership as a manufacturing power in the late 1970s. This phenomenon seems more global, because I can remember the same discontent in NYC in the late 1970s. Mrs. Thatcher was needed to rebalance the system.
People got fed up with strikes. Some people were happy to plod on. Try living without any money for a few weeks, bills have to be paid, rent or mortgage has to be paid, food has to be bought.
2/3 of my take-home pay went on rent. At least I had a full week's work but 1/3 of of our 24x7 production line had to be shut down because of an overtime ban and that hit me hard as there was usually 12 extra hours overtime a week. It ran scrap production for 3 days when restarting (that was normal). The company never recovered and went bust about 3 years later :(
@@bryn494 I feel very sorry for both you and Stanley and these are good examples showing that the Union bosses never cared one jot about their members. All they were interested in was running the country (into the ground). Heaven forfend that someone like Corbyn should ever win power and return us to those very dark economic days of the Seventies
Thank God for Maggie
I had just finished my apprenticeship at Ford Dunton as was almost immediately out on strike for 6 weeks, a complete waste of time worse for the married guys with families, that and the rest of the then Labour government policies made Maggies Essex man vote her in never again! now Corbin wants to repeat it all again
I had two young children it wasn’t that easy but as in the war we pulled together. The amount of rubbish piled up everything on the roads and pavements. The army undertook the roles of ambulance and fire brigade.
8 minutes 40 seconds shows pics of ford sierras which were not produced till 1983,
8:52 shows they are Ford Cortinas.
Before watching season 4 of The Crown I wondered if there will be anything about Callaghan or the WoD. If I remember correctly, there wasn't. Thatcher came out of the blue, stole power and put people out of jobs. And though I like the series, I kind of expected that, unfortunately. In Poland everyone knows something about Thatcher but almost nobody knows why she came to power and stayed for so long. We had a sentiment for her because she had her share in the fall of the Soviet Union, but now we mainly hear how bad she was for the working men. And in Poland in the 80s we had the Communist Party still in power, so, ironically, the trade unions were also unnecessary because the government WAS the working class! Ha, ha...
Thatcher did not steal power. She was voted into power fair and square.
To be honest, given the economic chaos of the time it is a credit to the Labour party that her majority was quite modest (43 if memory serves me right). After the "winter of discontent" I would have expected her to do much, much better than that.
@@TalesOfTheRiverBank Of course I was being ironic about "stealing power". I also think that some people who don't like Thatcher (to put it mildly) tend to forget what state Britain was in when she won the election and how she was able to turn some things around. On the other hand, it is of course still worth discussing whether some of her hard-line policies didn't create too much resentment and defeat some of her own purposes in the end.
@@TalesOfTheRiverBank Labor was still popular. Jim was personally popular. I mean, if I were a unionist (as MANY were), I would’ve voted Labor just for a higher pay rise
@@Qatari2007 I think Jim Callaghan was more popular than Margaret Thatcher in terms of his personal ratings. If I remember rightly, most opinion polling around that time showed this.
However, it is questionable whether or not the Labour Government as a whole was popular. They lost 6 by elections to the Tories between 1974-9. Four of them with large swings: 1976 Walsall North 22.5% swing, 1976 Workington 13.15%, 1977 Birmingham Stetchford 17.6%, 1977 Ashfield 20.25%. The other two (Woolwich West and Ilford North) were more modest but still swings of 7% or more.
And those are only the seats lost directly to the Tories. It was also not uncommon for Labour to suffer swings against them of around 9% in seats that they managed to hang onto. They also lost one of the Liverpool seats to the Liberals with a huge swing against them.
In general, for much of that 1974-9 period (probably from mid 1975 onwards) that Labour government was not very popular.
I think the Tories won the 1979 election in spite of Thatcher rather than because of her and Callaghan's higher personal popularity I feel did also work against them. This was reflected in the fact that they only achieved a 43 seat majority when, given the situation at that time, a more substantial majority might have been expected.
@@TalesOfTheRiverBank firstly, I would say they were quite popular beforehand, very in fact. Fast economic growth, debt management, inflation falling. I just believe that people thought Labor could continue the better conditions they had, and that Thatcher wouldn’t be able to fix the unions.
they should have took the 5%
At the 2011 census, London had a population of 8,173,941. Of this number
44.9% were White British. 37% of the population were born outside the
UK, including 24.5% born outside of Europe.
Sadly for big Jim, he had been a trade unionist all his life but he hadn't realised a sad truth that everyone else in Britain during the 70's HAD realised - and that was that these strikers and unionists on the street were now bloody-minded and arrogant as fuck and not interested IN THE SLIGHTEST with any cause going beyond their own pay packet. They had become since his day, literally that disgusting.
Rampant inflation Within months of joining the EEC. 2+2= 4. Some people need a mallet to drive in sense.
The new one should just be called the heatwaves of discontent!
Thatcher and the Unions ended up being allies against Labour and ushered in the unions own demise. Ron Todd, Moss evans and Len Murray were terrible news for the working class to this day.
Think the strikes were more or less wildcat
Hello. This being an awesome and interesting document highlighted one event in past history, but i have a question though. Was it the winter of discontent being the only one event that had changed the face of British politics forever? Thank you for loading and sharing this priceless documentary. 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
It was certainly an event which was far more important than just the disruptions during Winter 1978/79. The Conservatives may well have won without it, but it did a lot to justify changes to the law on strikes, and they were still referring to it well into the 1990s. (It also became something Labour politicians promised not to go back to.) It is worth noting though, that while there have still been some strikes that disrupted life, the one thing that never happened after Winter 1978/79 was the government attempting to set a limit on everyone's pay increases - which was the very thing the strikes were opposing.
Hey workers, just fyi, if you get a pay increase, that money has to come from somewhere. So don't be surprised that once you get that 25% pay increase, your employer goes out of business and you find yourself without a job.
Or as Callaghan's predecessor put it, "One man's wage increase is another man's price increase" (Harold Wilson, Blackburn, 8 January 1970)
@@DBIVUK As Thatcher put it, the left has the leftist's malady; 'they've run out of other peoples' money.'
britan looked like a very depressing place back in the day..
Mrs T soon sorted the children out.
You should see it now 😰