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A Lot of British Industry Was Like That!
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 7215
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 10:42 am    Post subject: A Lot of British Industry Was Like That! Reply with quote

Rick wrote:
... did you read the memories of working at Triumph in the 1970s that I added in recently? ie http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/lifeattriumph.htm

RJ


A familiar story to those older members who experienced it and a worthwhile read for those who didn't.

Working in competitve industry today can be both rewarding and stressful but better that than the frustrating management incompetence that plagued us in the past.

Peter
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1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon
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Dipster



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 408
Location: UK, France and Portugal - unless I am travelling....

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not car related but I did experience the 70s industrial culture briefly. I had finished one job and had 3 weeks before I started my next. I was looking for something to do to pass the time usefully. I heard of a factory in Dagenham where they made telephone cables. I was told good money could be made for hard work. Young and fit I thought this is for me.

I went there, and got employed immediately (and signed up for the Union!) as a "machine minder". The work was physically tough but very well paid, 12 hours a day, 6days (and nights) a week. I forget exactly what I earned but recall it was over twice what I had hoped for!

The following week I was on nights and quite dreading it. But my surprise was total to find that the factory seemed very quiet as I worked. I then learned that we actually only worked half the 12 hour shift! The other half was spent in a vast hidden bunker that the men had constructed out of sacks of plastic granules kept on site as an emergency back up I case the bulk supplies failed to arrive.

The foremen organised the roster for kipping and, presumably, sorted out the production records. It was amazing to me that we "got away with it" but suspected that the company management had no option but to accept it. The Union was, it seemed, very powerful. The alternative was perhaps unthinkable.

My 3 weeks work gave me a good sum in my back pocket and a nagging pain in my back that took a while to pass!
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Ashley



Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1426
Location: Near Stroud, Glos

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've said it before but I believe that much of the car industry management, BMC particularly, were totally demoralised by the mid fifties and that they expected bankruptcy before 1960.

The Labour government was owned by the unions (still is by the public sector ones now) and the unions sabotaged everything at every opportunity. The shop stewards called the men out over anything, so that management never had a chance.

Some of you may be aware that Austin/Morris 1100s were a disaster when they first appeared and that they were never made properly. A historian friend of mine who interviewed various workers for his research told me that the shells were built up from a floor pan and that 29 clamps were needed before welding could start. If you google "building a Porsche" on YouTube you'll see roughly the same system in use and it will show just what would go wrong if only two instead of 29 were used as happened at BMC. Any attempt to sort it and worked stopped immediately.

Not only did the labour government cave in at every opportunity, but the conservatives did some moronic things as well. Perhaps the worst disaster was Harold Wilson who was told by both Stokes and Edwardes that to survive 40,000 of the 80,000 employees had to go. He forbid a single redundancy, so that by the time Maggie arrived, demand had evaporated and nothing could be done.

There was a belief amongst many union leaders that if they brought the country to it knees financially/bankrupted it, a sort of socialist Phoenix would rise from the mess. Many were in contact with KGB spies pretending to be shop stewards and being wound up by them.

We did get to 26% inflation with the IMF threatening to bankrupt us, so they nearly did it. Sad
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goneps



Joined: 18 Jun 2013
Posts: 601
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2016 6:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I did get on to one good racket during my last year in England. It was 1971 and things were pretty depressed to the extent that the printing firm I worked for had only narrowly avoided laying off staff the previous year by juggling men and shifts around. Instead of the late shift stopping at 8.30pm to wash up the machines and 'air' the printed work, they were to carry on until 10 o'clock, when a night shift comprising a minder (qualified printer) in charge of four assistants would come in to wash up all the machines and air the work until 6am, when the early shift started.

The night shift minder was going on holiday and no-one wanted his job, but after being given a nudge by someone who'd done it I agreed to stand in for a week.

On the first night the assistants gathered around to brief me. The plan was that I'd get stuck in and help with the washing up, after which I could push off home. The others would kip in between airing jobs and clock me out in the morning. On no occasion was I home later than midnight, and that was after a half-hour drive. What's more the pay was a few quid more than I normally received for doing a proper job.

A different slant on the "busman's holiday" theme.

Richard
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Dipster



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 408
Location: UK, France and Portugal - unless I am travelling....

PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2016 6:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Talk of print jogged my memory.

At one time we employed our very nice neighbour as a cleaner for the garage offices, tea lady etc.. We took pity on her as she had a couple of young kids and a hubby, nice enough bloke, who was always home. We presumed he was long term unemployed. Quite rare as I recall back in the 60s. So she obviously needed the work. We often wondered how she payed the mortgage.

After a while I got talking to her husband when he popped in to the garage with a message for his wife. My shock was total when I learned that he was fully employed as a printer. A printing press at home I thought? But no. He worked for the Sunday Telegraph. He only worked Saturday nights for a full weeks pay apparently!

Puts things like moves to Wapping in to perspective, eh?
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Ashley



Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1426
Location: Near Stroud, Glos

PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2016 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I worked for a big financial printer in the mid seventies. It was letterpress and horribly unionised, so when we had a strike I got a quote from a local litho printer for a report and accounts we'd quoted several thousand to do. It was done for £1100, but with nine militant unions to deal with the firm was scuppered.

In the end the order came from one of the unions that an employee was to disobey a management order and get dismissed, so they could all come out. The works manager duly sacked the chap and after it was all over he was summoned before a union court and both he and the company were fined and he was banned from ever working for a union company again. I'll never, as long as I live, forget his coming into my office in tears of despair. It turned out that on top of everything else he'd got cancer. As it happened he recovered, started a litho print business with his wife and life was a hell of a lot better for him, but I learned to hate unions and the way they used/abused the workers. They were too powerful and destructive and they destroyed trust.

When I see that Momentum have several members on the BMA, I recognise the pattern only too well.
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peppiB



Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 686
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne

PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2016 3:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was a Personnel Manager throughout the 70's and life was a nightmare. One firm I worked for had its own printing department run entirely by the unions. In the rare event of an employee leaving, the union rep was in my office to introduce the new employee, chosen by them - the Comapny had no say in the matter.

I was at a different Company during the Winter of Discontent. Final straw for me was when I was called in to work at 3.00am as the dyehouse had stopped working. Someone had painted the toilets without consulting the union rep in there.

I started my own business in May 1979 and ran it until early reitrement in 2000 (health)
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V8 Nutter



Joined: 27 Aug 2012
Posts: 601

PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2016 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the early 2000's the company I was working for built some conveyors to carry Ford Fiesta bodies to robots that sealed all the seams. Sometimes a robot squirted sealant on the conveyor drive belts and the belts broke. The union said it was an 8 hour job to change a belt. We demonstrated a two men could change a belt in 20 minutes or one man on his own about 50 minutes. The union would not accept that they insisted on 8 hours or they would go on strike. Strange they don't make cars at Dagenham any more.

In the 70's I knew a printer who was made redundant, he let his union membership lapse and tried his hand repairing cars. that didn't work out. When he tried to get back into printing he couldn't get a job because he wasn't in the union, but he couldn't join the union because he hadn't got a job.
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baconsdozen



Joined: 03 Dec 2007
Posts: 1119
Location: Under the car.

PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

V8 Nutter wrote:


In the 70's I knew a printer who was made redundant, he let his union membership lapse and tried his hand repairing cars. that didn't work out. When he tried to get back into printing he couldn't get a job because he wasn't in the union, but he couldn't join the union because he hadn't got a job.

I was a union rep for a multi national firm.The firm decided overnight to change our working hours and other conditions of work without any consultation. After management refused to discuss anything I walked out taking half the work force with me. After promising to support us the union then stood by as I was sacked and those who came out with me were disciplined,the union boss didn't even have the courage to turn up at the disciplinary meetings claiming his car (supplied by the firm!) had broken down. Within weeks of my leaving over half the full time workers were sacked and replaced by part timers on a lower hourly rate. The union again did nothing.
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Dipster



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 408
Location: UK, France and Portugal - unless I am travelling....

PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Off topic and possibly slightly political (in which case I hope Rick will permit this post) could I ask whether I am alone in feeling a little guilt for the shape of our economy today?

I am a "boomer", as I suspect are many posting here, who benefited from the great efforts and sacrifices that British society in general (and, on a personal note, many members of my family) made in WW2. I grew up in a peaceful, secure country. I was fed, educated and my health taken care of. I was never obliged to serve in the forces. I was very fortunate.

But I simply accepted that this was British life. I confess I did little, if anything other than obeying laws and paying taxes, to nurture this quasi paradise (compared to so much of the lives of the majority of the the population of the planet). I never really questioned politicians, Unions or latterly the banks and multi nationals or challenged their policies. I just enjoyed life and profited.

Now I look at the mess of the last few years and the world that "I" have bequeathed to my now adult children and I feel some guilt and shame that I was not more interested and involved.

The awful union practices spoken of in this thread could perhaps have been altered if I and others had actually taken more interest and voiced concerns we might have had.

What do you think? Could we have altered anything that might have led to a better outcome for Britain? Or am I just totally wrong?
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Ashley



Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1426
Location: Near Stroud, Glos

PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2016 11:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think we could have altered anything or that we should worry about our part in it. Humans are useless and bugger up everything they touch, but we do learn by our mistakes and we are doing things better than we used to.

We're also well intentioned and decent, so most of what happens isn't deliberate nastiness, it's because we don't read the instructions carefully enough or we're short on facts. People are good and we need to remember that.

However the mess continues and has become more complex in that the EU is a disaster area and may collapse. It's totalitarian and trying to ban parties that have risen as a reaction to the way they're behaving and despite all this our leaders feel we'd be better off remaining.
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Dipster



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 408
Location: UK, France and Portugal - unless I am travelling....

PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2016 12:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was thinking along the lines of neglect rather than deliberate intentions. If I do not look after the weeding and watering of my garden it soon loses its beauty. I feel Britain "lost its beauty" perhaps because of my part in its neglect.
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V8 Nutter



Joined: 27 Aug 2012
Posts: 601

PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2016 2:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I started work I did an apprenticeship, went to college past exams and all the rest of it. Everyone was well paid the conditions were good and very few were in a union. Due too ill health of the original owners a pair of wheeler dealers took on the company, they started to employ semi skilled people doing the simpler jobs. All these new comers were strong union men, due to the apathy of the old hands they managed to push through a scheme whereby a semi skilled man could get the skilled rate after three years, but apprentices had to wait over five years and obtain paper qualifications before they could get top rate.

I later worked for a company with a closed shop policy, that was manipulating one of Harold Wilsons industry boosting schemes, after 18 months it closed down. The management wanted to pay the 50 or so new hands a small severance pay. The union said no,any money had to be shared amongst the old hands. That was the last time I joined a union
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baconsdozen



Joined: 03 Dec 2007
Posts: 1119
Location: Under the car.

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2016 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Still,we dont have to worry about that now as we have little in the way of industry left. I spent ages trying to source British made tools and there's only one company who actually make them,the rest import them mainly from the far east and then just repackage them. A couple of months ago I had some 'Whitworth' sockets palmed off on me that were the wrong size,they cant even get the basics right.
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Ashley



Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1426
Location: Near Stroud, Glos

PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2016 10:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

To be fair we make more cars in the UK now than we did when the Brit companies were at their peak. We have Rolls-Royce aero engines and much more, but together they employ a fraction of the number we had then. Everything is automated.

For me factories were wonderful places, I loved the people and everything about them just as much as I hated the hideous and divisive unions. They simply wanted to destroy the old order and didn't care about the workers they claimed to represent.

Herbert Austin was a great man, very stern and strict, but he loved his people and stood by them. After WW1 Austin struggled, they'd made luxury cars before, but there wasn't any money when it finished and he had a far bigger factory because of the war effort. He introduced the twenty and it didn't sell enough, so he tried the twelve, but it didn't either and the liquidators were called in. Very quickly he designed the seven and pleaded with them to let him make it. They explained that there was no money for wages, so no. In the end he stood in front of his work force and asked them to work for nothing until the car was profitable and they agreed. In exchange he promised them a job for life. Despite all the union aggro and all the troubles, those men worked there into their eighties, some of them. Such was their love of the man.
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