Steel works..mines..Thatcher or global economics?

[mj.scuba]

I have read with intrigue on many many threads the topic of the closure of steel works and pits, with lots of people being of the consensus that their closure was all down to Thatcher.

 

How accurate is that though? What about global economics?

 

Could the state (ie the taxpayer) ever have continued to subsidise our own coal mines whilst other countries were turning it out far cheaper and it was in fact cheaper to import the stuff?

 

After visiting Kelham Island museum last year, I found out that one of the biggest declines in Sheffield's steel industry happened after an American, Mr Gillette, invented the disposable safety razor circa 1895. And then when the Japanese started to mass produce cutlery, exporting it around the globe at far cheaper prices than Sheffield could ever achieve.

 

Maggie might have been the one that had to take the decisions and administer the unpleasant treatment, but the causes and symptoms had been there for a long time.

 

You thoughts please.

[willman]

I was employed in the steelworks, my family and community are miners - so i have first hand experience of the negatives of the siuation we were in.

 

A current example:recently a friend of mine was put on short time at a steelworks due to the recession. He was asked if he would work on the shopfloor for a couple of days a s a labourer to support some improvements being carried out. Obviously he said yes.

In my day in the steelworks - the union would have objected , the guy would have been laid off and an "officlal" labourer would have worked overtime to get the job done.

[Mister M]

I think some of the deindustrialisation that occured would have happened. I beleive changes in technology meant that some of the work that was done by hand would have been done by machine. Competition from abraod would've contributed to some of the job losses.

 

However I don't believe that the massive rise in interest rates in the early 1980s which contributed to the decline was planned. They went into the election in 1979 with a poster saying 'Labour isn't working', 2 years later unemployment tripled /quadrupled. Similarly Thatcher was a believer in Britain being an exporting nation.

 

What was planned was a reduction in public spending -but due to the rise in unemployment & spending on law & order had to rise.

 

I think it's a great shame that North Sea Oil was squandered. Callaghan predicted that who ever won the election would remain there for many years due to the North Sea & gas reciepts. Those could have been used to invest massively in new industries and technologies. I think we became way to reliant on the financial services and banks duriung her tenure.

 

Mind you what with North Sea Oil running out and overseas supplies in unstable hands, we might rue the day we flooded the mines....

[Rupert_Baehr]

I think some of the deindustrialisation that occured would have happened. I beleive changes in technology meant that some of the work that was done by hand would have been done by machine. Competition from abraod would've contributed to some of the job losses.

 

...

 

Well I'm glad that the teachers(and others) who told me that the introduction of new technology would mean we would all have more time to spare didn't get it entirely wrong. Of course automation and mechanisation reduces the need for doing things by hand!

 

When I was a child, there was no shortage of low-paid, low-skilled manual work. The school leaving age (where I grew up) was 13 and if you left school at 13, you could look forward to a life of low-paid manual labour. - Unless you were very lucky.

 

Nowadays, the minimum school leaving age is 16. There are few low-paid, low-skilled manual labour jobs available, so most people take advantage of the improved (free) education they are offered, don't they?

 

It seems they don't. According to the last government, the minimum qualifications an individual requires to stand a fair chance of getting a half-way decent job are 5 GCSES, including Maths and English, at Grade C or above.

 

In some areas, only just over 50% of children obtain those results, so presumably nearly half of those leaving school are unemployable.

 

You can offer as many jobs as you like, but if you don't have a pool of qualified people to take them, then eventually the jobs will go elsewhere.

[llamatron]

There will always be a need for low paid unskilled workers. Businesses require more people at the bottom than at the top. Unfortunately we've screwed it up by trying to make everyone go to uni, after which we have no ABLE unskilled workers we only have people suitable for middle management and the dole. Doh doesn't even cover it. I like the idea of the minimum wage but Im really not sure its feasible in world where in india and china etc people are willing to work for virtually nothing. I would rather pay more money for a service and speak to someone at the helpline that I can understand.

 

Being as china and india are more competitive there is little incentive for a business to base itself in the uk. I don't believe thatcher had a choice, or if she did the alternative was stupid!