geared Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Thats about the size of it. Was more cost effective to close the mines and pay benefits than it was to keep them funded and pay everyone a full wage. Also you have to take into account the need to break the Unions before they broke the country completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melthebell Posted January 3, 2014 Author Share Posted January 3, 2014 Thats about the size of it. Was more cost effective to close the mines and pay benefits than it was to keep them funded and pay everyone a full wage. Also you have to take into account the need to break the Unions before they broke the country completely. tbh i think half of the reason was your second point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xt500 Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 It's more complicated than that; even purely from an economical perspective... Collectively, the whole country would probably still be better off, keeping pits open that were losing money. You have to factor in the money that goes in to miners pockets, which they then spend elsewhere (helping the economy) and also factor in benefits, that don't have to be paid to working miners. You also need to consider if the sale price of coal will go up in future etc. Do you run a business? Got a real friendly bank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister M Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Remind us again who charged the police lines first.... oh yes, it was the miners after the coal trucks wasn't it.... When the police bade them desist they then started throwing rocks. But in Mecky's world it's of course the police that started it all.... The IPCC are investigating the claims that the BBC doctored the footage from the Orgreave Pit, which showed miners charging at police - apparently what happened was the police charged at the miners. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/nov/16/miners-strike-police-battle-orgreave It was the recent Hillsborough inquiry about the behaviour of South Yorkshire Police that renewed the calls for an inquiry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geared Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 tbh i think half of the reason was your second point Me too, I think failing mines was justification enough to tackle the political problem. It needed doing tho, just a pity so many people got caught up in the middle of it because Scargill wouldn't back down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeMac Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Remind us again who charged the police lines first.... oh yes, it was the miners after the coal trucks wasn't it.... When the police bade them desist they then started throwing rocks. But in Mecky's world it's of course the police that started it all.... There were quite a few unpleasant police too. I wouldn't say that they started it all, but they certainly started some of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkey104 Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 The IPCC are investigating the claims that the BBC doctored the footage from the Orgreave Pit, which showed miners charging at police - apparently what happened was the police charged at the miners. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/nov/16/miners-strike-police-battle-orgreave It was the recent Hillsborough inquiry about the behaviour of South Yorkshire Police that renewed the calls for an inquiry And like Hillsborough it will all be conveniently forgotten that the miners did any wrongdoing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldo Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 The only problem with that is that we can import coal as good as what we have for much less money and we don't have the capital infrastructure to spend. The mining industry was the ultimate "make-work" to keep people employed and did so at an immense cost, far more than the resultant benefit bill if we'd just paid them their wage to sit about and not dig up the coal. When you import from an external source, you have to consider how reliable that source is; can prices go up? can the source be interrupted or stopped for any reason? You don't have these same concerns if you're self-sufficient etc. I don't know they exact facts and figures concerning the pit closures; but of course, there is a cut off point where running an enterprise at a loss, is too costly (even when you've considered the financial consequences of ending that enterprise). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geared Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 When you import from an external source, you have to consider how reliable that source is; can prices go up? can the source be interrupted or stopped for any reason? You don't have these same concerns if you're self-sufficient etc. It wasn't just one source, and it wasn't just one industry because the coal industry was tied into many others like utilities and manufacturing. UK Coal was too expensive, the mines and the equipment were out of date - too many people being employed to dig up too little coal. Coal from the States, from Australia and from Latin America was much cheaper. If the UK economy wanted to become competitive again (because it had lost that edge) then it needed to change, and part of that change was sorting out the mess that the coal industry was in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 When you import from an external source, you have to consider how reliable that source is; can prices go up? can the source be interrupted or stopped for any reason? . Like strikes for instance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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