Baroness Thatcher passed away

ukcarper

Generali wrote: »

Developed as a result of the profit motive in a capitalist system

There's not much point in setting up a company to peruse a great idea if 'unearned' income is going to be taxed at 98% (as I believe it was in 1979).

BT had a large research establishment and many new things were developed there digital exchanges were being installed before privatisation. If you believe what people post on here if BT was not privatised we would still be using strowger exchanges.

ILW

Pre Private BT engineers day.
8.00am arrive a depot, get job sheets
8.30 Breakfast at cafe
10.00 get to customers house and do job (if poss)
12.00 Lunch at pub
2.00 pub closes go to next job.
3.00 Leave job for return to depot (hours 8-4)
3.15 sit around as not enough time to start anything else.
4.00 Go home.

I am truly not joking.

The guys that I knew doing this all took rendundancy and left when privatisation happened, but still get a fair bit of pension.

ukcarper

ILW wrote: »

Pre Private BT engineers day.
8.00am arrive a depot, get job sheets
8.30 Breakfast at cafe
10.00 get to customers house and do job (if poss)
12.00 Lunch at pub
2.00 pub closes go to next job.
3.00 Leave job for return to depot (hours 8-4)
3.15 sit around as not enough time to start anything else.
4.00 Go home.

I am truly not joking.

The guys that I knew doing this all took rendundancy and left when privatisation happened, but still get a fair bit of pension.

True for a few and that could have been sorted out without privatisation.

The way BT handled it's redundancy was a shambles.

CLAPTON

ukcarper wrote: »

BT had a large research establishment and many new things were developed there digital exchanges were being installed before privatisation. If you believe what people post on here if BT was not privatised we would still be using strowger exchanges.

BT (pre-privatisation) tried to develop their own digital exchange system x rather than buy in commercial products.

Half the world had digital exchanges before BT admitted defeat and abandoned System X and just bought from the market.

dryhat

Max Keiser must be a reader of this forum.

The latest episode is devoted to the 2 hot topics on here at the moment - maggie and bitcoin.

http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/keiser-report-rpisode-430-626/

Fella

ILW wrote: »

Pre Private BT engineers day.
8.00am arrive a depot, get job sheets
8.30 Breakfast at cafe
10.00 get to customers house and do job (if poss)
12.00 Lunch at pub
2.00 pub closes go to next job.
3.00 Leave job for return to depot (hours 8-4)
3.15 sit around as not enough time to start anything else.
4.00 Go home.

I am truly not joking.

The guys that I knew doing this all took rendundancy and left when privatisation happened, but still get a fair bit of pension.

You knew engineers who did jobs after lunch?

ILW

Fella wrote: »

You knew engineers who did jobs after lunch?

Well, they went to customers houses anyway.

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

BT (pre-privatisation) tried to develop their own digital exchange system x rather than buy in commercial products.

Half the world had digital exchanges before BT admitted defeat and abandoned System X and just bought from the market.

Most UK exchanges are System X and it has be sold to other countries.

PaulF81

ash28 wrote: »

The NUM wasn't formed until 1945....

However, there were more days lost to strikes during WW2 than the preceding 10 years....not just the miners, lots of other strikers too, apprentices, shipyard workers, armaments workers....the first dispute of the war was Clydeside apprentices in 1941....

Of the strikes around half were about pay and half about working conditions. And strikes were illegal...

A miner during the war years was more likely to be killed or injured than at anytime during the preceding 30 years or so. The death and injury rates in the mines during the war were high. At the time of nationalisation in 1946 the death rate was around 80 per 100k. It fell over the years to rate of about 10 per 100k in the 60s - but since privatisation has risen again to around 40 per 100k - the average in industry is 0.7 per 100k.

Mine owners opened or re-opened seams that were deemed to be dangerous or uneconomical in peace time...that wouldn't have been in the name of profit would it?

During the years 1939 to 1945, 20k miners were seriously injured and 5.5k were killed.

I think for a lot of working people the war years were a time of intolerable working conditions, rations and poor air raid provision...conditions that I think most of us just couldn't imagine.

They might have wanted to look at death rates in Bomber Command, Fighter Command or on the beaches on D-Day if they needed to get a grip before striking. We were fighting for survival and industrial production was key. Their sacrifice was no less than that of the troops, but you also need to account that justification in wartime of a strike is tantamount to helping the enemy in times of war IMHO.

grizzly1911

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

I remember (and a couple of others here (BobQ, Grizzly?) will remember rationing.

But the War did give us some great recipes - apple crumble; carrot cake.

Still nothing like what the people on mainland Europe had to deal with obviously.

:) Rationing had finished by the time I was born but I do remember being packed off to school swimming with "new" towels with ration tags on them.

My parents still had the ration mentality and would stockpile tins of food.