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Post by John on Jul 31, 2008 11:08:30 GMT -5
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Post by shropshirebloke on Jul 31, 2008 18:11:54 GMT -5
As you say John - interesting. As I read through it I became more and more angry - it may as well have been a comparative study of battery egg units, or the ever-so detailed performance figures of Nazi death camps.
Nothing about the NET benefit to our society, or the real costs of destroying vast swathes of our traditional culture.
How come these bean-counting bastards never apply the same sort of (very narrowly focussed) cost/benefit analysis to the farming industry, Parliament, or, as a pre-holiday treat, the Royal Family?
Yeah, I'm a (very definitely) working director of a small company - I'd kill myself before I'd start thinking of people and communities as mere "productive units".
I only worked in the pit for a couple of years thirty years ago - but it has shaped the rest of my life more than I could ever have imagined, especially in the way I judge people.
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Post by John on Jul 31, 2008 18:33:11 GMT -5
I had a think after I'd read the report on how many folks were affected by the closure of the UK coal industry.
Here's a list of companies that would have shed labour by the score.
Wood pit prop suppliers.
Dowty.
Anderson Strathclyde.
Meco.
Wallacetown Engineering.
Baldwin Francis.
Brush Engineering.
Oldham.
Ceag.
Huwood.
Parsons.
BJD.
Gullick.
DAC
British Ropes.
Cable manufacturers.
Electrical machinery overhaul shops around the UK.
Steel industry.
Rail manufacturers.
Steel arch manufacturers. Mining loco manufacturers.
Fan manufacturers.
Pumps, haulage, parts dealers etc, etc...
Probably 5 million people were affected in all by the loss of one industry, not counting nearly 300,000 mine workers, office staff and central workshops/stores personnel.
Then there's the loss to the economy of all those jobs going, and not to forget EXPORTS of mining machinery!
The bean counters were only paid to do a report on one industry, if they'd been paid and instructed to survey ancillary industries, a whole bigger picture would have emerged.
As the area director said in "Brassed Off" "coals history"!
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Post by shropshirebloke on Jul 31, 2008 18:40:32 GMT -5
...but social workers. probation officers, benefit office staff, debt advisors, loan sharks, solicitors, police, health service staff, pawnbrokers, loan sharks and local politicians all saw a sudden upturn in demand for their "services".....
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Post by John on Jul 31, 2008 18:47:07 GMT -5
I'm not surprised!
I know when I was working as an electrical fitter, after I'd completed my apprenticeship and left the Board, we were always busy during the "pit fortnights". I was working 12 hour days throughout the late summer months into autumn. As a pit shut for the holidays, they stripped motors and transformers out and we overhauled them and returned them to the individual pits and workshops as fast as possible.
That company is still going today, but another one I worked for just after I left the Board has closed down.
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rob52
Shotfirer.
Posts: 199
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Post by rob52 on Jun 15, 2013 2:46:46 GMT -5
1983 Paper - What Future for British Coal Policy? www.seec.surrey.ac.uk/research/SEEDS/SEEDS14.pdfPg28 has an interesting Table 1960@98.5% ... 1972@70.2% .... 1983@33.9% Combine that with pg175 from Debating Coal Closures: Economic Calculation in the Coal Dispute 1984-5 David Cooper Trevor M. Hopper isbn-10: 0521125979 =>> "The Destination for Usage of Coal in the UK" tells a stark tale of Industrial & Manufacturing Capability that declined/was DECIMATED. Rob |
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