|
using the war to promote factional interests - days lost to strikes during ww2
There were millions of days lost to strikes from 1939 to 1945, even though striking was illegal during the war.
| year |
work days lost to strikes |
| 1939 |
1,356,000 |
| 1940 |
940,000 |
| 1941 |
1,079,000 |
| 1942 |
1,527,000 |
| 1943 |
1,808,000 |
| 1944 |
3,714,000 |
| total days lost |
10,424,000 |
| source http://www.unionancestors.co.uk (.pdf) |
Striking is not just a way of getting privileges and other advantages over other workers, it is also a political weapon used to manoeuvre socialist parties into power.
“Until 1941 when the Soviet Union entered the war, communists in Britain, having little commitment to the war effort, refused to be bound by the national unity consensus and in particular the ban on strike action. During the first few months of the war, there were over 900 strikes, almost all of them very short but illegal nonetheless. Despite the provisions of Order 1305 there were very few prosecutions until 1941 since Bevin, anxious to avoid the labour unrest of the First World War, sought to promote conciliation rather than conflict. The number of strikes increased each year until 1944, almost half of them in support of wage demands and the remainder being defensive actions against deteriorations in workplace conditions. Coal and engineering were particularly affected. A strike in the Betteshanger colliery in Kent in 1942 prompted the first mass prosecutions under Order 1305. Three officials of the Betteshanger branch were imprisoned and over a thousand strikers were fined. Such repression and the general 'shoulders to the wheel' approach to industrial production in support of the war effort (strongly backed by the Communist Party after 1941) did not stop strikes. The fact that so many strikes took place in the mining industry was due in the main to the fact that the designation of coal mining as essential war work entailed the direction of selected conscripts to work in the mines ('Bevin boys'). This was very unpopular among regular miners.
“In 1943 there were two major stoppages, one was a strike of 12,000 bus drivers and conductors and the other of dockers in Liverpool and Birkenhead. Both were a considerable embarrassment to Bevin since they involved mainly TGWU members. 1944 marked the peak of wartime strike action with over two thousand stoppages involving the loss of 3,714,000 days' production. This led to the imposition of Defence Regulation 1AA, supported by the TUC, which now made incitement to strike unlawful.
“Trade unions (TUC affiliates) increased their membership by about three million during the war - from roughly four and a half million in 1938 to around seven and a half million in 1946 and this was accompanied by the spread of recognition agreements to industries in which unions had only a toe-hold before the war. To some extent this extension of trade union rights was underwritten by the government who denied war contracts to firms (under the Essential Works Order) who failed to conform to minimum standards demanded by the unions.”
[Quoted from unionhistory.info]
Note the position of the government, having to appease unions who exploited the war to gain extra power.
related material
- socialist religions
socialism and appeasement - so few stood firm against the socialist dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler
For Socialism and Peace -
the Labour Party's Programme of Action
|
|
another labour hero - stafford cripps
Cripps on how to exploit the then coming war (WW2) :
“Money cannot make armaments. Armaments can only be made by the skill of the British working class, and it is the British working class who would be called upon to use them. To-day you have the most glorious opportunity that the workers have ever had if you will only use the necessity of capitalism in order to get power yourselves. The capitalists are in your hands. Refuse to make munitions, refuse to make armaments, and they are helpless. They would have to hand the control of the country over to you.” 1937
How others saw Cripps:
“There, but for the grace of God, goes God.”
Winston Churchill
And then we have the National Socialist Adolf Hitler displaying his usual sense and judgement.:-
“Between Churchill and Cripps I have no hesitation choosing. I prefer a hundred times the undisciplined swine who is drunk eight hours of every twenty-four to the puritan. A man who spends extravagantly, an elderly man who drinks and smokes without moderation, is obviously less to be feared than the drawing-room bolshevist who leads the life of an ascetic.”
Hitler, 27 March 1942
Peter Mandelson:
“Cripps, the essence of moral rectitude...”
2001, from the introduction to a 1973 reprint of Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician.
Mandelson is grandson of Morrison. Morrison seems to have been the fire under Attlee, as they sought to turn Britain into a socialist state.
On Clement Attlee:
“A taxi stopped outside no. 10, and nobody got out.”
attributed to Churchill, but denied by him.
Also Churchill on Attlee, not denied!
“A modest man with much to be modest about.”
I’ve ordered the Morrison book, and one on Attlee!
Soon I will know even more about the accursed cult.
- related material
- socialist religions
socialism and appeasement - so few stood firm against the socialist dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler
For Socialism and Peace - the Labour Party's Programme of Action
|
|
one nation class warfare new labour wants lower fares - they have a brilliant plan
From Eagle minor, M.P.
First lower fares,
then take more tax
and give the tax to the train companies.
Then the alleged profits must be given back to tax payers,
and the trains must have wifi,
and we must have High Speed 2, which apparently Fascist New Labour wanted and Red Ed wants to cancel.
But worry not, it’s the Tory’s fault.
Will Fascist New Labour ‘save’ the £50 billion for HS2?
$50 billion sounds a lot, doesn’t it?
Well, it’s really about £3billion a year. That is, less than 1/50th of the amount Brown the Clown was borrowing each year.
related material
socialist religions
socialism and appeasement - so few stood firm against the socialist dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler
For Socialism and Peace - the Labour Party's Programme of Action
|
