Post by pamelaIn addition, many foreign workers possess a strong work ethic
I think that could be because they grew up in countries under the
Soviet yoke. We on the other hand were featherbedded by the welfare
state. But we have never had a strong work ethic. You might think that
during the war patriotic Britons would never have gone on strike, yet
there were strikes all the time.
"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."
http://www.unionhistory.info/timeline/1939_1945.php
3,714,000 lost days in 1944! Count 'em!
Those so-called British patriots were just the kind who today would
vote for Brexit.
MM