These things are a minefield of unknown facts , personal motives, the grinding of axes etc . . Why not sell these pits off to private enterprise ? No one ever came forward with an offer .
The sight of turning the police against workers does 'nt stand well with me .
However I'm of an age to remember the unions and their leaders trying to control and excercise their power against whatever government was in power.
I never joined the union until I was "On the Tools" it was the reformed ETU .
As an apprentice my eyes were opened by a couple of things , the old ETU was under communist control and I was'nt happy about it so didn't join. The shop steward wanted me to join but knew I didn't have to while an apprentice ..........he then threatened me that if I didn't join at the appropriate time I could , in his words , F*** off because no one would work with me .
I looked round at my so called workmates the next day and decided on a change to the contracting industry as a JIB apprentice at 17 and glad I did.
The ETU was reformed , communists gone and a democratic voting system installed so I joined , but to be honest , it was just to allow entry into the "closed shop" car factories with the contracting firm.
Some years later , the firm I was with took on a job at a nation wide known company , a giant furnace meltdown , suspected sabotage, we were to work round the clock , re-install & also report any sabotage findings , along with our rewind dept.
We put a team together and reported , on day one at the main gate of the works , were herded into a large empty room to await some official from the ( Reformed yet again) ..EEPTU to have our union cards inspected .
After something approaching a 3 hour wait, some bloke appeared, straight from the Peter Sellers's film "I'm Alright Jack" .
"Who is the supervisor?"
"Thats me " I reply.
" You'll have to wait for someone from our supervisory section to sanction your card "
" Its the same card as everyone else"
"Makes no difference , you're management , we don't deal with you " ( New one on me ) Finally get onto the meltdown site about lunchtime.
I can remember the bigger contractors on large engineering sites in this area , would employ fabricators and welders alongside their sparks , to install miles of heavy guage tray & trunking with thousands of brackets etc. Being unionised they had to join , so were given "Skilled" EEPTU cards same as the rest of us ...to get over that problem . 
