It's scarcely believable. After everything we learned and did in the 70s and 80s, the bolshie trade union boss has come back to wreck our economy all over again. 13 years of Labour misrule and he's back on the picket line, as destructive as ever. And what prize humbugs these people are. Bob Crow - head of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers - telling us with a straight face that the first national rail strike in 18 years is all about passenger safety. Tony Woodley - semi-head of the hilariously misnamed Unite union - telling us the BA strike is down to management's fanatical mission to destroy the union. Mark Serwotka - head of the Public and Commercial Services Union - telling us that a public sector pay freeze is impossible because his members can only just exist on their current diet of peanuts (for the real facts see here).
But at least today the TPA's Matt Sinclair landed one on Dave Prentis, fatcat head of Unison, another union that will soon be bringing our public services to a halt.
As it shows in the vid, although Prentis reckons his members have to subsist on peanuts, he himself was paid £127 grand in 2008-09 (salary and benefits).
And just so you know next time they're on the telly, here's what those other jokers got:
Personally, I don't care what unions pay their bosses, but (a) I don't want to fund it - as Labour has forced me to do - and (b) I don't want to hear maxi-wedged humbugs lecturing me about why I should pay higher train fares/air fares/taxes to support their members - mainly so that they themselves can keep their own cushtie jobs.
Don't know if anyone heard BBC R4 Any Questions this week, but it was a cracker - Hague, Balls, Heffer, and some pantomime eco-communist woman (no, really).
William Hague's appearance naturally allowed the BBC to spend yet more time on the Ashcroft saga*. But let's not dwell on that. As we've said many times, if Cam's got any sense he will ensure the BBC gets a serious pruning post a Tory victory - it's insane for the Tories to tolerate a taxpayer-funded lefty propaganda organ of the BBC's vast size, and we taxpayers need a break.
But the bit that made Tyler scurry off to the datavault was Balls' argument that we shouldn't get so upset about the BA and railway strikes because strikes were much worse under the Tories.
And that reflects a developing Labour theme. On Friday, C4 News told us that comparisons with the 1970s are ludicrous because "this is nothing like the 1970s". So let's look at some facts.
First, here's the UK's history of strikes - ie days lost through strike action:
There are a couple of things to note.
First, compared to the 1920s, even the strikes in the 70s and 80s pale into insignificance. The grand-daddy of all strikes was the 1926 General Strike, when Britain lost 162 million working days. Which makes the 29 million lost in 1979 look like a virtual blip.
Second, almost all the big strikes were down to one particular group. Yup, you guessed it, the heavily unionised working-class-hero miners. They were behind nearly all the spikes in the chart - 1912, 1921, 1926 (with support from other unions), 1972, 1974, and 1984. In fact, the only spike not down to them was 1979 - Labour's Winter of Discontent year. Overall, the miners and their unions inflicted more damage on the British economy than probably even the Third Reich managed.
Of course, as soon as we discovered gas in the North Sea, the miners were living on borrowed time. But it was only after Thatcher had actually faced them down that the single biggest source of strikes was removed from the equation.
And the mine unions were not the only unions Thatcher had to face down. Which is why the average days lost to strikes during her administration ran at 6.7m pa (about 4m pa if you exclude the miners' strike). But even that, note, was way better than the average 12.7m pa during the dire 1970s.
And note too, that under Major, average days lost to strikes fell to 0.6m pa, almost exactly where it has stayed ever since. Until now, that is.
So yes, Balls - a member of the striking Unite Trade Union - is right in saying that that there were many more days lost to strikes in the 80s than there have been under Labour. But the reason is that Thatcher was dealing with Labour's creators and paymasters - the unions that had brought our economy to its knees.
25 years on, we're getting a sharp reminder that Thatcher couldn't finish the job. The public sector remains highly unionised, which will be a major obstacle as we wrestle with our fiscal deficit. And underneath all the spin, Labour remains a creature of the unions - a creature that once again will be supporting the unions all the way as they strike against Cam's attempts to bring the public sector pay bill back under control.
*Footnote - Ashcroft continues to command headlines at the BBC, at the same time as they persist in glossing over Labour's tax-dodging donors. It will be interesting to see what coverage they give to the freshly broken cash for influence scandal involving Labour ex-ministers like Pants-on-fire Byers, CPO Commissar Hewitt, and the dreaded Hoon. We all understand that Westminster is a sleaze pit, and the BBC ought at least to make some vague effort to cover all the sleaze, not just the bits that suit their prejudices.
All Labour governments end up in serious difficulty over their union paymasters. They spend their first years pandering to union demands, and their final ghastly Götterdämmerung months impotently trying to explain away the resulting inferno (and see Mr Dale's post yesterday with an update on the disgraceful issue of union Danegeld).
In the late 60s, Wislon famously ordered one union leader "get your tanks off my lawn" - just before Wislon himself abjectly capitulated on promised legislation to rein in their destructive antics, thus setting the scene for the dire strike-ridden 70s (In Place of Strife).
In the 70s, union man Uncle Jim Callaghan dragged us into a wintery nightmare of public sector strikes and unburied bodies lining the streets.
Thanks to the Iron Lady's reform of union law, and crucially the realism born of global competition, union power in the private sector is now properly limited.
But in the public sector there is generally no competition to concentrate minds. And union power is still a major block to necessary reform (a block that stands even where there is a clear and present danger from competition - eg with the Post Office).
As BOM readers will know, there is a huge difference in the unionisation rates of public and private sectors. As we blogged here, the public sector is four times more heavily unionised than the private sector, with a near 60% membership rate. Which means the unions have far more power in the public sector. Here are the latest official stats:
And public sector workers are far more likely to strike (see this post): even in the relative industrial calm of the last five years, they have been 30 times more likely to go out.
The result is that the public sector loses many more days to industrial action than the private sector, even though it employs only a quarter as many people:
The outlook is pretty grim. Public sector pay, public sector pensions, and public sector employment are all going to come under the knife over the next couple of years. And with 60% sector unionisation we must expect a lot of strikes.
Will Cam be any better than Labour at facing them down?
It must be said patrician toffs don't have a great record in that regard - unlike a Thatcher or a Tebbit, they suffer from too much Jimmy Carter-style plantation guilt. But if Cam is serious about cutting spending, he has no choice. Wages and pensions constitute around a quarter of public spending, and will have to be cut (as everyone, including St Vince, now recognises).
Cam will have to face the tanks head on.
PS The union leader ordered by Wislon to remove his tanks was of course Hugh Hughie Scanlon, the Marxist president of the Amalgamated Engineering Union from 1968 until 1978. "For most of his career he was the wild man of the Far Left, bogeyman of the Right and a vociferous critic of ermine-clad politicians, particularly the Socialist variety. Indeed, he had called the Upper House a "bastion of privilege". Naturally enough, on his retirement Callaghan offered him a peerage - for services to a grateful nation. And naturally enough, he accepted. Just like our old friend my Lord Kinnockio. Why do we put up with this again?
To start with, it seems Bob and the bruvvers don't like the pay deal they've been offered. They reckon that a five year deal giving them inflation plus 1% for the first year, and inflation plus 0.5% pa thereafter, is just plain mean.
What! you exclaim.
What the FFFF!!????
Isn't it a fact that tube workers are pretty well wedged already? Don't tube drivers get paid £40 grand as a starting salary, and station supervisors £35-39K? And come to that, isn't it a fact that earnings in the private sector are actually falling?
Yes, well, OK... park the pay issue. The RMT have other grievances.
First, they want a cast iron job guarantee. With such lucrative positions, members are naturally keen not to lose them. Especially given the chill blasts blowing above ground, where everyone else is facing the chop every single day.
And second, it turns out they're also striking for the reinstatement of two suspended comrades facing disciplinaries. One comrade is being victimised by means of a criminal trial for theft, and the other is being picked on over a trivial matter of opening the doors on the wrong side of his train, nearly losing his passengers overboard, and then lying about it afterwards.
So Bob's message today is that ordinaryhardworkinghardpressedwageslave Londoners must suffer so that his members can grab an even bigger slice of the pie, enjoy even more job security, and be even less subject to management discipline.
But Bob's real message is of course much bigger.
His real message is that now is the best chance in years for public sector unions to go for gold.
Think about it. As we blogged here, the public sector is four times more heavily unionised than the private sector, with a 60% membership rate. Which means the unions have far more power in the public sector.
And public sector workers are far more likely to strike (see this post): even in the relative industrial calm of the last five years, they have been 30 times more likely to go out.
The result is that the public sector loses many more days to industrial action than the private sector, even though it employs only a quarter as many people:
So against that background, public sector union bosses are looking at a once in a career opportunity.
Here we have a reeling dispirited government who no longer care if they give away the shop. They're way beyond that. Their main aim now is to minimise the scale of their defeat, which definitely DEFINITELY means no Winter of Discontent style public sector strikes.
Sure, if they give in to big union demands they'll be increasing the problems facing the next government. But why should they worry? They don't care if they make life more difficult for Dave and George in 12 months time - in fact, that would be a positive bonus.
And the union bosses ain't quite so dumb as they look (they can hardly be that dumb). They know that life will be much tougher with Dave and George across the table, if only because D&G will be aiming to stick around for a decade.
So if you're a public sector union boss, there's only one conclusion: now is the time to strike.
Literally.
Update 10-6 - interesting cross reference on transport pay in today's Times: "Data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) shows for the first time how much higher BA’s wage costs are than its rivals. The average salary for BA’s 14,000 cabin crew, including bonuses and allowances, is £29,900, compared with £14,400 at Virgin Atlantic and £20,200 at easyJet. BA’s pilots earn an average of £107,600, compared with £89,500 at Virgin and £71,400 at easyJet." Interesting.
