Unions and strikes -a real threat or just a succesful media promotion.

The main strikes that I remember from the past were the Dockworkers, the Miners, Printworkers, Rail strikes, Ford’s strikes and Postal strikes.
It’s a different world now. Containerisation took the dockers’ jobs, the Post Office has been broken up and email and Yodel delivery drivers means we no longer rely on postal services. The Coal mines are closed, Ford workers know their jobs are at risk from overseas competition, Printing is digitalised, British Rail has been broken up and sold off.
The gig economy, self employment, zero hours contracts have chipped away at the “Full time job for life”.
Unions have very little power now.

There has been talk of some documents telling the truth about police involvement at Orgreave, but whether we will ever get to see them, seeing how long it took to reveal the truth about Hillsborough.
There is a lot of talk about strikes, but very little about the real work Unions do for their members all the time. Which I have had experience of.
In Germany, Union representatives sit on the boards of companies. It helps stop things going to extremes, as happens here with some companies

No comment on the actions of the Unions keeping Robens in his job ?

The actions of the police in the miners' strike and the Wapping printers strike seem to have been excessive and unnecessary. It as been suggeted that press coverage at the time was very antagonisic towards the miners and that this contributed to the dispute. In fact it has been compared to Hillsborough theconversation.com/war-on-the-picket-line-how-the-british-press-made-a-battle-out-of-the-miners-strike-60470
Anyone like to comment?

After the disruptions in the seventies Thatcher curbed the power of unions, Corbyn if PM will give the same powers back. McClusky has a desk in Labour HQ.

The actions of the police were a disgrace , putting it politely, but not before Thatcher , as the miners strike and the Hillsborough disaster showed,

It was the Unions who kept Lord Robens in his job regardless of the fact the enquiry found he had made misleading statements and not providing clarity on the NCB's knowledge of the water under the tip, the enquiry placed the blame entirely on the NCB.

The village requested the removal of the remaining tips, after many appeals it was agreed but an enforced sum of
£150,000 was taken from the disaster fund. This was paid back during the Blair Government. The Unions pressed the Labour government to keep Robens in his job and supported the NCB's demands that the village paid their share .

This is Unions with unleashed powers

There were tube strikes as well at tub strikes I believe.

Ooops.

Exactly what gilly says, in fact the srikes in the seventies show that to be true.
Of course unions are a good thing, but not when they are virtually telling the government what to do (Labour) or trying to bring down a Conservative government in order to get Labour into power and making citizens lives a misery when strikes go on and on.There need to be good hard
reasons for a full strike.

I notice the wiki page has a Labour party advert on the R/H side.

Unions (on the whole) are a good thing and I agree they were set up to improve the conditions of the working man and woman. But once these unions (and their leaders) become more and more powerful there becomes a very high risk of them beginning to dictate the conditions of working to the employer and woe betide if they don't play ball. We just need to look at recent tubs strikes (holding the capital to ransom) for a clear example of this.