1966

[Jim Brady]

John#20 Are you talking of the British MN when you say a seaman could only leave 50% of his wages as an allotment? I think most of us that were married and on £36pm were leaving £7.50 pw equating to £30 on 4 weeks it did'nt leave us much in the ship after bond,postage and a couple of bob sub here and there,thats why overtime was a must.You would always get trouble on a ship if there was'nt any overtime going,us stewards were'nt to bad we were always on a guaranteed 3 a day no matter how bad the company was .
Regards.
jim.B.

[leratty]

John p17, do not know why you felt like a coward feel your behaviour would have been the norm in those times especially if it was an unofficial strike? Me, well I never experienced any strike or threat there of action nor unionism whilst at sea. Of course I paid my dues as it was taken from my wages. I in hindsight wonder how many would have paid if they had to do so out of their pocket if you know what I mean? I of course was very naive & knew it was not to be my career so guess took very little interest in such matters. My first experience with strike action-unions I was in if you will seriously junior management on my first project. What I saw horrified me as to sabotaging of machinery & equipment + other needless vandalism along with physical intermediation-violence. It coloured my thoughts towards unions & strikes though for rest of my career & I saw so much unbelievable behaviour as well as demands it left a bitter taste in my mouth. On saying that I also worked for a couple of companies whose treatment of their workforce was less than acceptable in a No of areas. Accommodation, food, general conditions, also pay. I I like to believe as I rose up the ranks of management was a 'reasonable & fair' boss who would more often than not go into bat for the workers getting them some very good conditions in comparison to other sites. Because of this my sites were almost always ahead of time & on budget except for weather. Often this was to my detriment in the companies as some snr management still had the "them & us"attitude I was a odd bod to them neither a union man nor a Co one they thought. On saying that my 'key' skilled crews always wanted to work on my next job so in a way that mitigated those problems as those directors were not myopic when it came to the bottom of the right hand column. I am a strong believer in unions along with collective bargaining if they are prepared to treat management polity & commercially without the old them & us bilge Trotsky talk. I was rabidly against any employer abusing his-their position, that equally applied to unions & workers. My time in Aus certainly taught me a lot about idiotic demands, stupid ignorant union delegates, even those with degrees as many had in the 80's & on. How we ever get a happy medium I am not sure, in most cases the sites with exception of Aus I worked on were mostly happy there too if not overly union controlled & the employees loyal to the company or maybe the managers on site?
The strike of there not being enough different flavours of Yoghurt still sticks in my mind! JC they did not even f... know about Yoghurt until we put it on the menu, thought it was for Poofs . Ha then found they liked it, go figure, no the Yoghurt guys not what Poofs get up too (:

[j.sabourn]

#22'' Not quite sure whether it was official or not others on here will know more about than me. As regards sabotage on equipment I quite believe as was on a couple of ships where suspect this may have happened on change of ownership and flag. I was that disgusted with the way things went after the 66 strike I went to work on foreign flag. The first two owners were much better and much higher paid, the third was a bummer. Coming back into British Flag was dog eat dog and the writing was on the wall. If however I had to go back deep sea at the present it would probably have to be foreign flag, who knows who some of these owners are, more than likely some of the ones we sailed with years ago prior to 66. Cheers John S.

[arthur elletson]

re:1966,docked in hull from London ss bravo (where we split the bow open entering Shadwell basin)we docked on the Monday and where due to sail on the Friday back down the med before the strike started so all week I spent my pay off on my mates who where home for the strike then on Friday(we was in albert dry dock repairing the bow we used to work bye the Wilson boats in hull)a party of people where looking over the ship turns out it was greek buyers who bought the ship ended up out on strike(skint).me and my mate used to go to the union office in posterngate and always volunteer to picket albert dock st Andrews dock (fishing dock)entrance always given a bottle of something and a backhander for a drink of the trawlermen (happy days young free and single)