At one time our country, tiny little England and maybe with Scotland and Wales added in, was considered to be a nation of shopkeepers. I’m not entirely sure where this phrase comes from but it is true to say that for about 11 of the most amazing years in recent history, we were indeed governed by a party whose leader was the daughter of a prominent shopkeeper from Grimsby. That woman had what it took to fight for business all over the country – she beat the unions into submission. something that sounds incredible but was seriously overdue. They had gotten far too loud mouthed, too busy and the heavy handed closed shop attitude stifled british industry to a point where it has been uneconomic to manufacture here and so most things we use and take for granted today are made in china.
The unions had become far too powerful, dictating working conditions and terms. Union leaders – in fact it got so entrenched that many are still the same, beer bellied and loud, the protection for workers rights sometimes get lost in the protecting union leaders from actually getting down to the job itself. Businesses these days rely on associations and federations to protect themselves from claims of unfair dismissal, breach of contract, discrimination – and there are various heads of claim that can be brought. All these things can be very time consuming and worrying for an employer and his business will suffer if time is spent on matters not directly associated with running the day to day business and bringing in the money.
