The unions which became legalised in or around the 1820s did a great deal of good regarding workers rights etc and there is no doubt that many of todays workers rights and benefits are down to those union ancestors.
However, where it all started to go wrong in my opinion was during the 1970s and In particular the winter of discontent 1978/79 when there were widespread strikes as a result of the Labour government's attempt to control inflation by a forced departure from their social contract with the unions by imposing rules on the public sector that pay rises be kept below 5%.
I was a public sector worker myself in those days and I can say as a result of my own experience that that winter of discontent did more harm than good for the unions reputation, people lying in morgues because of gravediggers been on strike, piles of rubbish piling up on rat infested streets as a result of binmen striking, flying pickets blockading hospital entrances which meant only emergency admissions were allowed, were just some of the consequences of the union led strikes of that period .
These type of actions sickened most fair minded people of this country and that's when people started to question the power of the unions, many thought they had become to powerful and political.
There is still an important role for unions to play in todays society and the workplace would be a poorer place without them for sure, but in my opinion, the trade union movement must choose between complete reinvention of itself or an accelerating slide into irrelevance, dragging the Labour party down with it.
With regards to the person who said ...tube drivers risk their lives every day because of the terror alert, yes they do run the risk every day, but so do the thousands of passengers who ride on those very same trains every day, most of whom can only dream of the type of wages and conditions those drivers are on.
in any case, this particular debate will be inconsequential before very long when driverless tube trains become operational.
