Industrial action, including strikes, made you aware of working people’s lack of control over the environment they live in and was a deciding factor on my joining the Labour Party in 1972. As a Shop Steward I was fortunate to have in the TGWU at that time a number of Officers from Jack Jones, General Secretary, to Jimmy McIntyre District Secretary TGWU Dunfermline who believed in the ability of workers unfetter their collective bargaining from the workplace. Jimmy always said that once you went into work your rights expired at the factory gate and he was right.
In 1975 Willie Brand, TGWU District Officer, driving the two of us back from a meeting in Glasgow, asked me if I was still a Catholic. I replied that as I had not been to the Church recently I doubted it. Willie suggested that I should read Tom Paine's 'Age Of Reason', explaining that the book attacked the mythical story of the Bible. The next day I went along to the Rosyth Institute Library to obtain a copy of the book.
The elderly lady librarian advised that 'Age of Reason' was published in America and it would take some time to obtain it. She also suggested that if I did wish to read Paine then perhaps I should start with his early work 'Common Sense'. Agreement was reached and the doors of reason were opened.
Prime Minister Pitt, whilst recognising the logic of Paine's argument, refused
to implement it. But, now in the 21st Century we have the opportunity to unite
the producers and consumers along with the body politic to bring about real
democracy in every walk of out life. Now that would be 'Free and Unfettered
Collective Bargaining'.