AFTER some due consideration on whether to respond to yet another Adver letter from David Collins on more or less the same anti-trade union subject, I have decided to, as he still does not seem to have grasped the point that I was endeavouring to make to him in my original response, considering he is still adamant that the Swindon Railway Works Committee of the early 1970s promised to save his job and those of others.

If indeed other members shared this view as he states, then I must reiterate that having attended most of the meetings I was not deluded or naive enough to believe the unions that sat on the works committee wielded such power as to have any remit to make such promises.

I will also repeat for the final time for the benefit of Mr Collins that trade unions work from a position of negotiation with the employer, any strength of which is invested in them by the support of the membership.

I am rather amazed that Mr Collins seems to want it both ways when he stated that the government of the day are put in power by the electorate and it is not the job of the unions to overturn that fact and destroy them.

Isn’t he rather contradicting himself as I clearly recall my last response to him was I blamed a bigger hand, namely the government of the day, for the loss of Mr Collins’ job and that of others at the works?

He seems to be defending the ilk of the elected government that pulled the strings at BREL and that ultimately cost him his job, which is very strange indeed.

With his reference to the once President of the NUM, Arthur Scargill, I cannot see any analogy that is relevant to what happened at Swindon Railway Works.

However, I will say it would not have mattered who was President of the NUM during the miners’ strike as the die was being cast in that the industry was to be eradicated by Thatcherism of the day.

The determination from the Thatcher regime was so intense, I recall her bringing over a well-known union-busting axeman, Ian McGregor, from the place of anti-trade unions, the USA, who shamefully wore a brown paper bag over his head.

However, one cannot help admiring Arthur Scargill for his honesty in predicting exactly what would become of the pits, and even those that defied the strike in Nottinghamshire fields fared no better and lost their jobs into the bargain.

G A WOODWARD Nelson Street Swindon