Letter: Unions to blame for destruction

I MEAN no disrespect to the late Jimmy Reid, but I don't think it's in our country's best interest to go on accepting as fact the sort of nonsense offered by Glasgow's new council leader (News, 22 August).

I knew Jimmy Reid personally in the mid 1950s, when as teenage 'footsoldiers' in the Communist Youth movement, we would worship people like him who came to address our weekend 'familiarisation' (some would say 'brainwashing') conferences which were organised incessantly and insidiously as an ongoing recruitment exercise. However, with the passage of time and increasing awareness of what we were getting into, it didn't need more than average intelligence to deduce that these people were peddling stuff that wasn't just at odds with the best side of human nature; it was downright undemocratic and even frightening.

Glasgow's council leader asks us to remember the jobs saved by the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders incident. It would be more productive if we paid more heed to the infinitely larger amounts of damage done to our industries by a combination of militant and politically motivated trade unionism; and spineless, inept management. It's not just shipbuilding; we have also lost breathtaking amounts of jobs and wealth with the destruction of steel, coal, cars, and other industries. And the one common factor in this tragic demise has been the irresponsibility and sheer bloody-mindedness of trade union leaders, who thought nothing of the damage they were doing to the country

So, I pay my respects to the family of any individual who dies; but I wish we would stop idolising those whose only legacy is a trail of destruction.

Jim Parker, Glenrothes