Unions still strong

Jackie Kemp (Perspective, 29 September) states that the trade unions were one of the great engines of British myth making, but they stopped running after the miners’ strike.

Can she be unaware that right now the Con-Dem government is proposing legislation to stop them from campaigning on issues in the run-up to a general election?

Clearly, the engines are running all too well for some. The defeat of the miners was indeed a grievous blow, but even that didn’t satisfy Margaret Thatcher.

Her government went on to pass one employment act after another, each aimed at the trade unions, and today’s lot are curtailing the rights to industrial tribunals and rolling back on health and safety in the workplace.

The unions don’t have the power to defend their members that they once had, but consider who benefits from writing them off.

It is also somewhat strange to see trade unionism described as part of a British story, now effectively dead as we go our separate ways.

This will come as news to the Scottish Trades Union Congress, which has a long, proud history of standing up for oppressed people both here and internationally.

There is a myth that I notice being currently created, that we in Scotland are heading in a separate direction even if we do vote No in the referendum.

We already were, back in 1707, when separate Scots institutions were recognised. Every time an act of parliament was passed that affected Scotland only, that difference was recognised.

The creation of our Scottish Parliament (not reconvened, as another myth would have it) was another recognition of difference. So, would this separate direction include having different employment rights, and different levels of public spending when the competing cuts in corporation tax bite?

Maria Fyfe

Ascot Avenue

Glasgow