“She wrecked the lives of many in the printing industry too.”
I knew family members who worked in the print in the 70s and 80s, sir.prize. Believe me they had among the most highly paid, highly sought after jobs among unskilled/semi-skilled workers in the country. They followed “Spanish Practices” that would seem incredible today and the only way in to those jobs was by positions being handed down from father to son (certainly not to daughter). They had ample opportunity to reform and chose industrial strife instead. Mrs Thatcher did not wreck their lives, they wrecked them all by themselves.
The “Print” was one of the many industries hide-bound by Trades Unions who, as has been pointed out, would accept no compromise, no modernisation, no changes and wanted huge pay rises in return for their “co-operation“. As I said in reply to another question, by the end of the 1970s most people in the UK were sick and tired of waking up every morning in the knowledge that workers in one or more of the services on which they depended for a civilised existence had embarked on “industrial action” (a misnomer if ever there was one). The question posed about whether Mrs T would have won the 1979 election if the electorate knew what was to take place is very appropriate. The answer, without any doubt in my view, is that indeed she would. Believe me, I was there. It was an absolute nightmare and most people craved for change. They wanted an end to successive Prime Ministers inviting Union barons to No.10 for beer and sandwiches to discuss what sort of double digit pay rise they would settle for.
As for the miners, they had held the country to ransom three times in the early 1970s. They had pursued pay claims of 16%, 13% and 21% in successive years. Their industrial action saw most of industry restricted to a three day week and the Heath government was finally toppled by their claims. Others have already explained why Arthur Scargill so badly managed the 1984 dispute. If the electorate had known the NUM would be stripped of their power to black out the country it is highly likely that Mrs Thatcher would have been elected with an even greater majority because her policies of change were what most people wanted.