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[Terry Haines]

Take heed to history USA!..I lived thru this in UK...and it's on it's way here!!!


The "Winter of Discontent" is a British expression, which refers to the winter of 1978–1979 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by local authority trade unions demanding larger pay rises for their members, and because the government of James Callaghan sought to hold a pay freeze to control inflation.
The strikes were a result of the Labour government's attempt to control inflation by imposing rules on the public sector that pay rises be kept below 5%, as an example to the private sector. However, employers conducted their negotiations within mutually agreed limits with their employees unions.[1] While the strikes were largely over by February 1979, the government's inability to contain the strikes earlier helped lead to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative victory in the 1979 general election and legislation to restrict unions. Public sector employee strike actions included an unofficial strike by gravediggers working in Liverpool and Tameside, and strikes by refuse collectors. Additionally, NHS ancillary workers formed picket lines to blockade hospital entrances with the result that many hospitals were reduced to taking emergency patients only.
The phrase "Winter of Discontent" itself is derived from the opening line of William Shakespeare's Richard III: "Now is the Winter of our Discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York...", and was popularly applied to the events of the winter by the then editor of The Sun, Larry Lamb, in an editorial.


...more here..

http://en.wikipedia....r_of_Discontent