Hangershuffle,
I'm just saying, as ever, to call all the miners in the UK "Herberts" is disrespectful and very uncorrect.
I am with you on this comment, but not being from coal mining areas in the UK, but growing up in a coal mining township in the USA, probably not much difference.
I am going to be much more blunt relative to the use of the word "Herberts" than you were directed at those that like to use the derogatory word.
Apparently to unknowing and unintelligent folks this is somehow a cute characterization of workers in an industry that supported England and the USA and other countries in times of greatest need. Miners at the Coverdale Mine, south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, said it was safer to be in the above ground battle of WWII than working in the mine, but they couldn't get release from mining duties during the war. Today not a lot has changed in the coal mining industry.
So I ask, when airline pilots go on strike for shorter hours, better working conditions, higher pay and better benefits, are they known as "Herberts" or
-heads, today? When that happens does the government step in and nationalize the industry like they have done in the coal mining industry or railroad industry?
I went to grade school with coal mining sons and daughters, their future was less than assured. When there was an accident at the mine the sirens around town wailed. If it was a miner/miners disabled or killed, the family had to move out of the company owned housing (shacks) to make room for those not disabled with no benefits or no place to go. There was a famous song by the title of
"You Owe Your Soul To The Company Store", and that was so true.
My uncle worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, He died at age 48 from black lung disease along with many more miners. I don't think that condition affects pilots that don't understand the hazards of coal mining or the real life that miners lived producing a product you couldn't fly without.
So my thoughts are these, if you want to diss workers in an industry you have never been associated with, start in the industry you are associated with and before you do that go back and study history before you were born to get a full picture before you write.