SIR – A union leader on last Sunday’s Andrew Marr TV show made vague reference to a possible ‘Autumn of Discontent’ based on strike action by various mass-membership unions, largely in the public sector.

I recall a now-extinct organisation called the NGA mounting a similar campaign against a local newspaper in Greater Manchester 25 years ago: This also failed because the government of the day hammered that union with massive financial penalties via the courts – a carefully-baited trap leading to the total elimination of militant organised labour from both provincial and national newspaper production, allowing up-to-date technology to be introduced.

It’s all very well for those bloated general secretaries on big salaries, perks and secure pensions to urge their members to man the barricades, but when did throwing wages and possible jobs away ever achieve anything?

Surely the recovery of our fragile economy is far more important than promoting the interests of Labour in opposition, which is all that any such industrial action will be about?

That is why the coalition should consider the strongest action, including removing the right to strike in some essential areas, if we are ever going to recover from the deep financial crisis ‘new’ Labour landed us in by their total incompetence over 13 years.

D S Boyes, Rodley Lane, Leeds