She was famous as the prime minister who broke the stranglehold of hugely powerful trade unions, including well-known print unions of the era Slade, the NGA, Sogat, and Natsopa.

Tony Burke, assistant general secretary of the union that represents UK printers, Unite, described the union dispute with Eddy Shah’s Stockport Messenger group in Warrington in 1983 as a "dry run" for what was to follow at News International’s Wapping print plant, and with the mine workers.

Shah invoked the new Labour Laws, leading to police action against the striking workforce and subsequent sequestration of union funds.

"She saw the opportunity of unleashing the full force of the law against working people. She was vicious and she had a view of what she wanted to do. In doing so, with the miners and printers who were both brilliantly organised, she set about to destroy both," Burke said. "We’re still here, and she’s not."

Recalling the events of 1983, Burke said: "She used riot police against people, police surveillance and introduced the sort of techniques that are now called kettling. I’d never seen anything like it. But local officers including myself couldn’t get arrested to save our lives," he added. "It was everything that came to fruition in the miners’ strike a year later."

For others, Thatcher’s legacy is more positive.

John Hornby, chief executive of Leeds-based Lettershop Group, said Thatcher brought reality back to business life: "We were able to work together as equal partners with the workforce once the union had been made to realise their responsibilities. It’s all very well being confrontational, but that’s not good business," he said.

"If those sorts of [unionised] conditions existed today, there wouldn’t be a printing industry," Hornby added. "You either loved her or you hated her, but it was what the country needed at the time."

A notable polarisation of print opinions can be found at Bicester print management company Webmart, set up by founder Simon Biltcliffe on the basis of a combination of Marxist and Capitalist principles. Webmart commercial consultant Ian McCord is a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative as well as being a local councillor for the party.

Biltcliffe said: "Thatcher illegally and immorally used the legal system and full power of the state to break working class unions, while leaving all Tory supporting unions alone, such as the Law Society, British Medical Association et al which are unions in all but name.

"She laid waste to Labour supporting areas by clearly targeting traditional industries. Thirty years on many of these communities have still not recovered from the instant decimation of their economic heart. She paved the way for the indebted society that we now live in; the disintegration of social cohesion; the ‘greed is good’ culture that we are now all paying for in the austerity world that we live in; the total lack of focus on a broad-based economy leading to the reduction in manufacturing to what is left now – a morally corrupt finance based sector."

However, McCord countered by saying that Webmart owed its success to Thatcher’s policies.

"While Simon Biltcliffe will never admit to it, Margaret Thatcher made him," McCord stated.

"It was Margaret Thatcher who tamed the unions, notably with Eddy Shah who opened the door and allowed Rupert Murdoch to kick it off its hinges. That had its trickle-down effect that allowed UK print to deliver without the fear of wildcat strikes and other restrictive practices that had dogged the industry for years. Her liberalisation of the labour market has allowed Simon to have flexible labour and employment policies within Webmart.

"The low taxation introduced by Margaret Thatcher and maintained by government ever since created the conditions where the risk takers like Simon Biltcliffe get a reward for those risks. He gets to keep more of the wealth he has created because of Mrs Thatcher," McCord said.

Many of today's newspapers included extra pages and pull-out sections reflecting on Thatcher's life, and a much-anticipated authorised biography by former Telegraph editor Charles Moore is to be published imminently.

[Related: More international news]

This article originally appeared at printweek.com

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