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In light of recent events ... I think this was the last major strike threatened under BR, besides the signallers' strike in 1994 on the eve of privatisation. Parker was right, in retrospect: the late seventies-early eighties wasn't a particularly happy time for the railway, with the lowest passenger mileage since the Beeching days, and after this came the Serpell report and the withering-away of parcels and post traffic.
Not saying then and now is equivalent, of course, more like a mirror image: contrast a popular Conservative government still riding a post-Falklands high, facing down a union demanding they keep working practices dating back to the days of steam, versus the current bunch of incompetent bastards with absolutely nothing in the tank.
