December 1981 - December 8, 1981 (Tuesday)

December 8, 1981 (Tuesday)

• General Electric CEO Jack Welch delivered an address to Wall Street analysts at The Pierre hotel in New York, which has been described as a speech "that was to have enormous consequences for U.S. business and the U.S economy over the next three decades." The vision, outlined in "Growing Fast in a Slow-Growth Economy", was to get rid of any subsidiary in which GE wasn't number one, or at least second. Within four years, GE fired 112,000 of more than 411,000 employees, and annually terminated 10% of its executives who had the worst records, while steadily increasing revenues, and other corporations followed the strategy.
• One day after the mining disaster in Kentucky, thirteen coal miners were killed in an explosion at Tennessee Conolidation Coal Company Mine No. 21 in Whitwell, Tennessee.
• Arthur Scargill was elected President of Britain's National Union of Mineworkers, receiving 70% of the votes cast in the race to succeed outgoing NUM President Joe Gormley.
• As labor unrest continued in Poland, 100,000 Soviet troops massed along the nations' common border, apparently poised for an invasion if the crisis continued.