"The year 1984 has a hallowed place in the history of British industrial action as the year that launched the miners’ strike – but there is another strike, in its own way just as dramatic, that has been largely forgotten. On the 16th of April of that year, 155 nursery workers employed by London’s Islington Council began an indefinite strike. What was at issue was chronic understaffing, which led to an unsafe ratio of children to staff. The striking workers consisted almost entirely of young women, many of them in their very first jobs. They remained on strike for fifteen weeks until ultimately Islington Council bowed to their key demands."
The latest issue of the History Workshop podcast covers these events and includes conversation with participants. There is also a wider discussion about childcare struggles.
There is a related project happening on this topic called Childcare Voices. I was delighted to hear on the podcast that this had been partly inspired by the notes of a previous RaHN meeting on "Activism and the under fives" back in 2014.