Remembering the 1970s: Equal Pay strike in West London

Book Review

From the publishers:
    This is the remarkable story, still relevant today, of four hundred women and their supporters who, in 1976, went on strike for 21 weeks to win equal pay with their male counterparts. It took place at the Brentford plant of Trico-Folberth, an American multinational producer of windscreen wipers. The strike was trail-blazing in many ways, and was essential to making women’s rights a central focus for the labour movement in the UK, a major turning point of the 1970s. Trico: A Victory to Remember is indispensable to understanding that shift. Illustrated with stunning archive photos mostly unseen for over forty years, the book charts the women’s campaign to their final victory, including anecdotes from some of those involved.

**************
Sally Groves and Vernon Merritt, Trico: A Victory to Remember. The 1976 Equal Pay Strike at Trico Folberth, Brentford. Lawrence & Wishart with Unite the Union, 2018. 

This account of the "longest successful strike for equal pay in British Trade Union history" is presented in an attractive and readable form. Sections of reportage and commentary are interspersed with pages of direct quotations, clearly differentiated and attributed, from several of those involved. Many excellent illustrations bring out both the collective experience and the individuality of the women in their struggle. Discreet footnotes (or side-notes) fill out extra bits of background and history.

A Foreword written by the first author in 1977 summarises what these "400 or so very remarkable women" did and why, and what happened as a resut. Strike action was taken in May 1976 when women being paid less than men doing identical work walked out - after "months of frustrating and non-productive negotiations" aimed at persuading a recalcitrant management to fulfil its obligations under the Equal pay Act (which had itself given employers five years to prepare). Three weeks into the action, the strike was made official by the then AUEW; the factory produced items for the motor industry, mostly windscreen wipers and related accessories. A minority of the male workers, about 150, joined the strike, which was to last for 21 weeks, prolonged by "unbelievably incompetent company policy" which caused considerably hardship but at the same time strengthened solidarity and support. Management tactics included hiring transport gangs to smash through picket lines in convoy. Settlement was reached in mid-October, when a mass meeting was told that equal pay had been agreed. The triumphant return to work followed three days later.

First march round Brentford - only women in sight

Second march with the union to the fore.
The strike committee (right-hand page) has 50% women (4:4)

United in victory march, 18th October

Details of incidents, personalities and day-to-day organisation are given in the three parts: "Getting organised", "The battle rages", and "The reckoning", each containing numerous subheadings. Part 1 describes the background of a workforce drawn mostly from nearby council estates, so that, importantly, many of the women were known to each other or related. Labour was segregated by gender, men on the night shift and in "craft" jobs; adjustments led to the few men on the washer assembly line being paid £6.50 per week more than the women. Spontaneous stoppages had occurred in February when shop stewards "restored order". Things were made worse by a "series of phony excuses" including conformity with the (Labout) government's pay policy (wage restraint) and by "hamfisted handling" of grievances, as British managers adopted the methods and "blackmailing tactics" of their American employers.

Part 2 launches into the developing struggle, featuring “Strike breakers incorporated”, “They shall not pass”, and “Battle at the Trico gates” while throughout, the activists' own take on events adds another dimension under a great variety of headings such as Picketing and solidarity, Surveillance, Growth of political awareness, Strike breaking, Sexist attitudes and many more. Despite problems, obstacles and risks it was evidently far from an unremittingly grim experience on  Costa del Trico in that famously hot summer, as many pictures show. Methods included strike bulletins with cartoons (to counter the inevitable press hostility and bias), meetings in nearby Boston Manor Park, with entertainment, and a protest delegation to Brentford police station about police complicity with strike-breakers. They had lots of fine days for it for a time at least. Part 3 continues with “More determined than ever”, “Tribunal trickery” plus the wider picture of outside support being sought and organised and the union involvement, and finally “Victory!”

Acclaim for the settlement, 15-10-1976 (pp.158-9)

This is followed by an analysis-with-hindsight and assessment of contemporary relevance in "Forty years on - what lessons for today?" including a comparison with Grunwick, and an overview of campaigning for equal pay, "Fighting for our rights". Lastly there is an obituary for Eileen Ward, one of the foremost activists. 

The winning formula was, in the authorial view, the “power of direct action backed up by the organised muscle of a strong trade union connection”. Valid perhaps in this sort of context (implementation of reform enacted by legislation), but the point is not lost that it was the women’s own decisiveness and determination that both instigated and sustained the struggle. While it may be difficult in the conditions of 2018 wholly to endorse or revert to the optimism and triumph that are the prevailing mode of the book, it reminds us that such a struggle can be both upbeat along the way and effective in the long run. 

"Local Auhor" - window display, The Pitshanger Bookshop, W5

The Trico factory closed in 1994, with most of the workforce becoming redundant, and different buildings occupying the site, so that in a way these events may appear all to belong in the past. Nevertheless the subject's significance remains as a bit of labour history that should not be forgotten as well as concerning a vital issue still far from resolved. This very worthwhile publication does an excellent job of helping to preserve it in collective memory. 

Project: Recovering the regional radical press in Britain, 1968-1988

A project based in the Regional History Centre at UWE(University of the West of England) Bristol. [From Twitter via email notification]

Background

From the Summer of Love through the Winter of Discontent to the rise of Thatcherism – these were heady days for radical community organisations and the news media that supported and connected them. Small, co-operatively produced local papers played an important role in radical politics in these critical decades, but few are now remembered and their history has been largely overlooked. Our project will rediscover these lost papers and reconnect with the people who produced them.

The best known radical papers were London based and enjoyed a national reach: Titles like International Times, Undercurrents, Peace News and the Leveller acted as a mouthpiece for countercultural opposition groups, broadly leftist in outlook but politically non-aligned. Some of these papers have been digitally archived; the complete run of International Times, for example – 1966-1978 – can be viewed on the International Times archive, and Peace News, which continues today in online form, maintains a digital archive from 2001 to the present.

What remains largely unrecorded is the regional and provincial network of local journalism that flourished in the same period. At its peak, some 79 publications of this kind were being produced, mostly by co-operatives of self-taught volunteers, writing, typing, designing and pasting up by hand and using new offset litho technology for printing.

Most appeared fortnightly, monthly or bi-monthly and were either sold in the street or in radical bookshops and one or two friendly newsagents. Most offered readers a mixture of local news from an independent perspective, campaign information, and an alternative ‘what’s on’ guide – a vital section in each edition since the grassroots press was often much more closely aligned with the local underground music and cultural scene than commercial newspapers and magazines.

Some titles broke stories that mainstream papers wouldn’t touch. Rochdale Alternative Paper, for example, printed allegations of sexual misconduct against city MP Cyril Smith in 1979, none of which would resurface in the commercial press until after Smith’s death in 2010. Brighton Voice campaigned effectively on housing issues and became a mouthpiece for the city’s squatting movement. Swansea’s Alarm, by far the most cheaply and roughly produced of the lot, garnered a reputation for exposing corruption on the city council and ran a slate of candidates for election in 1979. Working on papers like these was formative for some now very prominent writers and campaigners. Lynne Segal helped to found the Islington Gutter Press in the 1970s, for example.

None of these papers exist now and many may have disappeared forever. Some are preserved locally in hard copy. For example, Leeds Other Paper can be read in bound volumes in the city’s local studies library in a run spanning 1974-1994, and Bristol Voice in the central library at Bristol, but few papers like these will be found in the British Library’s newspaper collections. Some, like Brighton Voice, which has an informative Wikipedia page devoted to it, have left tangible traces, but few are so easy to track down now.

Today, as more and more news services switch to online platforms and readers expect content to be delivered for free, the future of newsprint publishing looks increasingly precarious. Whether radical self-help publishing will be forced to fight for attention on the internet or find the resources to reinvigorate the physical newspaper remains to be seen. Crowdfunding is one possibility; indeed it is being actively pursued at the moment here in the South West by a new generation of levellers.

The project

Recovering the Regional Radical Press in Britain, 1968-1988, is a project based in the Regional History Centre at UWE Bristol and is co-ordinated by Phil Chamberlain (Journalism) and Professor Steve Poole (History).

We have four main objectives:

1. To identify and locate full runs of each paper.
2. To identify and make contact with former members of regional radical paper production teams.
3. To enable the production of new oral and archival histories of radical regional publishing in Britain.
4. To make these papers publicly available again (through digitisation).

We are currently (2018-19) working on the first two of these objectives. And we’re going to need plenty of help!

How you can help

Please contact us if:

1. You once worked on a paper like this.
2. You know the whereabouts of any existing copies today.
3. You have memories of buying and reading them.

The project can be contacted at rhc@uwe.ac.uk


-------------------------------------
RaHN blogger adds:-
Just one example of the sort of thing they may be looking for, from Aberdeen Protest blog):

Aberdeen People’s Press (1973 – 1983)

September 7, 2014 by aberdeenprotest

 

The Press, ‘Scotland’s Socialist Community Printers’, was established as a non-profit making company in 1973 and ran until 1983. The Press produced the community newspaper ‘Aberdeen People’s Press’, was a commercial printing service for socialist and community groups and also published relevant works.
The newspaper ran to some 60 issues from 1973 until summer 1976, with a circulation of between 800 and 1700. Although billed as a local newspaper: its viewpoints, news and analysis were radical. There were in depth reports on criticising the effects of the oil & gas industry, military bases in the north-east, abortion providers in the north-east, health and safety in the oil & gas industry and councillor’s business interests etc. After the newspaper finished another similar publication called ‘Big Print’ was issued and it ran to some 21 issuesbetween 1978 and 1980. The Big Print termed itself ‘A local libertarian socialist newspaper’ and was more stridently political than its predecessor.
Although the newspaper was no longer published, the Press started to commission and publish books with more in–depth analysis. These are still excellent publications: ‘Oil Over Troubled Waters: a report and critique of oil developments in north-east Scotland’, ‘Aberdeen in the General Strike’, ‘Fascism in Aberdeen: street politics in the 1930s’ and ‘James Leatham (1865 – 1945)’.
The Press were initially housed at the Aberdeen Arts & Community Workshop, then at a house in Rubislaw Den South. In 1976 though the Press moved into the basement of 163 King Street, and shared the space with the Workers’ Educational Association, and shops on the ground level: a wholefood shop (Ambrosia Wholefoods/Cairnleith Croft) and a bookshop (Boomtown Books).


References: see below. Also, Scottish Community Newspapers (Brian Murphy and Alan Marshall, Aberdeen People’s Press, 1978).
Sources: papers held at University of Aberdeen Library as well as a near complete set of the published newspapers. Also representative works from their own library including hundreds of publications from across the UK and a number from overseas. The publications date from the 1960s through to the 1980s and represent a variety of socialist, anarchist, ecologist, anti-capitalist and feminist groups.


Responses

1. on July 22, 2015 at 2:58 pm | Reply chan

   Aberdeen Arts and Community Workshop was not based in Powis house, but in a ground floor Powis flat given rent free by the council to a small group of activists who had been involved in the Holland Street/Hutchison Street tenants group and rent strike. For three years it ran a summer playscheme for local kids, offered housing advice, and ran an active claimants union all funded by donations from charitable trusts. Six of the latter claimants group were arrested on breach of the peace charges for washing the walls of the DHSS office’s waiting room after a fruitless months’ long campaign to have it cleaned up. The workshop eventually was granted Urban Aid and was handed over to members of the Powis community.
   Aberdeen Solidarity mutated into a left-communist group called Revolutionary Perspectives in the early 70’s, becoming the Communist Workers Organisation in 1975 when it fused with a Liverpool group called Workers Voice.
2. on September 25, 2015 at 8:29 pm | Reply aberdeenprotest

   Great thanks for the extra information.

*************************
UPDATE ON PROJECT, December 2018

Jess, the new research associate on Recovering the Regional Radical Press project at UWE, just started a few weeks ago. She writes:

  

A lot of people made contact so there’s been a lot of forwarding going on! 

Basically what I'm doing at the moment is 'stage 1': compiling databases of newspaper titles, people and any local radical newspapers holdings in personal collections and archives. I'm adding all the info that has been sent, along with that which I'm finding otherwise (trawling archive holdings and old publications etc). 

... As you know we are trying to build a network of ex participants, readers, hoarders, archives and people with related interests.  

We’ve set up a website for sharing finds and updates about how its going, as well as a twitter account, so if you want to follow either of these and share them around, we’d be really happy. 

Our twitter name if you do that kind of thing is @RegionRadPress

The website is https://radpresshistory.wordpress.com and I’ve just written an update post (the link takes you straight to the post). 

If you come across anyone else that wants to get in touch about the project, please feel free to pass on my email address. 

For now, just to say many thanks – and here's to getting some of this rich, messy history and its newspapers together! 

==================

Selection of rich, messy history as illustrated on Aberdeen Protest blog

Looking Back at the Grunwick Strike 1976-1978

(From Mary Quaile Club)
Grunwick Strike screening and speakers
Saturday 3rd December, 1pm to 3pm
Venue: Annexe at the Working Class Movement  Library, 51 Crescent, Salford M5  4WX

Photographs from A Place in History, by Colin Philpott (2012)

Forty years  ago in August 1976 six workers walked out of Grunwick Film Processing Laboratory in Willesden,  thereby igniting an historic two-year dispute.  They were soon joined by most of the workforce.

As the first workers left the factory, one – Jayaben Desai – offered a parting shot to the management: “What you are running here is not a factory, it is a zoo. But in a zoo there are many types of animals. Some are monkeys who dance on your fingertips, others are lions who can bite your head off. We are the lions, Mr Manager.”

Thousands of trade unionists from around the country,  including miners,  came to the  aid of the mostly female  Asian work force, and it became one of the most bitterly fought trade union battles of the 1970s. On the picket lines police assaulted and arrested hundreds of trade unionists. [Pictures here and here]

At this event we will be screening a  60 minute documentary The Great Grunwick Strike, made in 2008  by Chris Thomas for Brent Trades Council. This  tells the story of the strike, and includes interview with the strikers and their supporters.

Our  speakers at this event will be

• Sujata Aurora,  Chair of the Grunwick 40 Steering Group, an alliance of Brent-based trade unionists and community campaigners formed to mark the 40th anniversary of the Grunwick strike. She has been active in anti-racist and solidarity movements for three decades

• Lisa Turnbull  from the Durham Teaching Assistants, a group of mainly women workers  who are facing huge wage cuts imposed by Labour-controlled Durham County Council and have voted overwhelmingly to strike.

This event has been organised in conjunction  with the Manchester and Salford branch of the National Union of Journalists  and Manchester Trades Union Council.

Tea and cakes will be served at the end. Entrance is free with a collection to defray expenses. 

Seating is limited in the Annexe so to be sure of a seat at this event, please book in advance: maryquaileclub@gmail.com
--------------------------------------------------------
Previously on this blog:
Exhibitions - Striking Women: voices of South Asian Women from Grunwick and Gate Gourmet

March On Listings

NEWS FROM NOWHERE CLUB

Patron: Peter Hennessy

Founded in 1996, the club challenges the commercialisation & isolation of modern life.  We meet monthly on Saturday evening.

‘Fellowship is life & the lack of fellowship is death’.  William Morris

** 21^stANNIVERSARY YEAR!**

Saturday 9^th April 2016

ABE GIBSON, POET     Speaker/ performer: Abe Gibson

Formerly Poet in Residence at London Transport Museum,Writer in Residence at Feltham Young Offenders Institute and Ronnie Scott Club performer, Abe has a formidable way with words, accents & mannerisms, and delights audiences with his charming, funny, acutely observed characters. As a caretaker on a Hackney Council estate for 25 years, he’s used this opportunity to closely study people from all walks of life and portrays them at least as well as many professional actors. Abe will explain how and why he writes and performs, and treat us to a rendition of some of his favourite poems. His poetry collection ‘Violently Tender’ will be on sale. There is likely to be some (voluntary) audience participation.

Venue Epicentre, West Street, Leytonstone E11 4LJ 

Times 7.30 pm   Buffet (bring something if you can)  

           8.00 pm   Talk & discussion till 10pm

Travel: Stratford stations & 257 bus  Leytonstone tube (exit left) & 257/W14 bus  Overground: Leytonstone High Rd, turn right and short walk

Access  Disabled access, car park, bikes can be brought in, quiet children welcome. You can phone to confirm the talk will be as shown. Meetings open to all - just turn up.

Enquiries  0208 555 5248   Free entry / voluntary donations welcome / raffle

donations welcome / raffle

:=============================

The Riots in Acton and Southall

Talk in Ealing Central Library, Tuesday 26 April, 6.15 - 7.15 p.m. 

Free admission, advance booking required.

"The rioting in Ealing in 2011 is in recent memory but there {has] been equally violent rioting in the 20th century. Best known are the disturbances in Southall in 1979 and 1981, but there was also anti-German rioting in Acton in 1915. The talk explores the reasons for these outbreaks of violence, their course and consequences.". 

==================================

UPDATE, Anarchist April:

8th Bristol Anarchist Book Fair in Bristol, on April 30th: Building An Anarchist Future - see also separate post, 3-4-16

Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair

https://sheffieldbookfair.org.uk/

Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair 2016. Saturday 23rd April 2016, 

10am-6pm at Showroom Workstation 

15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S1 2BX
"The Sheffield Anarchist Book Fair is a free event organised by local activists and volunteers.

Each year, the book fair brings together radical booksellers, distributors, independent presses, and political groups from around the country, and features books, pamphlets, zines, art, crafts and films. It includes speakers, panels and workshops, and is followed by an evening social. Check our Facebook page for ongoing events leading up to the weekend.

For more information see https://sheffieldbookfair.org.uk/; 

https://www.facebook.com/SheffieldBookfair
Twitter #sheffbookfair
Email: sheffield@bookfair.org.uk

11th Dublin Anarchist Book Fair in Dublin, Ireland on April 15th and 16th

@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@**@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@

Space the Final Frontier:
Public meeting convened by London Anarchist Federation

7 p.m. Thursday March 17th

Public spaces- how they're being taken away from us, how we can get them back

We look at the idea of the Commons, fights around public spaces, walking at night, women and public spaces, psychogeography and new visions of the city...

at the Common House, 5E Pundersons Gardens, London E2
Disabled access. Refreshments, plenty of time for discussion.

==============================================

End the #spycops secrecy – make the Public Inquiry PUBLIC
Neither Confirm Nor Deny = Neither Truth Nor Justice
Release the Names, Open the Files

Solidarity Demo: Tuesday 22 March 9am-10am
Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London WC2 (Holborn or Temple tube)

[see also separate blogpost 21-3-16]

======================================

Socialist History Society Public Meeting

Ada Salter and Ethical Socialism
Speaker: Graham Taylor

7 p.m, 26th April 2016
Venue: Marx Memorial Library, Clerkenwell Green (near Farringdon Underground)

"Ada Salter was a pioneer of an ethical brand of socialism well known nationally and in her local Bermondsey in the early twentieth century. For a long time Salter has been unfairly been neglected. In this talk, which will be based on his new book on Ada Salter, Graham tells the story of this remarkable woman for the first time, documenting her significance for the history of both socialism and feminism. Salter was responsible for most of the ideas behind the Bermondsey Revolution, drawing on her experiences in the women’s movement and as President of the Women’s Labour League. Her ground-breaking ideas on urban development were to spread all over London through her work as an LCC councillor, and all over Britain through her role as Chair of the National Gardens Guild. Salter’s experiences as a ‘Sister of the People’ in the London slums eventually led her to the Independent Labour Party, and to the belief that achieving social justice required a grassroots alliance between the labour and women’s movements. Ada succeeded in winning huge majorities for her ideas."

 ATTENDANCE IS FREE – ALL WELCOME

 http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/

=========================================

Meeting of the Radical History Network of NE London.

WEDNESDAY (9th March)

'A Revolutionary schoolgirl in the 1960s'

Speaker: Di Parkin

9th March 2016

7.30 pm

One day after international women's day, Di Parkin will give a talk that is based on the earlier 'Running Down Whitehall with a Black Flag'.

Using reminiscence and some archives, it gives a snapshot of left action between 1962 - 1965, including Aldermaston Marches, opposition to Franco, protests against the visit of Queen Frederika, and other activism.

Plus discussion

The talk provides an opportunity to share experiences, hear about 

and discuss some of the events and movements that challenged 'the old order'.

• How does this history connect with campaigns today?
• What are the main differences and similarities? What was better; what was worse? 
• Things we can learn from? How much do different generations learn from each other?

Wednesday 9th March 7.30 pm

Wood Green Social Club, 3 Stuart Crescent, London N22 5NJ

(Off the High Rd, near Wood Green tube and buses 329/121/141)

Free to attend, all welcome. 

And pass on to others who may be interested.

====================================

Emergency picket of New Scotland Yard, Weds 9 March, 4-5pm, protesting spy cops' actions, and demanding Met abandon policy of Neither Confirm Nor Deny... as a solidarity action with events elsewhere...

Please pass on if you can't attend.
https://islingtonagainstpolicespies.wordpress.com/

There's a Netpol demo at Home Office from 5pm, protesting the Security & Policing event... 
https://www.facebook.com/events/712863342183693/

====================================

The last [LSHG] socialist history seminar of the Spring term is on 

Monday 7th March, 5.30 p.m., 

Room 304 Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, WC1.

Ben Lewis will speak on a new edition of the writings of the German socialist Clara Zetkin, on the evening before International Women's Day.

http://www.merlinpress.co.uk/acatalog/CLARA-ZETKIN--LETTERS-AND-WRITINGS.html

A reminder also that contributions for the summer issue of the London Socialist Historians newsletter are welcome with a deadline of April 1st: keith1917@btinternet.com

LSHG Summer programme

London Socialist Historians Group Forum
Saturday 30 April - midday - 4 p.m.

One Hundred Years On: The Irish Easter Rising

Institute of Historical Research, Malet St, London, WC1E 7HU - Lower ground floor conference area
Speakers include John Newsinger and James Heartfield

 On 24 April 1916, Easter Monday, a force of some 900 Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army members seized control of the centre of Dublin and proclaimed the Irish Republic. They held out against the British army until the deployment of artillery forced their unconditional surrender on the 29th. By this time 64 rebel fighters had been killed, together with 132 soldiers and police and some 250 civilians, many shot out of hand by the troops. In the context of the horrors of the First World War, this was a minor episode, the death of some 450 people at a time when hundreds of thousands were being slaughtered on the Western Front. Indeed, there were at the time considerably more Irishmen fighting for the British in France than took part in the Rising. Nevertheless, the Rising had an impact out of all proportion to the numbers involved, the damage suffered and the casualties inflicted. It prepared the way for the triumph of Sinn Fein in 1918 and for the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. A hundred years later, the rebels are generally celebrated as heroes but important questions remain. Did the they believe they had a realistic chance of success in the face of apparently overwhelming odds or was their rebellion a self-conscious blood sacrifice intended to keep the spirit of republicanism alive? How much popular support did the Rising have at the time? How significant was their alliance with Imperial Germany? What was the attitude of the British left, both revolutionary and reformist, to the Rising? Did Labour MPs really cheer the news of the execution of the rebel leadership in the Commons? What part did women play in the Rising? And what of James Connolly? Was his participation, indeed his leadership role, in the Rising, the fulfilment of his socialist politics or an abandonment of them? What was the significance of his membership of the Irish Republican Brotherhood? Did Connolly really argue that the British would not use artillery because of the damage it would cause to capitalist property? Did he tell the Citizen Army men and women to hold onto their rifles because they were out for social freedom and not just political freedom or is this just a myth invented years later? What became of Connolly’s socialism after his death? Why was the socialist presence in the War of Independence so easily contained, indeed marginalised? For Sean O’Casey, Connolly had forsaken his socialist commitment in favour of republicanism and the only genuine socialist martyr of Easter Week was Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. What was the impact of Sheehy-Skeffington’s murder at the hands of British troops on opinion in Britain? How important was Catholicism to the rebel fighters? Even Connolly was reconciled with the Church before his execution and privately urged his Protestant wife to convert as a dying wish. And the only Protestant in the rebel leadership, Constance Markiewicz herself subsequently converted. There are a host of questions still to be explored and debated while at the same time honouring the memory of those who died fighting the British Empire.

 Saturday 21 May - midday
 The British General Strike of 1926 - 90 Years On  
London Socialist Historians Group forum
Speakers tba - lower ground floor conference area, 
Institute of Historical Research, Malet St, London, WC1E 7HU

 Plus seminars coming up on Mondays - details tbc
====================================

NEWS FROM NOWHERE CLUB Saturday 12 March 2016

Crisis? What Crisis? Re-Assessing the British ‘Winter of Discontent’ 1978-1979                    Speaker: Professor John Shepherd              

On 22 January 1979, 1.5 million workers were on strike - the highest number since the 1926 General Strike. Iconic media images of the industrial unrest that swept Britain in an arctic winter captured mountains of uncollected rubbish in London’s theatre land, militant shop stewards turning patients away from hospitals & a national strike by road hauliers that threatened to bring the country to a standstill. Even corpses were left unburied. Within weeks the beleaguered James Callaghan Government fell from power by a single vote. In the 1979 general election, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, beginning 18 years of unbroken Conservative rule. John Shepherd examines the causes, course & consequences of a major turning point in modernBritish political history.

Venue

Epicentre, West Street, Leytonstone E11 4LJ 

7.30pm Buffet (bring something if you can)   8.00pm Talk & discussion till 10pm

Travel & Access

Stratford stations & 257 bus  Leytonstone tube (exit left) & 257/W14 bus  Overground: Leytonstone High Rd, turn right, short walk

Disabled access, car park, bikes can be brought in, quiet children welcome. You can phone to confirm the talk will be as shown. Meetings open to all - just turn up. Enquiries 0208 555 5248     
Free entry: voluntary donations welcome

============================

Independent Working Class Education Network

Saturday 19th March 10.00 - 4.30

The Labour Movement: where's it from? where's it going?

Norwich

To book your place, Email: Keith Venables iwceducation@yahoo.co.uk

In association with Labour activists across East Anglia. the

IWCE Network invites you to a Day School for political activists and trade

unionists looking at the historical and contemporary issues facing the

Labour Movement.

We'll look at the role of agricultural workers, Chartism, the

crucial importance of education and our journeys, the Trade Union

Bill, from Blair to Corbyn and more. Lots of discussion.

£10.00 includes lunch. Pay on the day.

Methodist Chapel, Chapelfield, Norwich. The church is off the westbound carriageway of Chapel Field Road, near the junction with St Stephen’s Road.

Take the left turn, Wessex Street, just before the crossing lights.

Postcode: NR2 1SD.

-----------------------

WOMEN MAKING HISTORY: An IWCE Day School

Saturday 2nd April

from 11.00 - 3.00

Working Class Movement Library51 Crescent, Salford, near Manchester,

M5 4WX.

Programme to follow.

To secure a place email: iwceducation@yahoo.co.uk

============================

Wakefield Socialist History Group also have a number of events between now and the end of the year.


Our next event is on SATURDAY 25 JUNE, 1pm at the Red Shed, Vicarage Street, Wakefield WF1 when Shaun Cohen from the Ford Maguire Society will be talking about  THE YORKSHIRE REBELLION OF 1820.  

Admission is free and there is a free light buffet. There is also a bar with excellent real ale.  All welcome.
============================

This fourth event by Applied History Network will be held at MayDay Rooms, London EC4Y 1DH 
on Tuesday 19 April from 6.30 p.m. until 8 p.m. 
The event is free of charge but registration is required. Please sign up on our Eventbrite page.

Libertarian Education: Marginal Experiment or Instrument of Social Change?

A free discussion event
Tuesday 19 April 2016, 6.30pm-8pm

MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1 DH 

:http://maydayrooms.org/rooms/visiting/
This time we will be focusing on 'libertarian education', which is based on principles such as non-hierarchical relationships, mutual-aid and personal responsibility. In the last century, these values inspired the foundation of radical/democratic schools and (anti)universities. They challenged the role of mainstream schools as ‘reproducers of authoritarian social structures’ and universities as ‘selectors of the ruling class’.

 Recently, while the British education system has become increasingly subdued by free-market logic and bureaucratic procedures, parents and students have started expressing a growing interest in libertarian educational experiences. However, these still remain mostly marginal. What are the historical reasons for this? Is libertarian education possible within a neoliberal society after all? Can it help transform the status quo?
To start a debate on these and other questions, we have invited speakers who will provide different perspectives on libertarian education.
============================

WCML Update:- 

Working Class Movement Library

51 The Crescent

Salford, M5 4WX

James Hudson, WW1 conscientious objector, tells his story There are two more public performances at the Library by Joel Parry of No Power on Earth, the monologue by Sue Reddish telling the story of an ordinary Salford school teacher at the start of the First World War who finds himself at odds with the popular mood:

Wednesday 2 March at 1pm
Saturday 5 March at 12.30pm.

The free performances accompany the Library's current exhibition To End All Wars. And good news - the exhibition run has been extended until Thursday 14 April. It's open Wednesdays to Fridays 1-5pm, and the first Saturday in March and in April 10am-4pm.

Come along to the Library a bit earlier on Wednesday 2 March if you can for the launch at 12.15pm of Alison Ronan's book Unpopular resistance: the rebel networks of men and women in opposition to the first world war in Manchester and Salford 1914-1918.  And then stay on to hear our free talk at 2pm about rapper dance! - see below.

And if you're coming on Saturday 5 March bring your butties, because once you've watched the play you can stay on for our International Women's Day talk which is at 2pm that day...  See details below.

Rapper dance - its creation and what it meant to working communities

On Wednesday 2 March at 2pm our free Invisible Histories talks series starts up again with a talk by Tom Besford.

Rapper sword dancing is a form of traditional dancing from the North East of England. The dance was most often performed around the pubs and bars of mining towns and at competitions in the towns and cities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.  This talk will be given in the context of the Dancing England Rapper Tournament (DERT) which is coming to Manchester on Saturday 12 March.

Next up in the Invisible Histories series is:

16 March 2pm Chloe Mason Justice for Alice Wheeldon!

In 1917 socialist, feminist and anti-war activist, Alice Wheeldon, her daughter and husband were given long prison sentences, on flimsy evidence, for supposedly plotting to kill Prime Minister Lloyd George and Arthur Henderson, leader of the Labour Party. Chloe Mason, Alice’s great-granddaughter, will speak about the campaign to have the case recognised as a miscarriage of justice.

For the full listing of talks click here.

UPDATE: On Friday 8 April at 1.30pm the launch of a new book about activist Benny Rothman will take place at the Working Class Movement Library.  Unite the union's biography Benny Rothman: a fighter for the right to roam, workers' rights and socialism, written by Mark Metcalf, covers not only the part played by Benny in the Kinder Scout mass trespass,  but also his battles against Mosley's fascist Blackshirts and his wide-ranging campaigns as a trade unionist and environmentalist.

Benny's son Harry will be in attendance at the event, and everyone who comes along will get a free copy of the 64-page book.  Further details from Mark Metcalf at 07952 801783, mcmetcalf@icloud.com

  The librray is located at 51 The Crescent Salford

Remembering Mary Barbour - International Women's Day event On Saturday 5 March at 2pm the Library's IWD event welcomes historian Catriona Burness who will give a talk, 'Remembering Mary Barbour - social reformer, rent strike leader, women's peace crusader and pioneering woman councillor'.

Mary Barbour worked tirelessly to change laws to help families in poverty.  Her capacity to mobilise working class families, especially women, to challenge the power of landlords and the state during the 1915 Govan rent strike led to the passing of one of Europe’s first rent restriction acts.  She also fought for free school milk, children’s playgrounds, municipal wash-houses, and an end to slum housing.

We will also hear from Karen Bosson, North West Regional Women’s Secretary of the Communication Workers' Union and member of the TUC NW Women's Committee, on current women trade unionists' campaigns in our region.

Admission free; light refreshments afterwards.

This event is part of Wonder Women, Manchester’s annual feminist festival.

Co-operative Education Conference 2016

The Co-operative College is holding a two-day Co-operative Education Conference in Manchester on 21-22 April. This aims to give co-operators, practitioners and researchers from the UK and internationally an opportunity to engage in debates across the themes of:

– Shaping Co-operative Education Systems
– Character, Learning and Co-operation
– Learning for Global Co-operative Livelihoods.

More details here.

An exhibition marking the centenary of the introduction of conscription in early 1916.

The north-west had a vigorous anti-war movement from 1914 onwards. This exhibition looks at some of those involved, both men and women, who fought for peace. Bill Chadwick from Westhoughton and Hugh Hutchinson from Bolton, whose stories were previously known only to their families, can now take their place amongst more famous names. Documents from the Hyde branch of the No-Conscription Fellowship, a unique collection held by the Library, are also on display. This is an alternative narrative of the war that deserves to be remembered as much as we commemorate those who fought and died.

Exhibition opening times: Wednesdays to Fridays 1-5pm and the first Saturday of the month 10am-4pm.  Runs until 1 April. Admission free.

The Library is extremely grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the funding for this project, awarded through HLF’s First World War: then and now programme. 

A specially-written 'Living History' performance, No Power on Earth, will accompany the exhibition thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund. This tells the story of James Hindle Hudson, a Salford conscientious objector.  The 30-minute free performance can be seen at the Library on Wednesday 2 March at 1pm and Saturday 5 March at 2pm, and at Salford Museum and Art Gallery on Sunday 21 February at 2pm.  It will also be put on in Salford schools during February.

Invisible Histories talks

A new series of free Wednesday afternoon talks will begin in March.  Full details at www.wcml.org.uk/events.

2 March 2pm Tom Besford  Rapper dance - its creation and what it meant to working communities

16 March 2pm Chloe Mason Justice for Alice Wheeldon!

30 March 2pm Cyril Pearce Communities of resistance: patterns of dissent in Britain during the First World War

13 April 2pm Robin Stocks Manchester volunteers in the Easter Rising

27 April 2pm Richard Milward – Luddites’ Nightmares

Jim Allen retrospective

A Jim Allen retrospective season takes place at Manchester's Home from 9 to 31 January.  It includes screenings of The Spongers (with accompanying Q&A with producer Tony Garnett), The Lump, The Big Flame, Raining Stones and Days of Hope.  Full details here. 

Jim Allen (1926-1999) was a socialist writer of international significance, who made a major contribution to British TV drama in the 1960s and 1970s and to British film in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Library is very pleased to house the Jim Allen archive, which his family have kindly entrusted to us. The archive includes books, videos, scripts (produced and non-produced) and other material. The Library welcomes deposits of new material from anybody who knew or worked with Jim. More information at www.wcml.org.uk/jim-allen.

================================

From London region CND:

June is to be a “month of direct action” against Trident at Burghfield near Reading, where Trident nuclear warheads are assembled.  This month of action is being organised by the Trident Ploughshares campaign.

A London group to take part is being organised to take part in this month of action.

 We have one initial meeting and have formed a small group to take part. 

 Now we want to invite other people in London to join our group.  If you’d like to, please come to our second meeting on Monday the 14^th March from 6.30pm at the CND office at 162, Holloway Road N7 8DQ; nearest tube Caledonian Road on the Piccadilly Line.  (Turn right out of the station and the front door of the office is about 150 yards down the Holloway Road, on the opposite side of the road, past the London Metropolitan University buildings.  There is a large nuclear disarmament symbol on the door, which is a bit obscured behind a bus stop shelter.)  

UPDATE: leaflet about women’s action on Trident on June 20th at Burghfield now available.

================================

The next event for the Public History Discussion Group, ‘Walk – bombs in Bloomsbury,’ with Dr Gabriel Moshenska will be held on Saturday 19th March at UCL's Institute of Archaeology.

This c. 90 minute walking tour examines the history of explosions in Bloomsbury from the late nineteenth through to the early twenty-first century. It focuses on the traces left behind by bombs: scars on buildings; memorials; memories; and absences. The tour can easily be made fully wheelchair friendly if required.

Please assemble on the steps outside the Institute of Archaeology at 11:00 am.
In the event of bad weather there will be a powerpoint-assisted lecture instead on the same topic, held in room 6.12. 

For more information please see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/calendar/articles/2015-16-events/20160319 .

Future Date for your Diary

Saturday 7^th May: 

Rethinking Urban Histories through Anti-Gentrification Struggles, Dr. Sue Pell.

================================