Now occupy more than seven square miles. ibid.
‘Those for industrial action hands up.’ ibid. Albert
‘Machinists threatening strike action – they couldn’t believe it.’ ibid.
‘That is not unskilled work.’ ibid. Rita convenor
‘Everybody out.’ ibid.
‘26,000 strikes in the United Kingdom.’ ibid. Barbara Castle
‘Because they can. They’re allowed to pay women a lower wage than men. All over the country women are getting less because they’re women.’ ibid. Albert
‘It’s a glimpse innit of what it could be.’ ibid. woman
This strike is about one thing and one thing only – fairness.’ ibid.
‘In six months’ time your union won’t exist. Industry cannot afford to pay women the same rates as men ... It will collapse under the weight of the extra wages.’ ibid. Ford boss
Ford Women Fight On ... Tide Turns Against Dagenham Women. ibid. newspaper headline
‘Rights is not privileges.’ ibid. Rita
‘It was a matter of principle. You had to stand up and do what was right otherwise you wouldn’t be able to look yourself in the mirror ... When did we in this country decide to stop fighting? ... We are the working classes, the men and the women ... Equal pay for women is right.’ ibid. Rita at conference
‘What’s worth fighting for?’ ibid. Rita to Barbara Castle
‘The government is in full support of the creation of an Equal Pay Act.’ ibid. Barbara Castle
‘Nobody expected us to come out on strike.’ ibid. striker
It’s a fight we knew all too well in Flint, Michigan. For it was here that my uncle and his fellow workers first brought down the mighty corporate interest that dominated their lives. It was the day before New Year’s Eve 1936 and hundreds of men and women took over the GM factories in Flint and occupied them for forty-four days. They were the first union that beat an industrial corporation, and their actions eventually resulted in the creation of a middle class. Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story
My uncle Vern was in something called the Great Flint sit-down strike. Just hours before the year’s end in 1936 he and thousands of other GM workers took over the Flint factories and barricaded themselves inside refusing to budge for forty-four days. The National Guard was called in. Michael Moore, Roger & Me 1989
The miners are not broken – they continue to fight; their destiny is in your hands. An embargo on blackleg coal and a levy on all workers must be adopted to save the miners from defeat.
And to the miners who are fighting I say: Every honest worker in the world admires your courage and loyalty in the fight which was forced upon you by the rapacious mine-owners, who have at their service the banks, the press and the resources of the press. A J Cook, foreword to The Miners Struggle and the Big Five Banks
You know as well as I do the terrible conditions in the coalfields, and the suffering of the women and children. I have been compelled to do the most unpleasant tasks of begging for food, money, boots, and cast-off clothing. Practically every day young men, stranded, call for food, clothing and shelter at my office. I have done my best for them. Every day the post brings letters to me and Mrs Cook begging for help, especially from expectant mothers, terrible epistles of agony and despair.
I have heard their cry for help, and have done all I can to give assistance. I have helped all I can, begged all I can, till I have been almost demented and in despair, because I hate charity and reliefs which make us all beggars ...
I now want remedies instead of relief. The more poverty increases, the more our people sink into despair and become the hopeless prey of all the most reactionary influences and movements. A J Cook, open letter to Arthur Horner
I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant, seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me. Noam Chomsky
If workers are more insecure, that’s very healthy for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won’t ask for wages, they won’t go on strike, they won’t call for benefits; they’ll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that’s optimal for corporations’ economic health. Noam Chomsky
Decatur, Illinois, that’s an old working-class town in Illinois where the most important labor actions of certainly the last 50 or 60 years have been going on for several years … A final effort by major transnational corporate power to destroy the last remnants of American industrial unionism – they took on the big unions, the UAW … Noam Chomsky, 14 Principles on Which the US was Founded, Youtube 51.42
Miner’s Strike is undoubtedly the sort of film we should be doing this year. The Comic Strip Presents ... Strike! David Putnam-type at table, Channel 4 1988
We’ll have to make one or two tiny changes to the script. Well every five pages or so there should be an event. ibid. Robbie Coltrane
Arthur Scargill is in fact a mumbling ball of sexual tension from Brooklyn. ibid. Alexei Sayle/Paul
What kind of film did you have in mind? Here’s your new ending, Mr Pacino. ibid.
I really don’t think this picture should be a musical. ibid. Al Pacino
I know what you’re thinking. I’ve gone too far this time. ibid. Al Pacino to Meryl Streep
I was born in a poor mining town in the foothills of Wales. My name is Arthur Scargill. And this is my story. ibid. Al Pacino’s introduction
Daddy, what’s job security? ibid. Tammy to Arthur
There goes the fastest trade union leader you will ever see, Slim. ibid. miner
Now you’ll excuse us, we have a country to run. ibid. Speaker to Scargill
Tammy! ibid. Scargill [Tammy enters House of Commons]
Write a screenplay about the GLC. ibid. Robbie Coltrane to Paul
But Churchill was not a splendid Chancellor. He had one great decision in front of him and he got it wrong. In March 1925 he summoned four economists to dine at the Treasury to thrash out the burning economic issue of the day – the Gold Standard ... Globalisation with Britain at the centre ... The radical young economist John Maynard Keynes thought that going back to gold would devastate Britain’s already weakened industry. By instinct Churchill was also against ... And hell it was. The return to the Gold Standard made British exports more expensive, including coal ... An industrial dispute was coming to the boil. The mine owners stood firm. Then at one minute to midnight on the third of May 1926 the TUC called a general strike. Andrew Marr’s The Making of Modern Britain, BBC 2009
On the 17th of January 1969 Barbara Castle published her vision for industrial harmony in Britain In Place of Strife. It promised pre-strike ballots and a cooling off period before strikes could start, and that settlement would be imposed on wild-cat strikes. Moderate by today’s standards, most of Wilson’s cabinet saw all of this as extreme and divisive. And the union leaders regarded In Place of Strife as an outright assault. ibid.
But for Heath there was no escape. On the 9th January 1972 the National Union of Mineworkers demanded a pay increase of 45%. When this was rejected they began their first national strike since 1926. The miners began a mass picket of the largest coke distribution depot in the country at Saltley in Birmingham. ibid.
This battle she [Thatcher] was determined to win. The confrontation when it came was ugly and very violent. Ancient, county and regional rivalries resurfaced. Yorkshire men against Lancashire men. South Wales against Nottinghamshire. Southern police against northern strikers. And it was also medieval ... The worst pitched battle was took place here Orgrave where seven thousand well prepared police took on five thousands strikers. ibid.
Jayaben Desia: One of the most notorious industrial disputes had begun: Grunwick … She hadn’t planned to start the strike but she was a natural …
Reporter: Why are you on strike?
Desai: We have to ask permission to go to the toilet. New Elizabethans with Andrew Marr II: A Brave New World, BBC 2020
A general strike must become a physical force, revolutionary struggle aimed at the forcible overthrow of the constitutional government and the seizing of power by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress ... nobody with half a brain believes that in Britain such a policy could be successful. Herbert Morrison
Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America. John L Lewis
In the summer of 1973 the men at the Brookside Mine in Harlan, Kentucky, voted to join the United Mine Workers of America. Duke Power Company and its subsidiary Eastover Mining Company refused to sign the contract. The miners came out on strike. Barbara Kopple, Harlan Country USA ***** 1976
He died of black lung ... I was beginning to hate the company. ibid. Lois Scott