Ford of Britain can produce 3,100 cars a day. Made in Dagenham 2010 starring Bob Hoskins & Miranda Richardson & Sally Hawkins & Geraldine James & Rosamund Pike & Andrea Riseborough & Jaime Winstone & Daniel Mays & Richard Schiff & Phil Cornwell et al, director Nigel Cole, Ford advert
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
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
Organise the unorganised. With organisation you have the aid of your fellow men; without organisation you are a lone individual, without influence and without recognition of any kind. And exploitation of you and your family when it pleases some industrialist to make money out of your misery. ibid. John L Lewis, president UMW, televised address
They used to abuse us actually ... If you stuck together in solidarity you can defeat them. Besides that, I learned that the politicians worked with the coal companies. I found out that the union officials were working with the coal companies. I also found out that the Catholic hierarchy was working with the officials. ibid. old miner
The government is acting as their muscle man. ibid.
We have to fight for our rights. ibid. miner’s wife at meeting
We didn’t give them any resistance whatever. We just lay down in the road. ibid.
It’s a feudal system. ibid. Houston Elmore, UMW organiser
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on? ibid. folk song
Consolidated Coal’s Mannington Mine in Farmington W. Va. was inspected by the Federal Bureau of Mines sixteen times in 1968. Extensions were granted to the company sixteen times. On November 20th 1968 the mine exploded. Four men survived, 78 men were trapped in the mine. ibid. caption
It’s not true that the inhalation and retention of coal dust in the lungs necessarily results in any impairment of the pulmonary function. ibid. Attorney, Bitumous Coal Operators Association, televised address
If a company kills a man, the company gets let off. ibid. miner
Three months after the contract was signed at Brookside, the national coal contract expired. For the first time in UMW history the rank and file has the right to ratify the contract. ibid. caption
July – August 1975: 100,000 strike to protest company abuse of grievance procedures. ibid.
Unions are the way the average guy gets even with evil corporateers. The unions are godsends. The unions have a special status, because they represent the rising up of the average man against the evil corporateers and profiteers. Rush Limbaugh
The only thing workers have to bargain with is their skill or their labour. Denied the right to withhold it as a last resort, they become powerless. The strike is therefore not a breakdown of collective bargaining – it is the indispensable cornerstone of that process. Paul Clark, 1989
If you object to unfair treatment, you’re an ingrate. If you seek equity and fair consideration, you’re uppity. If you demand union security, you’re un-American. If you rebel against repressive management tactics, they will lynch and scalp you. But if you are passive and patient, they will take advantage of both. William Clay senior, congressman to AFL-CIO Federation of Government Employees, 1975
Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday. Rebecca Gordon
Really what we would like to see is to take these unions out at the knees so they don't have the resources to fight these battles. Scott Hagerstrom, February 2011 Michigan executive director Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity before Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's supposed fiscal crisis
Remember that you are fighting more than your own fight. You are fighting for the entire working class and you must stand together. William Dudley Big Bill Haywood, to striking mill workers Lawrence, Massachusetts 1912
We have come too far – struggled too long – sacrificed too much and have too much left to do to allow that which we have achieved for the good of all to be swept away without a fight. And we have not forgotten how to fight. Lane Kirkland
Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that ... They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard thirty fucking years ago. They don’t want that. Do you know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your social security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And do you know something – they’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later ’cause they own this fucking place. It’s a big club. And you ain’t in it! You and I are not in the big club! By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe ... what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people ... continue – and these are people of modest means – who continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you. At all. At all. At all. George Carlin, Who Really Controls America
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
The more the division of labour and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. Karl Marx, ‘Wage, Labour and Capital’
The IWW is Coming! Join The One Big Union. Reds 1981 starring Warren Beatty & Diane Keaton & Jack Nicholson & Gene Hackman & Edward Herrmann & Jerzy Kosinski & Paul Sorvino & Maureen Stapleton & Nicolas Coster & William Daniels & E Emmet Walsh & Ian Wolfe & Bessie Love et al, director Warren Beatty, poster