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Striking Women: Struggles & Strategies of South Asian Women Workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet
Who were the women who fought back at Grunwick and Gate Gourmet? Striking Women gives a voice to the women involved as they discuss their lives, their work and their trade unions. This work focuses on South Asian women’s contributions to the struggle for workers’ rights in the UK. It is a fascinating insight into two key industrial disputes using interviews with women who participated in the disputes and rarely-seen archival material.
- GenresFeminism
226 pages, Paperback
Published March 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 4, 2022
In 1976 mainly South Asian women at Grunwick film processing plant walked out over issues around disrespectful management practices and labour intensification. Some 30 years later, mainly South Asian women workers at Gate Gourmet food catering service at Heathrow walked off the job after persistent labour intensification, downward pressure on pay and conditions, bullying and harrassment - the walk-out was triggered after the workers came back from a break to find agency workers had replaced them on their work lines. Both disputes ultimately ended in defeat, none of the main demands of the Grunwick strike was met and in the case of Gate Gourmet over 800 workers were dismissed with only a minority managing to be reinstated through Employment Tribunals.
Writers and researchers, Sundari Anitha and Ruth Pearson, examine what happened in these disputes, the background economic, trade union and immigration policy contexts, as well as the womens backgrounds in the lead up to them. Finally, they examine the legacy of the strike. In particular, they offer a more nuanced view of the Grunwick dispute which contrasts starkly with the mainstream trade union official view of the Grunwick strike. In contrast, to previous accounts and write ups of the disputes, Anitha and Pearson´s account is unique for interviewing so many actors within both disputes and examining how the womens overall lives and histories intersected with these disputes.
In the case of the Grunwick dispute, mainly South Asian women were employed in the film processing section of the plant. The owner of the plant, George Ward, was very ideologically committed to their being no union presence at the plant. Moreover, he intensified the work at the plant, and oversaw management practices that amounted to harrassment and outright racism. In August 1976 a group of workers walked off the job having joined the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computing Staff (APEX) union. Later on, the dispute became about a demand for union recognition and collective bargaining. It took some time for the strike to be taken up by the mainstream trade union movement. However, it subsequently did. At its peak there were mass pickets of tens of thousands of strikers, students, trade unionists, anti-racist activists and feminists. For a time, the United Postal Workers took solidarity action by refusing to handle any mail to and from the plant. However, APEX, UPW and the TUC came under more and more pressure to abandon action around the strike and tone down the dispute. In the end, strike pay was refused to workers, the TUC stopped any official support for the dispute, in response 4 of the strikers staged a hunger strike outside the TUC headquarters. For this they were thrown out of the TUC and APEX.
There were a couple of occasions where if the mass picketing and solidarity action had continued or even escalated the dispute could have won. Nevertheless, the strike ended with none of the demands being met and the main strikers being forced out of the job.
The Gate Gourmet dispute in many ways was a bigger sell-out by their union. While, I won´t recount the sequence of events, in summary the workers their were essentially set up by management and by their union. Agency workers had been trained in secret to carry out the work of the workers there. In documents and memos leaked later, it was revealed the strategy of the company was to create a situation where workers would walk off the job "illegally", that the union would cooperate with this and the workers would subsequently be dismissed and replaced. The shop steward of the workers union, TGWU, was told that when the workers walked off the job that he should tell them to not return to work until the threat of dismissal was removed - this was encouraged by National Secretary of TGWU, Brendan Gold. It was ultimately this advice which led to the workers not returning to work and then being dismissed. The TGWU General Secretary, Tony Woodley, offered no further support and blamed the outcome of the walk-out on the workers, "If they were provoked enough into stopping work there, then there is nothing we can do." BA baggage handlers and other workers took solidarity action in support of the workers at Gate Gourment. Their action grounded BA flights for 48 hours. Nevertheless, their actions were ruled illegal. Again the TGWU leadership completely distanced itself from the solidarity action of those workers. Tony Woodley described those who took solidarity action as husbands, sons, neighbours and friends of the Gate Gourmet workers". Factually it is incorrect to say that the workers who took the solidarity action were all husbands, sons, neighbours and friends. Tony Woodley, employed racist stereotypes that people of South Asian origin received help out of familial and community connections. Rather than recognising that the secondary action was what it was solidarity and political action.
Overall Striking Women offers a very different perspective on the legacy of the Grunwick dispute in the following ways:
- How the Grunwick dispute ended and the extent to which the official trade union movement sold out and isolated the women is often left out and glossed over
- Grunwick is often marked as a "turning point" for the trade union movement that it finally started to take up minority women workers and put them at the forefront. However, subsequent disputes have not had the same level trade union support and celebration.
- The Gate Gourmet dispute highlights how disingenuous the idea of Grunwick being a turning point.
- Finally, the book also highlights the extent to which South Asian women have been active agents in trade union disputes and dispels many myths that these workers are hard to recruit or adverse to unionisation.
The book highlights correctly the issues of how union decline, work intensification, deregulation of work, anti-union legislation, racist culture and hostile immigration policies has resulted in worsening conditions for workers and BME women workers in particular, as well as how these things played into the two disputes at Grunwick and Gate Gourmet. However, it understates the issue of trade union timidity and bureaucratisation in the outcomes and background of both disputes. While Anitha and Pearson do account for them in their retelling of the disputes, their conclusions only fleetingly mention these issues. While anti-union legislation, deregulation of work and work intensification are of course important factors, the lack of any serious response from the trade union movement in response is important to note and to account for any conclusion.
Likewise, the lack of any serious response from the left and trade unions to hostile immigration controls is as important to tackle as the hostile environment itself.
Writers and researchers, Sundari Anitha and Ruth Pearson, examine what happened in these disputes, the background economic, trade union and immigration policy contexts, as well as the womens backgrounds in the lead up to them. Finally, they examine the legacy of the strike. In particular, they offer a more nuanced view of the Grunwick dispute which contrasts starkly with the mainstream trade union official view of the Grunwick strike. In contrast, to previous accounts and write ups of the disputes, Anitha and Pearson´s account is unique for interviewing so many actors within both disputes and examining how the womens overall lives and histories intersected with these disputes.
In the case of the Grunwick dispute, mainly South Asian women were employed in the film processing section of the plant. The owner of the plant, George Ward, was very ideologically committed to their being no union presence at the plant. Moreover, he intensified the work at the plant, and oversaw management practices that amounted to harrassment and outright racism. In August 1976 a group of workers walked off the job having joined the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computing Staff (APEX) union. Later on, the dispute became about a demand for union recognition and collective bargaining. It took some time for the strike to be taken up by the mainstream trade union movement. However, it subsequently did. At its peak there were mass pickets of tens of thousands of strikers, students, trade unionists, anti-racist activists and feminists. For a time, the United Postal Workers took solidarity action by refusing to handle any mail to and from the plant. However, APEX, UPW and the TUC came under more and more pressure to abandon action around the strike and tone down the dispute. In the end, strike pay was refused to workers, the TUC stopped any official support for the dispute, in response 4 of the strikers staged a hunger strike outside the TUC headquarters. For this they were thrown out of the TUC and APEX.
There were a couple of occasions where if the mass picketing and solidarity action had continued or even escalated the dispute could have won. Nevertheless, the strike ended with none of the demands being met and the main strikers being forced out of the job.
The Gate Gourmet dispute in many ways was a bigger sell-out by their union. While, I won´t recount the sequence of events, in summary the workers their were essentially set up by management and by their union. Agency workers had been trained in secret to carry out the work of the workers there. In documents and memos leaked later, it was revealed the strategy of the company was to create a situation where workers would walk off the job "illegally", that the union would cooperate with this and the workers would subsequently be dismissed and replaced. The shop steward of the workers union, TGWU, was told that when the workers walked off the job that he should tell them to not return to work until the threat of dismissal was removed - this was encouraged by National Secretary of TGWU, Brendan Gold. It was ultimately this advice which led to the workers not returning to work and then being dismissed. The TGWU General Secretary, Tony Woodley, offered no further support and blamed the outcome of the walk-out on the workers, "If they were provoked enough into stopping work there, then there is nothing we can do." BA baggage handlers and other workers took solidarity action in support of the workers at Gate Gourment. Their action grounded BA flights for 48 hours. Nevertheless, their actions were ruled illegal. Again the TGWU leadership completely distanced itself from the solidarity action of those workers. Tony Woodley described those who took solidarity action as husbands, sons, neighbours and friends of the Gate Gourmet workers". Factually it is incorrect to say that the workers who took the solidarity action were all husbands, sons, neighbours and friends. Tony Woodley, employed racist stereotypes that people of South Asian origin received help out of familial and community connections. Rather than recognising that the secondary action was what it was solidarity and political action.
Overall Striking Women offers a very different perspective on the legacy of the Grunwick dispute in the following ways:
- How the Grunwick dispute ended and the extent to which the official trade union movement sold out and isolated the women is often left out and glossed over
- Grunwick is often marked as a "turning point" for the trade union movement that it finally started to take up minority women workers and put them at the forefront. However, subsequent disputes have not had the same level trade union support and celebration.
- The Gate Gourmet dispute highlights how disingenuous the idea of Grunwick being a turning point.
- Finally, the book also highlights the extent to which South Asian women have been active agents in trade union disputes and dispels many myths that these workers are hard to recruit or adverse to unionisation.
The book highlights correctly the issues of how union decline, work intensification, deregulation of work, anti-union legislation, racist culture and hostile immigration policies has resulted in worsening conditions for workers and BME women workers in particular, as well as how these things played into the two disputes at Grunwick and Gate Gourmet. However, it understates the issue of trade union timidity and bureaucratisation in the outcomes and background of both disputes. While Anitha and Pearson do account for them in their retelling of the disputes, their conclusions only fleetingly mention these issues. While anti-union legislation, deregulation of work and work intensification are of course important factors, the lack of any serious response from the trade union movement in response is important to note and to account for any conclusion.
Likewise, the lack of any serious response from the left and trade unions to hostile immigration controls is as important to tackle as the hostile environment itself.
January 27, 2022
Really, really good, I’ll be recommending it to as many people as possible. Crystal clear dissection of two strikes organised by South Asian women workers in the UK — the Grunwick strike in 1976 and the Gate Gourmet dispute in 2005, based on interviews with workers involved in both cases. Great analysis of the history of South Asian migration to the UK, the specific experiences of migrant women entering the UK workforce over the course of the last 60 years, and the struggle for these workers to gain recognition and solidarity from the wider trade union movement. If you get the chance, read this book.
March 24, 2020
Academic so maybe not the best read if you aren't comfortable with that style. The two chapters specifically on the disputes were good though. Important to recognise that the labour movement let these women down, and must do better
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews