The 1970s
Life Before Thatcher
How We Won: Strikes In The 70s
Date: Saturday 27th November
Venue: Room 5A1 Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, BS1 3QY.
Time: 2:00 - 4:30pm
Price: Donations
Speakers: Dave Douglass, Mike Richardson, Steve Higginson
The dominant idea of strikes in the 1970s is that of the 'winter of discontent' of 1979 in which workers took industrial action in support of pay claims that breached the social contract brokered between union leaders and the Labour Government. However, the highpoint of workers' militancy was in the early years of the decade when rank and file workers led successful strikes across industry. This meeting will examine the strikes of miners, builders and dockers as well as industrial action in Bristol in an attempt to understand how the disputes of the early 70s were won.
NUM member Dave Douglass, author of The Wheel’s Still in Spin, was a pitman for 40 years in the northeast. Mike Richardson (UWE) was a print worker in Bristol in the 1970s.
- Listen to Mike Richardson (14:15 mins, 6.5 MB mp3 file)
- Listen To Dave Douglas (25:28 mins, 11.6 MB mp3 file)
- Listen to the first discussion (17:27 mins, 8 MB mp3 file)
- Listen to Steve Higginson (13:22 mins, 9.18 MB mp3 file)
- Listen to the second discussion (34:19 mins, 15.7 MB mp3 file)
