Continuing our series on places of significance in labour history, Kathy Davies introduces Coney Street in York.

As a resident of York, I frequently walk down Coney Street, one of the city’s oldest and most familiar commercial thoroughfares. Now bustling with ‘brunchers’ heading to The Ivy and tourists searching for Betty’s Tea Room, this street was once the home of the Yorkshire Evening Press and the Yorkshire Herald Printworks. It was outside the newspaper offices at 15 Coney Street that the York branch of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) came out on strike in 1978, during the ‘winter of discontent’.

The picket line was a place for bright ideas. Several initiatives were devised to raise the local profile of the strike and extra money for the strike fund. The YORK STOP PRESS! was a small publication produced by striking journalists that covered a range of local news stories and sold for 5p an issue. Strikers also imagined a flotilla of NUJ boats – a ‘floating picket’ – that would disrupt the commercial barges that delivered newsprint to the river landing behind the press offices. This ‘flotilla’ ended up being a single volunteer rowing out onto the Ouse with an NUJ poster in hand. Nevertheless, a photograph capturing the iconic moment was sold to the Guardian newspaper and the fee donated to the strike hardship fund.

The picture below shows striking journalists on the picket line on Coney Street in 1978. The union branch leader, David Garner, is pictured in a large puffer-coat. In an interview with David on Coney Street in 2022, he explained that ‘they were just honest hardworking people’ who wanted a better deal. The strike resulted in a 15% pay raise for journalists and a settlement of backpay in recognition of historically poor wages.

If you visit York and cross Lendal Bridge from the train station, look across the river to your right and you will still see ‘Yorkshire Herald’ etched in the stonework of the river frontage. If you visit Waterstones or City Screen on Coney Street, the former site of the press offices and printworks, remember the York branch of the NUJ striking for fair pay.

Dr Kathy Davies is Research Fellow in History, Northumbria University. She completed her research on the Yorkshire Evening Press for StreetLife York in 2022. Image provided with permissions by David Garner, former journalist for the Yorkshire Evening Press.

Read more articles in the series ‘A Place in Labour History’.