Conference: Gender, Family, and Deindustrialisation

The final conference programme for Gender, Family, and Deindustrialisation, the annual conference of the Deindustrialisation and the Politics of Our Time (DéPOT) partnership project is now live. See the full programme. Taking place from June 24-26 at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, the event features a number of extramural activities on the opening day, including a walk around Govan to better understand Glasgow’s shipbuilding … Continue reading Conference: Gender, Family, and Deindustrialisation

Book reviews in Labour History Review volume 89 (2024), Issue 1

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2024), 89, (1), 73-93. Read more. Mike Mecham reviews John Cunningham, Francis Devine, and Sonja Tiernan (eds), Labour History in Irish History: Essays Celebrating Fifty Years of the Irish Labour History Society, Dublin: Umiskin Press, 2023, pp. 451, p/b, £25, ISBN 978 18381 11212 Martin Spence reviews Michael Tichelar, Labour in the Suburbs: Political Change in Croydon during the Twentieth … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review volume 89 (2024), Issue 1

In tune: Des Métallos

In the third of our continuing series on labour history in song, Constance Bantman shares Massilia Sound System’s take on deindustrialization and gentrification in Marseille. Des MétallosMassilia Sound System (Massilia Sound System, 1995) Trust the famously political Marseillais reggae band Massilia Sound System to write a song dissecting the deindustrialization and gentrification of France’s second largest city and make a joyful banger out of it. … Continue reading In tune: Des Métallos

Fighting Deindustrialisation: Scottish Women’s Factory Occupations, 1981-1982

The fight led by women workers against factory closures in early 1980s Scotland has been largely ignored in both popular and academic history, argues Andy Clark. His new book aims to bring their story in from the margins and restore the gender balance in accounts of the fight against deindustrialisation. Popular accounts of industrial closure and working-class resistance in the 1980s overwhelmingly focus on the … Continue reading Fighting Deindustrialisation: Scottish Women’s Factory Occupations, 1981-1982

The Edwardes Plan and Your Job: when the 1970s ended and the managerialist 1980s began

By November 1979, the ‘Winter of Discontent’ was long past, Margaret Thatcher was nearing her first Christmas as prime minister, and everything had changed. But if you were looking to identify the exact moment at which the confident trade unionism of the 1970s gave way to the rising managerialism of the 1980s, you could do worse than choose the day that this pamphlet landed on … Continue reading The Edwardes Plan and Your Job: when the 1970s ended and the managerialist 1980s began

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 87 (2022), Issue 1

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2022), 87, (1), 91-108. Find out more. Dave Lyddon reviews Keith Gildart and David Howell (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography, vol. 15, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, pp. xv + 320, h/b, £109.99, ISBN 978 11374 57455, ebook, £87.50, ISBN 978 11374 57462Royden Harrison reviews vol. 1, Bulletin of the SSLH, 1972.Listing of all entries in volumes 1-15. Lewis Darwen … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 87 (2022), Issue 1

Labour History Review Volume 86 (2021), Issue 1

Labour History Review Volume 86 (2021), Issue 1 has now been published. From the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in of 1971, to the Burntisland Fabrications (BiFab) occupation of 2017, there is a long history of workplace occupations. However, despite the prominence and significance of occupation as a tactic, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, current historical examinations have been fragmented. This special issue of Labour History … Continue reading Labour History Review Volume 86 (2021), Issue 1

‘There Is Nothing There for Us and Nothing for the Future’: Deindustrialization and Workplace Occupation, 1981-1982

Author: Andy ClarkThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 37-61. Find out more. This article draws on research into three female-led occupations that occurred across central Scotland in 1981 and 1982. The actions at Lee Jeans, Lovable Bra and Plessey Capacitors were each in response to closure and relocation and, crucially in the context of this time period, … Continue reading ‘There Is Nothing There for Us and Nothing for the Future’: Deindustrialization and Workplace Occupation, 1981-1982

Job Destruction and Closures in Deindustrializing Britain: The Uses and Decline of Workplace Occupations in the 1980s

Author: Stephen MustchinThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 91-116. Find out more. This article considers the uses and decline of workplace occupations in the 1980s. Developing the contribution by Alan Tuckman on the rise of occupations in the 1970s, attention is given to the structural factors that can explain the reasons why workers’ uses of the tactics … Continue reading Job Destruction and Closures in Deindustrializing Britain: The Uses and Decline of Workplace Occupations in the 1980s