Tag: Workplace Occupations

Documents & objects

‘There will be no bevvying’: the 1971 UCS work-in

Introducing a pamphlet published by the Communist Party of Great Britain during the 1971 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in. The pamphlet can be downloaded from this page. ‘We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in, and nothing will go out, without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, … Continue reading ‘There will be no bevvying’: the 1971 UCS work-in

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Books etc

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

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Labour History Review

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

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Labour History Review

After UCS: Workplace Occupation in Britain in the 1970s

Author: Alan TuckmanThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 7-35. Find out more. This paper traces the development of this form of industrial action through the 1970s, the emergence of an alternative economic voice, ultimately almost silenced in the 1980s with the dominance of new-liberalism, leaving a sedimentary alternative which periodically reappears. We first need to consider the … Continue reading After UCS: Workplace Occupation in Britain in the 1970s

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Labour History Review

‘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

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Labour History Review

Defending the Right to Work: The 1983 Timex Workers’ Occupation in Dundee

Author: Valerie Wright, Jim Philips, Jim TomlinsonThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 63-90. Find out more. In January 1983 the US-owned multinational Timex, a prominent employer in Dundee since 1946, announced it would cease production of mechanical wristwatches in the city. Substantial redundancies would accompany closure of the Milton of Craigie production unit where 2,000 mainly male … Continue reading Defending the Right to Work: The 1983 Timex Workers’ Occupation in Dundee

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Labour History Review

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

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Labour History Review

‘It’s Not a Lot of Boring Old Gits Sitting About Remembering the Good Old Days’: The Heritage and Legacy of the 1987 Caterpillar Factory Occupation in Uddingston, Scotland

Author: Ewan GibbsThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 117-143. Find out more. This paper examines the construction of a factory occupation’s “usable past”. It analyses how the political culture of the multinational “branch plant” has combined with the optics of class and nation that predominate in accounts of Scottish deindustrialization. During 2017, the Caterpillar Workers Legacy Group commemorated the … Continue reading ‘It’s Not a Lot of Boring Old Gits Sitting About Remembering the Good Old Days’: The Heritage and Legacy of the 1987 Caterpillar Factory Occupation in Uddingston, Scotland

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