Description
Book SynopsisWho 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. Striking Women is centred on two industrial disputes, the famous Grunwick strike (1976-78) and the Gate Gourmet dispute that erupted in 2005. Focusing on these two events, the book explores the nature of South Asian women’s contribution to the struggles for workers’ rights in the UK labour market. The authors examine histories of migration and settlement of two different groups of women of South Asian origin, and how this history, their gendered, classed and racialised inclusion in the labour market, the context of industrial relations in the UK in the two periods and the nature of the trade union movement shaped the trajectories and the outcomes of the two disputes. This is the first account based on the voices of the women involved. Drawing on life/work history interviews with thirty-two women who participated in the two disputes, as well as interviews with trade union officials, archival material and employment tribunal proceedings, the authors explore the motivations, experiences and implications of these events for their political and social identities.
Table of Contents1. Striking women from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet 2. Beyond the stereotypes: South Asian women workers 3. Histories of migration and settlement in the UK 4. Everyday accounts of resilience, struggle and resistance in a gendered and racialised labour market 5. `We are the lions, Mr Manager’: The Grunwick dispute 6. `You have to fight for your right … no one gives it to you on a plate’: The Gate Gourmet dispute 7. Minority women and unionisation in a changing economy – where are we now? Bibliography Index
