WOMEN POLICE PICKET LINE DUTY GRUNWICK STRIKE LONDON 1977002.jpg |
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Grunwick Strike Industrial Dispute London 1970s
Grunwick strike and industrial dispute. Willesden, London, England circa 1977. Police hold back pickets behind the police lines as they try to break through shouting at the ‘scabs’, those workers who refused to join the strike. Everyday non-strikers were bussed into the factory owned by George Ward an Anglo Indian businessman. There were two shifts, the first around seven o’clock and the second a couple of hours later. Mrs Jayaben Desai led a group of predominantly Asian women protesting with left wing union demonstrators against low wages and poor working conditions and not being allowed to join a union at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratory. The strike became a cause célèbre involving thousands of demonstrators; over 500 arrests were made during two years of often-violent clashes.
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