Faces and Places: Sarwan Singh and the Indian Workers Association [cont.]

Description:INDUSTRIAL STRUGGLES IN THE1960's AND 1970's.

Three key strikes took place in West Midlands in the 60s and 70s.

1.Coneygre foundry in Tipton, Dudley: In 1967 there was a strike on the issue of redundancies. TGWU members’ mainly Asian workers’ position was to work share instead of redundancies. But the AEU members who were mainly white were in favour of redundancies instead of work share. The strike lasted 10 weeks. Employers brought scab labour but strikers did not let them cross the picket line. The reason behind it was that the AEU members were with long service in the foundry and they wanted to get rid of the other union members who were mostly black workers. TGWU members who were mostly black showed the unity and resistance against the injustice of employers and white workers. The proposal of work share was not to make any employee redundant and instead of working five or six days a week every body had to work three to four days a week. The employer was forced to agree to work share instead of redundancies.

2. Newby foundry in West Bromwich :In 1969 there was a similar strike in Newby foundry and the workers unitedly fought for their rights.

3. Birmid Qualcast foundry strike in Smethwick in 1970s: In late fifties and early sixties after the 2nd World War there was a shortage of labour in the UK. White workers were only interested in working on skilled, maintenance and engineering jobs. There were only very few black workers who were working as labourers, on hot hard dirty jobs. The Birmid Qualcast was a large group of foundries where majority of people working were black doing hot hard and dirty jobs. The black workers were the victims of discrimination at work not only by the employers and white workers but also discriminated against by the attitude of the trade union. The black workers were very concerned about this and tried to organise themselves. They tried to become shop stewards in the different section where they were in majority. Most of the shop stewards were not well educated. The employers brought a clause in agreement that any member who has sufficient command of English could become a shop steward. There was disagreement on this clause and the management did not want to take this clause out of the agreement. There was a strike on this issue. The management withdrew this clause from the agreement. This was another victory for the black working class and the strike was over, but this was all achieved by the unity of the black working class.

The white people at that time did not need our presence but needed our labour to make profits and this was all without providing the other social facilities like even somewhere to live. We were the victims of racism as we were last to be employed when they needed us and first to go out when there were no jobs.


[Note: in the above image, Sarwan appears second from left. The figure holding the banner is Avtar Jouhl. See link for more information on Jouhl's role in the IWA]