Terry Conway from spoke to Brent member, Tessa van Gelderen about the significance of the emblematic Grunwicks dispute that started just over thirty years ago, which will be commemorated at a major event on September 17 TC: Why is a dispute which happened thirty years ago and involved less than 200? workers important to celebrate? TvG: This strike involving a small number of workers in a small mail-order firm in Willesden has entered the annuls of the British trade union movement. It has done this for a number of reasons: the workforce was made up of predominantly Asian women, manv tirst generation immigrants, who were not traditionally trade unionists, never mind militant strikers.
Their determination and tenacity attracted widespread support throughout the labour movement, leading to mass pickets, secondary industrial action and taking on the trade union leaders.
In some way it was the strikers inexperience that resulted in their actions -without having the weight of "custom and practice" and how things "should" be done hanging round their necks. The strike was a breath of fresh air to us established trade unionists and socialists. They had been called "as green as cooking apples" by a steward from the long-running neighbouring Trico dispute. TC: How did the Trades Council first make contact with the strikers? TvG: In their "ignorance" the strikers approached the local Citizens' Advice Bureau which in turn referred them to the TUC and Brent Trades Council. They contacted the former first who put them in touch with APEX.
Initaly ine union responded well, declaring the strike official within eight days and paying out strike