A number of well publicised occupations, Visteon and Vestas in the UK (Gall 2010), at Republic Windows and Doors in the USA (Lydersen 2009), and others internationally, have led to renewed interest in this form of industrial action (Sherry 2010). Moreover, with the continuing rumbles of economic crisis, attention has been drawn to Argentina. Default on debt in 2001 led to a flight of capital with workers reacting with the ‘reclaiming’ of factories (Sitrin 2006, The Laval Collective et al. 2007). These occupations have led to some reflection on previous experience and particularly to the occurrences in the 1970s (Gall 2009). As well as an apparently greater willingness to resist redundancy and closure, and extending workers industrial tactic, there began to flourish an ‘alternative economic strategy’ rooted in socially useful production and workers’ co-operatives (Gold 2004; see also Ness & Azzellini 2011).
Clearly parallels between the two periods can be drawn but with, apparently, fundamental differences. The 1970s represent a time when the post-war orthodoxy of the Keynesian Welfare State was increasingly being challenged by an emergent neo-liberalism (Gamble 1988, Gold 2004, Hall 1979). The labour movement began to pose alternatives to dominant economic orthodoxy challenging the imperatives of capital, the cheapening and subordination of labour. A militant labour movement not just seemed to be able to challenge the exigencies of capital but also begin to articulate the basis of an alternative hegemony based around need. Challenging the implications of the market sale of labour power and the system of exchange moved workers into the articulation of alternatives to the dominant form of labour process.
This paper examines two important occupations of the 1970s, Briant Colour Printing (BCP) in 1972-73 and Imperial Typewriters in 1975 and draws from contemporary interviews with participants and other records. While only three years distant BCP occurred very much in the wake of the UCS work-in during the Heath Conservative Government while the Imperial Typewriters occupation took place not just during the Wilson Labour Government but also during the period of Tony Benn at the Department of Industry; Benn who had marched with the UCS workers and was in the process of giving support to three groups of workers in occupation resisting closure so that they could establish workers’ co-operatives.
These cases allow the opportunity to examine the background to the occupation, its development, internal organisation, and its outcome. In both cases there were strong links with the broader labour movement, and especially with London and Hull dockers. Such resistance was not universal with Imperial workers at their Leicester factory remained divided following a strike the previous year. BCP opened as a broader campaign centre, sustaining itself by printing materials for trade unions and left organisations, while Imperial Typewriters has been criticised for its insularity (Sherry 2010). However, while this led to a work-in at BCP they rejected the idea of establishing a workers’ co-operative. In contrast, and in a rather different political climate, the Imperial trade union, before the occupation, produced a plan which suggested the establishment of a co-operative (Hull Union Action Committee 1975) although, as the occupation became increasingly protracted, they sought potential private capital to take over the factory.
In that neither occupation ended with long term survival of jobs, let alone a radical economic alternative, we question whether we might consider these – and other – occupations as successes or failure. This question itself has also become important in rethinking labour strategy (Cohen 2011).
References:
Cohen, S. (2011/02/16), Starting all over from scratch? a plea for 'radical reform' of our movement, [Online], The Commune, Available from: [27/7/2011].
Gall, G. 2009, 'Agitate, Educate, Occupy! Examining the Potency of Occupations to Resist Redundancy', Communist Review, no. 55 Winter 2009, pp. 5-11.
Gall, G. 2010, 'Resisting Recession and Redundancy: Contemporary Worker Occupation in Britain', WorkingUSA, vol. 13, no. 1 March, pp. 107-132.
Gamble, A. 1988, The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism, Macmillan, Basingstoke and London.
Gold, M. 2004, 'Worker mobilization in the 1970s: revisiting work-ins, cooperatives and alternative corporate plans', Historical studies in industrial relations, no. 18, pp. 65-106.
Hall, S. 1979, 'The great moving right show', Marxism Today, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 14-20.
Hull Union Action Committee. 1975, Why Imperial Typewriters Must Not Close, Institute for Workers' Control Pamphlet 46, Nottingham.
Laval Collective, Klein, N. & Lewis, A. 2007, Sin Patrón: Stories from Argentina's Worker-run Factories: the Lavaca Collective, Haymarket Books.
Lydersen, K. 2009, Revolt on Goose Island: The Chicago Factory Takeover, and What it says about the Economic Crisis, Melville House Publishing, New York.
Ness, I. & Azzellini, D. (eds.) 2011, Ours to Master and to Own: Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present, Haymarket Books, Chicago.
Sherry, D. 2010, Occupy! A Short History of Workers' Occupations, Bookmarks, London.
Sitrin, M. 2006, Horizontalism: voices of popular power in Argentina, AK Press.