{"id":339980,"date":"2025-12-28T22:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T22:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339980\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T22:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T22:36:08","slug":"dagenhams-sewing-machinists-did-not-go-on-strike-primarily-for-equal-pay-equal-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339980\/","title":{"rendered":"Dagenham\u2019s sewing machinists did not go on strike primarily for equal pay | Equal pay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In her long read article (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/dec\/18\/pretty-birds-and-silly-moos-the-women-behind-the-sex-discrimination-act\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018Pretty birds and silly moos\u2019: the women behind the Sex Discrimination Act, 18 December<\/a>), Susanna Rustin details some of the women who campaigned to make illegal the many forms of legal discrimination against women in services and in the workplace. One of the key groups of women she cites in this campaign were the \u201c187 sewing machinists at Ford\u2019s Dagenham Plant\u201d who \u201cforced the issue\u201d with their 1968 strike for equal pay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The sewing machinists did not go on strike primarily for equal pay. They were outraged that the 1967 new grade structure introduced by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/ford\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ford<\/a> Motor Company had evaluated the their work as grade\u00a0B. The sewing machinists believed their work was at least semi-skilled and should have been graded C.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Barbara Castle was brought in to negotiate with the sewing machinists, who had brought the Ford production line to a halt. Following her intervention, the machinists agreed to return to work, having been offered an increase in pay which, over two years, would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/about\/living-heritage\/transformingsociety\/tradeindustry\/industrycommunity\/collections\/equal-pay\/ford-strike\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">raise their pay<\/a> from 85% of the male\u00a0grade B rate to 100%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tuc.org.uk\/workplace-guidance\/case-studies\/how-fords-striking-women-drove-equal-pay-act\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">It took until 1984<\/a> and another strike by the sewing machinists, who once again brought the Ford Motor Company production lines to a halt, for their grievance to be addressed. They made a claim under the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/uksi\/1983\/1807\/contents\/made\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Equal Value (Amendment) Regulations of 1983<\/a>. A panel under the auspices of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service iunanimously evaluated the machinists\u2019 job as grade C. Finally, they won recognition of the\u00a0skill\u00a0and\u00a0value of their work.<br \/>Sarah Boston<br \/>London<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2025\/dec\/28\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In her long read article (\u2018Pretty birds and silly moos\u2019: the women behind the Sex Discrimination Act, 18&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-339980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}