Word: dagenham
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...agony of Ford's is the agony of Britain," proclaimed the London Daily Mirror last week. British Ford's agony is acute. Its main plant, which sprawls across the dreary Dagenham mud flats east of London, has what may well be the world's worst labor record: it has been hit by crippling wildcat strikes at the chilling rate of more than one a week for the past five years. "The American owners of this mammoth motor concern," editorialized the usually pro-labor Mirror, "would be justified in writing Britain off as a base for their factories...
...past, the strikers have usually won their point because Ford's British management was quick to knuckle under. But with the appointment of Lancashire-born J. (for James) Allen Barke as managing director in April, the situation changed at Dagenham...
Charles Wood had, until three years ago, worked as a janitor at the British Ford plant in Dagenham, Essex. Since his retirement, he and his wife Marie had been hoarding every shilling against the day that they could take off for a visit to Marie's sister, who lived in Corpus Christi, Texas. Last week they sailed into New York harbor on the Queen Elizabeth. As careful budgeters, they had already purchased their tickets for every step of the way: round-trip from New York to Texas and back on American Airlines, one-way back to Britain...