Word: dagenham
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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...
...this, the national unions which represent Dagenham's 32,000 hourly workers called for an official strike to start...
...union officials reckoned without the women of Dagenham, who were fed up with strikes and wanted their husbands' paychecks for Christmas shopping...
...Evelyn Carter, the 29-year-old wife of a Ford machinist, 150 Dagenham wives staged a meeting at which they threatened to serve their husbands nothing but sandwiches for Sunday dinner if the strike went through. A public-opinion poll showed that 81% of Dagenham felt the same way. Union leaders got the message, decided to negotiate rather than strike...