Saunders, JS;
(2015)
The British motor industry, 1945 - 77: How workplace cultures shaped labour militancy.
Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Car workers’ union activism has long held a strong grip on popular memories of the postwar period. Working in the quintessential industry of modernity, and as the “affluent worker” par excellence, their labour militancy has been linked to narratives of economic decline and of rising workingclass living standards. Yet despite their centrality to understanding of this period, historians have often given their workplace activism superficial treatment. Seeing this period as one where class solidarity was eroded by the rise of “privatism”, scholars have been unwilling to see novelty in collectivism. Consequently, car workers’ capacity for collective action has often been taken for granted, with mobilisation attributed to a combination of uncomplicated economic motivations, the last gasps of a declining “traditional class consciousness”, and the effects of the postwar settlement. Existing study has thus suppressed the changing forms of agency and subjectivity expressed by labour militancy, something this thesis rectifies by considering workplace activism in the motor industry as a specific historical creation of postwar Britain, rather than a reflection of “tradition”. Studying the processes by which workers built their union cultures, I look to discern the origins of the shopfloor organisations that were established in the 1950s, and explore the capacity of car workers to generate new solidarities and collective values in this period. Turning to the 1960s and 1970s this thesis examines in detail the social practices and cultural norms that emerged from organisation, aiming to understand how worker activism shaped the agency of car workers in postwar Britain, influencing the forms that strike action took. Finally, using a mixture of oral history interviews, letters, meeting minutes and periodicals, I look at the meanings workers attributed to industrial conflict, asking whether factory activism generated attitudes distinct from the dominant values of wider British society.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Title: | The British motor industry, 1945 - 77: How workplace cultures shaped labour militancy. |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Keywords: | social history, modern british, cultural history, car workers, motor industry, strikes, industrial relations, trade unionism, social class, working class |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1470149 |
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