#dagenham

[scavengedluxury]

Sainsbury's, 10/11 The Mall, Dagenham, 1980. From the Sainsbury Archive.

[unteriors]

Bromhall Road, Dagenham, London.

[fidjiefidjie]

Bonjour, bonne journée ☕️ 🧸

Devant la vitrine d'un magasin de jouets à Dagenham 🇬🇧 Angleterre 1950

Photo Ronald Startup/ Getty Images

[freshthoughts2020]

[persistentrain]

[peregrinatioblog]

16.03.2024 Dagenham & Redbridge FC – Maidenhead United 4:1 Victoria Road (1.411)

[billlaotian]

[georgefairbrother]

On the 22nd of January, 1979, life for the already beleaguered Callaghan government got a whole lot worse as tens of thousands of public sector workers joined crippling national strike action as part of the Winter of Discontent. Four major public service unions were incensed over the government’s policy of attempting to impose a ceiling on pay rises at 5%, as a means of inflation control, while workers at the privately owned Ford plant at Dagenham had recently negotiated a 17% rise. Ford had openly defied the government’s wage-restraint policy, despite the fact that the government was one of Ford’s major clients.

The public service unions represented a total of 1.5 million members, and argued that their members' pay, particularly for manual workers, was falling well behind private enterprise. They called for a minimum wage of 60 pounds and a 35 hour week.

The previous autumn, Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan had made the fateful decision not to call an early election, despite his minority government’s tenuous grip on power, stating, "The government must and will continue to carry out policies that are consistent, determined, that don’t chop or change and that brought about the present recovery in our fortunes…We can see the way ahead."

Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher was not best pleased, referring to the government as ‘chickens’ and stating, “The real reason he isn’t having an election is because he thinks he’ll lose."

Even Liberal leader David Steel, whose party had propped up the minority government through the Lib-Lab Pact, wasn’t happy, stating that the country was due for change and that an election was the only way to breath life into the four-year-old parliament.

As winter closed in, a nationwide transport strike created shortages of many essential commodities. NHS hospitals, ambulance services, rubbish collection, schools and even funeral and burial services were caught up in stoppages that created nationwide chaos. At one point 200 000 workers were temporarily laid off, and rubbish piled high in the streets.

Into this chaotic atmosphere returned Prime Minister Callaghan from a summit with US President Carter, French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing and the West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

The meeting had been held in the sunny Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe. Callaghan, looking 'relaxed and unconcerned' according to reports, said, "I don’t think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.”

He was rewarded by a famous headline in The Sun;

By the end of January, 1979, the strike ended with employers conceding to almost all of the various unions’ demands.

Opposition Leader Margaret Thatcher soon seized a golden opportunity to take command of the agenda. She introduced a motion of no confidence against the Government on March 28th, which passed by one vote, the first such successful motion since 1924. Jim Callaghan had no option but to go the country and an election was finally called, paving the way for 18 years of Tory government.

Following the inevitable election loss, Jim Callaghan stayed on as Opposition Leader until 1980 when he was succeeded by Michael Foot. He subsequently served in the Lords as Baron Callaghan of Cardiff and passed away in 2005, aged 92.