Jack Saunders

University College London, History, Post-Doc

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I recently completed my doctoral thesis, entitled “The British motor industry 1945-77 : How workplace culture shaped labour militancy”. In it, I look at industrial strife in automobile assembly, seeing workplace activism as a product of evolving social practices and changing rationalities during an era of increasing personal affluence but perceived national decline.

As of January 2016 I will taking a post with a Wellcome-funded research project at Warwick University on the "Cultural History of the NHS". My research stream deals with the NHS as a workplace.
Supervisors: Michael Collins

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The Untraditional Worker: Class Re-Formation in Britain 1945–65

This article explores the development of shop-floor organization in the British motor industry be... more This article explores the development of shop-floor organization in the British motor industry between 1945 and 1965. Where much of the social and labour history of post-war Britain has explained rising industrial conflict from the late 1960s as a reaction to economic and political changes based on ‘traditional’ trade union cultures, this article gives greater prominence to worker activism within the factories themselves. Workplace trade unionism in the car industry in the immediate post-war period was generally weak, with limited shop-floor organization often accompanied by fatalistic attitudes and atomization. This gave way to increasingly sophisticated shop stewards’ organizations in a process of social and cultural remaking lead by worker activists. This article details the ways in which workers were persuaded not just to join trade unions but also participate in a range of social practices, establishing representation and collective decision-making at shop and factory level. Parallel to this organization, we also see a change in shared values within the shop, with forms of collectivism becoming increasingly prominent and deferential attitudes in decline. The article concludes by arguing that this social organization and these solidaristic values were a necessary foundation for the industrial militancy that followed in the late 1960s, and that contrary to much of the existing historiography it neither was a simple reaction to external forces nor did it draw primarily on a ‘traditional’ working class consciousness. In post-war Britain, new solidarities and values could be forged, even as others were eroded.

“Home-knitted, zipper cardigans – the occasional floral tie”: The concept of the “traditional working class” in narratives of post-war labour militancy.

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Having tea with the secretary of state: Women car workers and political agency in Britain, 1968.

Having tea with the Secretary of State: car workers and political agency 1945-79 Margaret Thatche... more Having tea with the Secretary of State: car workers and political agency 1945-79 Margaret Thatcher's death was accompanied by a lot of public discussion about "the unions" and their role in Britain's economic troubles in the 1970s. One particular comment struck me. Ken Clarke was on question time ploughing the familiar "overmighty" unions furrow. In amongst the usual tropes -the Winter of Discontent etc -he produced the following statistic.

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How to Kill an Act of Parliament: Dockers in the 1960s and 1970s

This paper forms part of my work on cultures of labour militancy in the 1960s and 1970s. It focus... more This paper forms part of my work on cultures of labour militancy in the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on the dockworkers campaign around containerization and in particular the wildcat strikes that secured the release of the Pentonville Five in July 1972. The paper aims to explore how the independent agency of the dockworkers enabled them to confront and defeat the government over a major piece of legislation, despite relatively precarious conditions of employment and little active support from official trade unions and the Labour Party.

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The Untraditional Worker: Class Re-Formation in Britain 1945–65

“Home-knitted, zipper cardigans – the occasional floral tie”: The concept of the “traditional working class” in narratives of post-war labour militancy.

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Having tea with the secretary of state: Women car workers and political agency in Britain, 1968.

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How to Kill an Act of Parliament: Dockers in the 1960s and 1970s

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Jack Saunders

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