Dagenham Ford Strike (1968): Women Machinists and Equal Pay

The Dagenham strike of 1968 was a three-week walkout by women sewing machinists at the Ford Motor Company’s huge car plant in Dagenham, on the eastern edge of London. Beginning on 7 June 1968, the 187 women protested against a grading system that rated their skilled work below that of men, and their action quickly stopped car production. The strike drew national attention to unequal pay for women and helped lead to Britain’s Equal Pay Act 1970.

Background: women’s pay in post-war Britain

In the 1960s it was normal and legal in Britain for women to be paid less than men, even when they did similar work. Women’s pay rates in many industries were set at a fixed percentage of men’s. The Trades Union Congress had backed equal pay in principle for decades, and the Labour Party had promised it, but little had changed in private industry.

The International Labour Organization’s Equal Remuneration Convention of 1951 called for equal pay for work of equal value, and the Treaty of Rome of 1957 required members of the European Economic Community to apply the principle. Britain, outside the EEC at the time, had not yet adopted it in law.

Ford’s Dagenham plant, opened in 1931 on the north bank of the Thames, was one of the largest car factories in Europe and employed tens of thousands of people. A small group of women machinists worked there sewing seat covers and other upholstery for Ford cars.

The grading dispute

In 1967 Ford introduced a new pay structure based on job evaluation. Jobs were placed in grades according to the skills required. The sewing machinists, who had to pass a skills test to be employed, expected to be placed in grade C, alongside skilled production work.

Instead they were placed in grade B, a less skilled grade. In addition, as women, they were paid at a lower rate than men in the same grade, receiving 85 per cent of the men’s grade B rate. The women argued that this was both a misjudgement of their skill and a form of sex discrimination.

Their union, the National Union of Vehicle Builders, took up the complaint. After negotiations failed, the women decided to strike.

The strike

On 7 June 1968 the 187 machinists at Dagenham walked out. They were joined by women machinists at Ford’s Halewood plant near Liverpool. Leading figures among the Dagenham strikers included the shop steward Rose Boland and Eileen Pullen. Many of the women were married with children and had never been on strike before, and they held meetings and picket lines with the support of some, but not all, of the male union officials at the plant.

Because there were no seat covers, Ford soon could not complete its cars. Production was severely disrupted, and thousands of male workers were laid off. The dispute attracted wide coverage in newspapers and on television, where the strikers were often portrayed in patronising terms but also won considerable public sympathy.

The strike came at a difficult moment for Harold Wilson’s Labour government, which was worried about strikes, exports and the balance of payments after the devaluation of the pound in November 1967.

Barbara Castle’s intervention

On 28 June 1968 the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, Barbara Castle, met a delegation of the strikers in London. Castle, one of the most senior women in the government, was sympathetic to their cause.

A settlement was reached. The women’s pay was raised immediately to 92 per cent of the men’s grade B rate, with a promise of further increases. The question of grading was referred to a court of inquiry, which did not give them the higher grade. The women returned to work after about three weeks on strike.

Castle later said the strike strengthened her determination to introduce equal pay legislation. The strike also inspired the formation of the National Joint Action Campaign Committee for Women’s Equal Rights, which held a large demonstration for equal pay in Trafalgar Square in May 1969.

The Equal Pay Act 1970

Castle introduced an Equal Pay Bill in early 1970, and it received Royal Assent on 29 May 1970. The act made it unlawful for employers to pay women less than men for the same or broadly similar work, or for work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation scheme.

To give employers time to adjust, the act did not come fully into force until 29 December 1975. That same day the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 also took effect. In 1983 the law was amended, after a ruling by the European Court of Justice, to allow claims for equal pay for work of equal value.

Legacy

The Dagenham machinists’ grading complaint was not fully resolved until 1984, when they went on strike again for several weeks. After an independent inquiry they were finally placed in the skilled grade C.

The strike is remembered as a turning point in the history of working women in Britain and an early example of women leading industrial action on their own behalf. It is often linked with other campaigns for women’s equality in the period, such as the Women’s Strike for Equality in the United States in 1970 and the Icelandic women’s day off in 1975.

In 2010 the story reached a wide audience through the film “Made in Dagenham”, which was later adapted as a stage musical in 2014. The film’s main characters are fictional, but surviving strikers took part in publicity and spoke about their experiences. Ford ended car assembly at Dagenham in 2002, although engine production continued at the site.

The gender pay gap remains a subject of debate in Britain decades later, and the Dagenham strike is frequently invoked in discussions of equal pay. Like other landmark disputes such as the General Strike of 1926, it is studied as an example of how industrial action can shape national law.

Myths and facts

• Myth: The machinists went on strike to demand equal pay with men. Fact: Their main demand was regrading to recognise their skill. Several strikers later said that equal pay became the headline issue largely through press coverage and politics.
• Myth: The strike won equal pay at Ford. Fact: The 1968 settlement raised their pay to 92 per cent of the men’s lower-grade rate; full equality and regrading came later.
• Myth: The Equal Pay Act ended the pay gap. Fact: It outlawed unequal rates for the same or similar work, but a substantial gap in average earnings between men and women remained.

Timeline

• 1967: Ford introduces a new job grading system, placing the machinists in grade B.
• 1968, 7 June: 187 women sewing machinists walk out at Dagenham.
• 1968, June: Women machinists at Ford’s Halewood plant join the strike.
• 1968, 28 June: Barbara Castle meets the strikers; a settlement is agreed.
• 1969, May: A demonstration for equal pay is held in Trafalgar Square.
• 1970, 29 May: The Equal Pay Act receives Royal Assent.
• 1975, 29 December: The Equal Pay Act comes fully into force.
• 1984: After another strike, the machinists are regraded as skilled workers.

Why it matters

The Dagenham strike showed that a small group of women workers could halt one of Europe’s biggest factories and change national policy. It made equal pay a political priority in Britain and helped bring about the Equal Pay Act 1970, a foundation of modern equality law in the United Kingdom.