Page 4 - 368381 LP248870 Made in Dagenham Programme (24pp A5)

How Ford's striking women drove the Equal Pay Act
The year is 1968. The Vietnam War is in full swing, Apollo 8 is the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon, Martin Luther King Jr is assassinated in Memphis and ‘Hey Jude’ by the Beatles is consistently topping the charts. Across the pond however, a small group of women from Dagenham are beginning a movement which will lead to major changes across the country, inspiring people from around the world.....
After a regrading, the Ford Dagenham sewing machinists discovered that their jobs were classified as Category C (less skilled production jobs), which would result in them being paid 15% less than the men on Category B. In retaliation to this, the Dagenham women decided to go on strike, soon followed by the machinists at Ford's Halewood plant in Merseyside. As the women made the covers for the car seats, this ultimately brought UK Ford production to a halt, forcing something to be done!
Barbara Castle, the then Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity under Harold Wilson’s government, decided to intervene; enabling the strike to end after 3 weeks, resulting in an increase in the machinist’s pay. Although a success, their rate of pay was still 8% below that of the men.
Following their inspirational lead, women trade unionists founded the National Joint Action Campaign Committee for Women's Equal Rights (NJACCWER), organising an equal pay demonstration in Trafalgar Square which was attended by over 1000 people in 1969.
By 1970 The Equal Pay Act came into force with the aim of prohibiting inequality in treatment between men and women. Speaking in Parliament whilst debating this bill, MP Shirley Summerskill stated that the Dagenham machinists played a “very significant part in the history of the struggle for equal pay”.