E82: Workmates collective

Working Class History

Society & Culture, Education, History

5.0 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Podcast episode about the Workmates collective, a rank-and-file initiative on the London Underground using unofficial direct action and workplace assemblies to fight privatisation in the late-1990s/early 2000s.

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In this episode, we speak to Andy Littlechild, a former London Underground worker and activist with the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union. He explains how the Labour government introduced privatisation to the Underground, how the Workmates mass meetings began, the start of the Workmates delegate council, the 'Job-and-Knock' dispute, and the eventual demise of the 'Public Private Partnership'.

E82.1 bonus episode: Andy discusses the politics of anarcho-syndicalism and their influence on his organising. He also tells us about a failed attempt by London Underground management to sack him for his workplace activism
More information about this episode, including sources, images, links, and eventually a transcript on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e82-workmates-collective/Learn more in our exclusive bonus episode, coming soon for our patreon supporters.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Jamison D. Saltsman and Fernando López Ojeda.
Episode graphic: reworked image originally by Matt Buck (CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed)
Edited by Jesse French
Theme tune is 'Bella Ciao', thanks for permission to use it from Dischi del Sole. You can purchase it here or stream it here.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In the late 1990s, track workers on the London Underground were being faced with outsourcing to private contractors.
0:06.0	As part of the wider campaign against it, workers at One Depot organised themselves into the Workmates Collective.
0:12.0	An experiment in rank and file control, workmates organised mass meetings to overcome divisions and took on-the-job direct action to break the UK's strict anti-strike laws.
0:22.6	This is working-class history. Oh, bella, chow, bella, chow, bella, chow, la matino
0:44.2	Before we get started, just a reminder that our podcast is brought to you by our patron supporters.
0:51.7	Our supporters fund our work and in return get exclusive early access
0:55.2	to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content.
1:01.6	For example, our Patreon supporters can listen to an exclusive bonus episode now, where our guest,
1:06.4	Andy Littlechild, discusses his anarcho-syndylist politics and tells us about one of the times management
1:12.2	tried to sack him for workplace organising. Join us or find out more at patreon.com slash
1:17.9	working class history. Link in the show notes. People who have listened to our show for a long time
1:23.5	may remember that our episode five was about rank and file workers organising on the London
1:28.0	Underground. But like all our early episodes, it was basically raw audio from our interview,
1:32.9	so the sound quality was pretty bad, and there was no narrative to fill in any gaps, explain
1:37.2	context or pull the story together. In addition to producing new podcast episodes, we're also
1:42.3	going back over our earliest episodes to re-edit and
1:45.0	re-release them in the new narrative format that we use for all our later episodes. So this is one of
1:50.3	our improved and re-released episodes, which has additional narrative with better quality audio, to
1:55.1	explain things more clearly and tell the story in a more cohesive way. So whether you listen to that early
2:00.6	episode or not, we hope that you enjoy this one.
2:03.6	For this episode, we spoke to Andy Littlechild, a former track charge hand who at the time we interviewed him
2:08.6	was a National Executive Committee member for the London Transport Region of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union,
	...

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