Strikers in saris

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1976 South Asian women workers who had made Britain their home, led a strike against poor working conditions in a British factory. Lakshmi Patel was one of the women who picketed the Grunwick film-processing factory in north London for two years, defying the stereotype of submissive South Asian women. They gained the support of tens of thousands of trade unionists along the way. Lakshmi talks to Farhana Haider about how the strike was a defining moment for race relations in the UK in the 1970s.

(Photo: Jayaben Desai, leader of the Grunwick strike committee holding placard 1977 Credit: Getty images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Choosing what to
0:32.1	watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:36.5	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:41.5	telly we share what we've been watching.
0:43.7	Cladie Aide!
0:45.7	Loads of games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:48.2	Lovely.
0:49.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:51.2	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:54.7	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds.
1:00.3	Hello and today I'm taking you back to
1:08.0	Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast with me for Hanaheather and today I'm taking you back to 1976 when a group of South Asian women led a strike over poor working conditions
1:16.2	in a British factory.
1:18.4	At its height, 20,000 people joined the protests. It went on to become a defining moment in improved
1:26.5	race relations in Britain. The Gronwick Film Processing Factory in North London employed mainly women of South Asian origin,
	...

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