Strikers In Saris

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2019

⏱️ 11 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 South Asian 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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1:05.5	Hello and thank you for downloading this edition of the Witness History Program
1:09.5	with me for Hana Hither.
1:11.0	And today I'm taking you back to 1976 when a group of South Asian women led a strike of a poor working
1:17.9	conditions at a British factory.
1:20.2	At its height 20,000 people joined the protest which went on to become a defining moment in improved
1:26.3	race relations in Britain.
	...

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