Grunwick Dispute - Background

Background

Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories is a photographic finishing and processing business, trading under a variety of brand names including Bonusprint, Doubleprint and Tripleprint, founded in 1965 by George Ward. At the time of the dispute, the firm operated on a postal basis, in which customers mailed undeveloped films and payment to the laboratory and received finished photographs back through the postal service. The growth of amateur colour-photography meant that small High Street chemists which had previously serviced this market "could no longer afford the equipment to develop family snapshots, and the photo-processing field was left wide open for larger, specialist companies" such as Grunwick. Grunwick's trading profit at the time was reported as being a steady 30% and above per annum.

In 1973, there had been a previous dispute over union recognition at Grunwick, and a number of workers who joined the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) were subsequently laid off. Baroness Williams described it as employing "a great many Asian women on fairly long hours and pretty low wages" – the average pay at Grunwick was £28/week while the average national wage was £72/week and the average full-time wage for a female manual worker in London was £44/week. Overtime was compulsory and often no prior notice would be given. Of the company's 440 employees, 80% were of Asian origin and 10% of Afro-Caribbean origin, and application forms for employment at Grunwick asked for passport numbers and "date of arrival in the UK." The MP for Brent South, Laurence Pavitt, said that in his dealings with the company over "many years" prior to the dispute, the management had been rude and intransigent, failing to respond to his letters, and treated the workers in a "deplorable fashion."

MP Joe Ashton accused the firm of "exploiting coloured workers", and writer and political activist Amrit Wilson asserted that Grunwick's management "made use of the poverty of Asians" and would turn away non-Asian applicants. Grunwick strikers explained: "Imagine how humiliating it was for us, particularly for older women, to be working and to overhear the employer saying to a younger, English girl 'you don't want to come and work here, love, we won't be able to pay the sort of wages that'll keep you here' – while we had to work there because we were trapped." Jayaben Desai said: "The strike is not so much about pay, it is a strike about human dignity." The 1977 Scarman Inquiry would ultimately conclude that "physical working conditions in the company before the strike were good; although the rates of pay were low prior to the strike, the company increased financial benefits paid to workers in November 1976 and April 1977 the rates of pay were broadly comparable with, and in some respects, slightly better than, those paid by comparable firms in the industry... and employees understood and accepted the requirement of compulsory overtime during busy periods." A claim by the Socialist Workers Party alleging that Grunwick was a "racist" employer was also later withdrawn as "completely untrue and unfair".

Although there were allegations that the working conditions at Grunwick resembled those of a sweatshop, other contemporary writers described the premises as "clean and well lit but frugal." However, the dispute began during the hottest summer in the UK since records began, when the air-conditioning at the premises was not then in operation, and no allowance was made for this in terms of the employees' productivity.