Dismissal of strikers and industrial disputes: the 1985–1987 strike and mass sackings at Silentnight

Stephen Mustchin*

Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

(Received 3 April 2014; accepted 2 May 2014)

AAM version – published in Labor History (2014) 55:4. 448-464

The 1985–1987 dispute at Silentnight bed factories in the north of England was an exceptionally long and bitter strike, lasting for 20 months from June 1985 until February 1987. A total of 346 workers were sacked for taking part in the strike, which gained a high profile with remarkable levels of support and solidarity action, largely due to its emblematic status as an extreme example of punitive treatment of workers taking industrial action in the period immediately following the defeat of the miners in 1984/1985. Workers took lawful strike action in 1985 over the non-implementation of agreed pay rises and compulsory redundancies counter to an existing agreement between the firm and the union, with the company responding to the dispute with mass dismissals. Pickets were maintained at the two factories in question for nearly two years, with the strikers gaining wide-ranging support from across the labour movement, but the company stood firm against the dismissed strikers who were ultimately defeated. Based on archival research and interviews with participants in the strike, the article analyses in detail how the dispute was sustained for so long, the legal context and the weakness of legal protections for strikers in the period, and the widespread political mobilisation and networks of support and solidarity that arose around the strike and in opposition to the policies of the Conservative government of the day.

Keywords: 1980s; Britain; dismissals; industrial action; industrial relations; Thatcherism; trade unions

IntroductionThe 1985–1987 dispute at Silentnight bed factories in Barnoldswick, East Lancashire, and Sutton, North Yorkshire, was an exceptionally long and bitter strike, lasting for 20 months from June 1985 until February 1987 with official estimates of 680 workers, members of the Furniture Timber and Allied Trades (FTAT) union, directly involved at its peak.1 A total of 346 workers were sacked for taking part in the strike, which gained a high profile and remarkable levels of support and solidarity action, largely due to its emblematic status as an extreme example of punitive treatment of workers taking industrial action in the period immediately following the defeat of the miners in 1984/1985. The dispute was the subject of a television documentary, a three-hour debate in the House of Commons and

*Email: stephen.mustchin@manchester.ac.uk

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was highlighted, along with News International and the National Coal Board, by the Labour leader Neil Kinnock in conference speeches in 1986 as symptomatic of the 1980s Conservative governments’ attacks on unions and workers.2 Workers took lawful strike action in 1985 over the non-implementation of agreed pay rises and compulsory redundancies counter to an existing agreement between the firm and the union, with the company responding to the dispute with mass dismissals.

The strike is worthy of detailed analysis for three main reasons. First, the strike’s duration was remarkable, especially given the current prevalence of short walkouts and discontinuous rather than indefinite industrial action in Britain.3 Second, the 1985–1987 period is of particular significance; the Silentnight strike began only months after the defeat of the miners, anti-union legislation was increasingly embedded within the British industrial relations system and employers were increasingly bullish when dealing with unions. Third, the strike gained a relatively high profile and attracted widespread support and solidarity from the mainstream labour movement and elsewhere, which was integral to the dispute lasting so long. The analysis is based on archival research and interviews with key participants in the strike4; while oral history interviews can be problematic, triangulating this material with a wide range of archival material provides a detailed basis for the analysis below. While much analysis of declining strike levels in the 1980s focuses on the actions of the state and the wider economic context, the strengthened position of employers and their increased capacity to confront unions highlights the limitations of social and labour movement solidarity, even where external support was prevalent, sympathy for strikers was high and the employer was widely blamed.

Industrial disputes and the dismissal of strikers in 1980s BritainBetween 1980 and 1991, industrial disputes fell from 1330, with 489,000 days lost in 1980, to 357, with 32,000 days lost in 1991.5 This resulted from the decline of traditionally strike-prone industries, the increasingly precarious economic position of individual workers, internationalised production systems reducing possible gains from strikes, fears of management reprisals and victimisation, increasingly individualistic cultural norms and, in Britain, a highly restrictive legal system and the ‘demonstration effect’ of major defeats of historically well-organised groups of workers such as the miners in 1984/1985.6 Union membership fell from 13.2 million to 9.8 million between 1980 and 1990.7 Institutional power resources beyond the workplace such as multi-employer bargaining declined markedly, with decentralised negotiations, single-employer bargaining and union exclusion embraced by many private sector employers.8 Contemporaneous accounts highlight continuity within the industrial relations system, claiming that ‘Sacking an experienced workforce because cheaper labour from the dole is potentially available is simply not an option’,9 and noting that legal injunctions were used against strikers in a relatively small number of cases.10

Even in the hostile environment faced by unions in the mid-1980s, employers were ‘not, generally, sacking workforces and replacing them from the dole queues, although the recent dispute at the Silentnight bedding factory shows that it can happen’.11 Later commentaries describe a process of ‘coercive pacification’ in the 1980s, with strike defeats both discouraging workers from taking industrial action and encouraging

employers to aggressively confront strikers.12 Earlier pluralist arguments that management ‘can only regain control by sharing it’ were flatly contradicted by the

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unilateral, confrontational approach adopted by many employers during this time, which was marked by ‘the public restoration of the managerial prerogative’.13

The 1984/1985 miners’ strike dominated the period, along with major disputes in the public sector14; the printing industry, steel, engineering and elsewhere15; and the long-running dispute over the ban on unions at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).16 Even in this especially conflictual environment, mass dismissals of strikers were somewhat rare. The 1968 Donovan Commission report recommended introducing unfair dismissal protections – these were included in the short-lived 1971 Industrial Relations Act and later the 1974 Trade Unions and Labour Relations Act along with the industrial tribunal system. Donovan recommended that unfair dismissal law should not apply to strikers as the power of employers to dismiss them was a counterweight to the capacity of unions to withdraw labour.17 Section 62 of the 1978 Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act confirmed that tribunals could not rule against dismissal during a strike or a lockout.18 While this legislation deterred employers from selectively re-engaging strikers, these restrictions were weakened by the 1982 Employment Act, which allowed selective re-engagement after a three- month period.19

The increasingly bullish approach from managers in this period contributed to some high-profile incidences of strikers being dismissed; analysis of media reporting between July 1986 and August 1989 alone found 45 cases where strikers had been dismissed, and 38 cases where strikers had been threatened with dismissal.20 These cases suggest a conservative estimate of around 9000 workers dismissed during strikes, with disputes at Silentnight, News International (where 6000 workers were dismissed for striking against new employment contracts and practices) and P & O (where 2100 workers were dismissed and around half later reinstated with the union derecognised) accounting for around 95% of those dismissed; and around 39,000 threatened with dismissal during strikes.21 In 1989, following the abolition of the National Dock Labour scheme, striking dockworkers were threatened with dismissal and loss of redundancy entitlements. Mass dismissals of hundreds of Liverpool dockers in 1995 (for refusing to break a strike), and of 320 workers in the 19-month strike at Magnet in Darlington in 1996–1998 are further, later examples of how this tactic was used prior to changes in the law in 1999.22 While dismissal of strikers remained relatively uncommon, a significant number of workers were threatened with such action and, given the high profile of mass dismissals elsewhere, were likely to be aware of the risks involved.

Common features of strikes involving mass dismissals included employer exploitation of the favourable economic and legal environment to dismiss strikers, weaken bargaining arrangements and derecognise unions in order to extend managerial prerogative and erode the institutional supports protecting workers. Along with the Silentnight strike, in 1985–1987, FTAT was supporting members who had been sacked after taking lawful industrial action elsewhere, including 35 at the furniture maker Morris of Glasgow (a dispute that lasted for 24 months), and 300 members at the prosthetic limb manufacturer J.E. Hanger in Roehampton (which lasted for 9 months).23 During the period, employers could ‘dismiss all those who have taken part and do so with impunity . . . a very potent weapon indeed, for small or large enterprises with largely unskilled workers, particularly in a period of high unemployment’.24 Limited restrictions against dismissal were introduced by Labour in the 1999 Employment Relations Act; prior to this, individual strikers had very few legal protections.25

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The Silentnight strike was remarkable for its relatively high profile and the networks of support and solidarity generated at local, regional, national and even international levels. No detailed academic accounts of the strike have been published and the contemporaneous industrial relations literature only contains cursory references to the dispute.26 The 1984/1985 miners’ strike was sustained by widespread support networks from within the labour movement, from coalfield communities and the work of Women Against Pit Closures and the support of coalitions formed around the strike that constituted part of a broad-based political mobilisation against the government’s actions.27 These coalitions developed defensively and out of necessity, rather than the sustained common causes highlighted in more recent discussions of ‘community unionism’. Networks developed organically during the dispute, typically involving connections between workers, particular union branches and left activists that were mainly coordinated from below rather than through mainstream union and labour movement structures, a central element of some industrial disputes which is often simplified or minimised.28 These networks helped the Silentnight strikers to build support and solidarity, with the strike highlighting issues such as anti-union legislation and government support for belligerent employers that resonated far beyond the localities where the dispute itself took place.

The furniture industry and the case of SilentnightEmployment in the furniture industry in the UK contracted by more than 20% from 125,000 workers in June 1978 to 98,000 workers in June 1985, when the strike began.29

This decline was caused by the recession of the early 1980s and increased international competition, with UK firms responding by cutting prices and costs, subcontracting and favouring production flow systems over craft production.30 Silentnight was part of the National Bedding Federation employers association, which participated in national collective bargaining that established basic pay rates. FTAT was the main union in furniture manufacturing; affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) and Labour Party (and with a general secretary at the time of the strike who was a relatively prominent CP member), FTAT had formed from the merger of the Wood Machinists Society and the larger National Union of Furniture Trade Operatives in 1971.31 The union had suffered financial problems, facing insolvency in both 1980 and 1982, with the Silentnight strike contributing to a fall in income in the late 1980s which, along with longer-term declining membership, resulted in the union merging with the GMB in 1991.32

Tom Clarke, the owner and chairman of the Silentnight Group at the time of the strike, established a mattress repair and manufacturing firm in Skipton using his demobilisation pay shortly after the Second World War, sourcing materials from the black market while his wife did the stitching: ‘[i]gnore his wife and you’d call him a self-made man’.33 The firm was publicly listed in 1973 with the Clarke family maintaining a majority share; by the mid-1980s, it owned 17 companies manufacturing furniture and bedding in the UK, with subsidiaries in Kenya, Uganda, a joint-owned undertaking in the UAE and alleged interests in apartheid-era South Africa.34 By 1985, the firm had an average annual turnover of £75 million, with profits of £5.2 million in 1983/1984, but profits were halved in 1984/1985 due to the economic climate, with Clarke partly blaming the miners’ strike for declining orders.35 The bed-making part of

the Silentnight Group was the core of the business and controlled approximately a quarter of the UK market.36 Silentnight reduced

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its workforce from 3200 to 2700 workers between 1982 and 1985. Orders were generally increasing but costs, especially of imported materials, were rising, sale prices had to be reduced due to increased competition and some failed acquisitions had increased the financial pressures on the firm.37

These commercial pressures influenced the management and workplace culture within the firm. A Financial Times report described ‘a powerful image of employees working extremely quickly in terms of the physical movement of arms and legs. It would make some workers, shop stewards and perhaps managers of many other companies wince’.38

Workers were employed on piece rates, which were changed (without consultation) in the late 1970s from price-per-job to minutes-per-job. Production targets were determined through regular time-and-motion studies, and the uneven introduction of new machinery in different factory sections led to discrepancies in pay rates as some workers could more feasibly reach their targets than others. Raised platforms overlooked the factory floor with supervisors monitoring the workforce below, and the firm allegedly had a policy of not interviewing anyone aged more than 35 for a job due to the physically demanding nature of the work. Minor injuries were common due to the expected pace of work ( . . . you’d get a staple through your hand three or four times a year).39 At Sutton in late 1983, a young forklift truck driver was crushed by a collapsing building; management attempted to blame the victim to avoid liability, further contributing towards the increasingly conflictual workplace climate evident prior to the strike.40 The Barnoldswick site, to which the firm had moved in 1961, was the largest workplace in the Silentnight Group, and had historically been non-unionised with the exception of some drivers who were Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) members. The Sutton site, established in the early 1970s, had always recognised FTAT, but the union was considered weak prior to 1983. Work intensification and a more authoritarian management style from the mid-1970s onwards resulted in some localised disputes, including those among loading bay operatives and drivers in May 1978. This led to attempts to establish a TGWU branch at Barnoldswick but the company would only deal with FTAT; serious organising drives began in late 1983 with shop stewards elected in some departments early in 1984.41

Silentnight was a notoriously anti-union firm; Clarke had allegedly threatened to close factories if unionisation ever took hold within the company.42 Clarke and other senior managers were Conservative Party members with close links to the party both locally and nationally. In 1985, Clarke received an Order of the British Empire from the Thatcher government and was identified as the ninth highest paid company director in the UK.43

In 1979, the joint managing director wrote to local Conservative MP John Lee (one of the two Conservative MPs sponsored by the National Bedding Federation) concerning ‘the apparent lack of urgency in withdrawing [benefits] payments to the families of strikers . . . the lack of finance available to the families of the moderates would stiffen their resolve to get back to work and influence the militants’.44 Thatcher visited Silentnight in 1982 and was quoted as saying ‘I think you [Clarke] are wonderful. I wish there were a lot more people like you and the kind of people that work for you, pulling together, not apart’, with the Sun headline reporting on the visit describing Clarke as ‘Mr Wonderful’, a tag later used ironically by the strikers.45 Despite this, Silentnight recognised and engaged with FTAT to some extent, allowing release for shop stewards to attend TUC-run courses.46 This fragile compromise did not hold, and ongoing tensions resulted in a 14-day strike in February 1984,

described by Clarke as ‘a test of who ran the factory, management or union’.47 Workers were given an ultimatum of either accepting new piece rates and subsequent pay cuts or facing

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suspension. This led to a mass meeting where a decision to strike was taken through a show-of-hands vote. The dispute led to very rapid union membership recruitment with density rising to around 90% in its aftermath. While the dispute was largely settled in the strikers’ favour, it hardened the attitude of Clarke and management more generally, informing the uncompromising position taken in the later strike.48

The go-slow, walkout and mass dismissalsIn the two years prior to the 1985 strike, Silentnight had three managing directors, four personnel directors, two chief executives and more than 100 changes in supervisory and clerical staff.49 On 8 May 1985, the managing director Michael Malpass was suddenly dismissed; in the months that followed, Silentnight recruited a former Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service official as an advisor, and in May appointed Chris Burnett, a former McKinsey consultant, as the chief executive.50 At the beginning of February, Malpass told the workforce that they would not receive the pay rise agreed through the National Labour Agreement for the industry as the company was struggling financially. Management made a commitment at this meeting that in return for deferring the pay rise there would be no further compulsory redundancies. A total of 88 workers had been made redundant in December 1984 as part of ongoing attempts to squeeze the wage bill. Despite this commitment, on 16 April the firm announced a further 52 redundancies to take effect from mid-May. This announcement led to a work-to-rule coming into force following a secret ballot on 16 May, where 301 voted in favour of action up to and including a strike, and 203 against.51 The ballot did not contain the passage required under the 1984 Trade Union Act warning workers that they would be in breach of contract by going on strike. While reports from the time and comments from interviewees indicated that they understood the risks, this was a notable omission, and the terms of the ballot covered solely the firm’s failure to honour the national pay award. This was in itself problematic; the assumption was that the pay increases in the national agreement would apply to all rates including piece rates, while changes to the agreement in 1982 meant that it only applied to minimum rates. This narrowed the focus of the dispute, allowed the firm to claim that they were implementing the rise to basic rates and kept the question of job losses off the ballot.52

Workers at Sutton voted almost unanimously for strike action, while at Barnoldswick a small majority voted against.53 On 10 June, management threatened to suspend those involved in the go-slow, and a mass meeting was held with a show-of-hands vote to strike if the suspensions went ahead. Within two hours of this meeting 200 workers at Sutton were suspended without pay for taking part in the go-slow.54 Workers at Barnoldswick walked out on receiving this news. The initial strike lasted for six weeks. On 25 July the dismissals took place, with bailiffs hand-delivering ultimatums to strikers ordering them to return to work or be sacked; 346 workers were dismissed for taking part in this initial six-week strike. The strikers felt strongly that the denial of their pay rise and broken commitments over redundancies were motivated by the greed of the company and specifically the family that owned it. Honouring the pay rise would have cost approximately £200,000, in a period when a £646,000 dividend was paid to the Clarke family’s holding company and, conspicuously, managers had been provided with new company cars.55

Estimates of numbers involved vary, but of the 850 production workers in the two factories, only small numbers of union members continued to work during the strike;

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approximately 100 workers quickly took jobs elsewhere when the dispute broke out, and around 10% of production workers at Barnoldswick were non-members.56 These workers, plus supervisors, managers and white-collar staff were the core of those who did not strike. The main group of activists involved in the strike was relatively diverse, including significant numbers of women and South Asian workers; some of the latter group crossed pickets during the initial strike, but several days before the mass dismissals they walked out following contacts between strikers and the local imam, who emphasised theimportance of the dispute leading to this entire group of workers joining the strike.57

By November 1985, 200 replacement workers had been recruited.58 The manage-ment’s position was steadfast, announcing in a press conference that there was ‘no intention’ of reinstating those dismissed.59 Divides between strikers and non-strikers led to huge tensions in the area. Strikers and replacements within divided families were a feature60; some pubs in Barnoldswick were deemed to be ‘scab pubs’61; some workers were transferred to the strike-affected sites from other factories in the Silentnight Group and within the National Bedding Federation62; foremen, chargehands and managers were ‘leant on to get their family members to scab’, and unemployed claimants were threatened with loss of benefits if they did not take jobs as replacements63:

There were brothers, sisters, cousins . . . in the end we wiped it under the table and knew some of them had to go in. However, the ones that crossed the picket line, they’ll never be forgotten, that they were scabs . . . some of the biggest mouths who wanted to go on strike, if we’d voted not to go on strike we wouldn’t have done it, we were democratic.64

Management admitted in January 1986 that not all of the workers dismissed had been replaced ‘and they need close supervision and training’.65 Half of the 40 or so TGWU member drivers employed by the firm supported the strike initially but had largely returned to work by July 1985, with the firm increasingly using independent contractors for deliveries; 21 drivers were suspended by the TGWU for breaking the strike.66 In Sutton, an ex-union convenor was one of the key individuals who worked during the strike; also, one worker who refused to strike had been dismissed earlier in 1985 for throwing a snowball. An unofficial walkout had led to this worker being reinstated within 12 hours, leading to significant anger over his later refusal to strike.67

Workers on long-term sick leave during the initial strike were threatened with losing sick pay if they did not cross picket lines.68 The strikers claimed that replacing the skilled workforce had damaged production quality, with large numbers of beds reportedly returned by retailers and destroyed at the factory.69 Within the factories, the union was effectively derecognised and a non-union Joint Consultative Council was established, largely consisting of management appointees, with a two-year no-strike agreement and an initial pay increase of £6 per week (a similar amount to that refused earlier which ultimately provoked the strike).70 Described by management as a foundation for ‘sensible and harmonious’ industrial relations, this new model of worker ‘representation’ at Silentnight was highlighted in commentaries at the time advocating less adversarial union–management relationships.71 Problems endured within the factories following the strike and dismissals, with short-time working introduced and small numbers of redundancies taking place without meaningful negotiation or consultation over these attempts to foster ‘flexibility’ among the

replacement workforce.72 Reports of safety problems, including a worker who had both feet crushed between rollers and had to be cut

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free by the fire brigade, demonstrate that many of the problems that existed prior to the strike endured during this period.73

Picketing and solidarityAlthough the pickets at both factories were mostly peaceful, examples of police incursions, attacks on strikers by their opponents and some retaliation from strikers and their sympathisers were apparent. Pickets were held at the gates of the two factories and at bus stops in nearby towns where replacement workers were collected, with a heavy police presence protecting them.74 As the strike went on, numerous attacks on strikers took place; FTAT’s regional organiser was attacked by men with sticks following a march and rally in support of the strike in Barnoldswick on 30 November 1985.75

Pickets were attacked by drivers, and groups collecting for the strikers in nearby towns were also attacked.76 A striker who had worked closely with Asian families affected by the dispute received threatening letters containing racist abuse.77 Numerous attacks were made on the strikers’ picket line caravans, with these shelters dismantled and fire-bombed at various points.78 Management provocation of strikers was a feature; Clarke had remonstrated with pickets in Sutton, boasting that ‘if he wanted he could go to his villa and drink cocktails and forget about us any time he liked’.79 These provocations led to some reprisals, including the daubing of the 20-foot-wide slogan ‘SCAB BEDDING FIRM – 500 SACKED’ on the side of the Barnoldswick factory, and some damage to vehicles including a company lorry that caught fire.80 It was alleged that a company lorry was ‘ambushed’ near Keighley by three men in balaclavas who smashed the vehicle’s windows.81 Clarke’s provocative manner towards the strikers led to him being assaulted outside the firm’s showrooms in Salterforth – he had allegedly moved to remonstrate with the strikers ‘but was dropped to the floor with one punch before he could say a word’.82

Policing during the strike was mostly relatively low-key; at Barnoldswick typically one local policeman would be present observing the pickets, but at Sutton policing was heavier, with reports of intimidation with police dogs and both sides pushing against each other. This was explained in part by the police at the Sutton site having been involved in the miners’ strike, unlike those in Barnoldswick, along with the differences in the workforce between the two sites:

[A]t the Barnoldswick factory you had an older workforce, at Sutton you had a younger workforce, and I think they thought ‘we’re not taking any of this shit’, they’d seen it

during theminers’ strike, they all linked arms, police were trying to push them back so they had a bit of a jostle, but it never got really physically nasty.83

Around 20 arrests were made, mostly for public order offences but also for petty infractions such as littering which was then used as a pretext to remove people from the picket lines.84 Accusations of police assaults on pickets were made in associated court cases.85

The police were clearly prepared for more than this relatively low-key involvement, and often ‘had no numbers on their arms, they weren’t police, they were army, in police uniforms’ or were suspected to be members of the notorious Special Patrol Group.86 Quasi-militarised policing was a feature of, inter alia, the miners’, News International and Cammell Laird strikes87; while such forceful approaches were not used during the Silentnight dispute, the police were seemingly prepared to use such methods. The telephones of key figures involved in the strike

were thought to be bugged; strike leaders confirmed this by writing to sympathisers explaining that they would be called about organising a mass picket but to take no action.

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The telephone call would then be made, and on the day the picket was supposedly to take place, large numbers of police would descend on the area in riot vans, despite only small numbers of pickets being present.88

The strikers developed far-reaching networks of support across the country and within the wider labour movement. Networks that had arisen around the miners’ strike were utilised, raising the profile of the dispute and supporting the fundraising efforts that helped sustain the strike:

we became like a business, we went all over the place . . . we didn’t have to go out looking for supporters, they were there . . . people would contact us who had been on strike, or were concerned about the trade union movement, and without that we’d have been finished.89

Sympathisers, including the local Methodist church, donated food and the Silentnight Support Group, mostly made up of strikers’ partners and inspired by the Women Against Pit Closures movement, ran soup kitchens and were crucial in sustaining the strike.90

Miners’ support groups from Barnburgh and Frickley collieries were in close contact with the Sutton strikers and helped with fundraising; trade unionists from Silentnight were active during the miners’ strike, collecting for those out of work.91 Links were established with National Union of Mineworkers stewards from Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottingham-shire and South Wales, with strikers regularly addressing branch meetings.92 Strikers travelled extensively and through political and union meetings, demonstrations and contacts through their support networks established strong links with other striking workers, notably those involved in the News International dispute. Placards on picket lines described Clarke as ‘the Murdoch of the North’93; links between Silentnight’s management, Thatcher and her supporters served to frame the dispute within a wider context of political opposition and mobilisation.

Key groups acknowledged by the strikers for their practical support included numerous constituency Labour Parties; branches, regions and national leaderships of most major unions; numerous Trades Councils and TUC regions; unemployed workers centres and miners support groups; politicians including the MPs Peter Pike, Dennis Skinner and Tony Benn, and the local MEP Michael Hindley; and the journalist Paul Foot, who wrote supportive articles in the Daily Mirror.94 Two major rallies were held, each attracting around 5000 people, one in Barnoldswick on 30 November 1985, with delegations of trade unionists and supporters from across the country including suspended workers from GCHQ, activists from the Greenham Common protest camp, student groups and others, with the MP Dennis Skinner (despite receiving death threats) and others addressing the crowds.95 A second major rally was held in Keighley on 17 May 1986, with Skinner, Derek Hatton, senior FTAT officials, strikers and others addressing the rally.96 A documentary on the strike was shown on Channel 4 in mid-October 1985, and a three-hour debate on the strike was held in the House of Commons on 3 December 1985, along with debates and motions on the strike at Labour and TUC conferences in 1985 and 1986.97 The singer Billy Bragg played a fund-raising concert for the strikers, and a 1200 EP record was made by supporters of the strikers and released through the Red Wedge record label.98

Labour Party activists including supporters of Militant played a key role in supporting the strikers, organising rallies and producing a weekly newsletter, Silentnight Striker.99

The newsletter provided updates on the dispute and solidarity action connected with it;

activists recalled how it was pieced together with typed sections, hand-drawn pictures and cartoons, then produced on an old mimeograph in the home of the local trades council

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chairman, ‘like Samizdat printing’.100 Militant was a far-left entryist group within the Labour Party with relatively high levels of support in the north-west of England at the time, controlling Liverpool City Council in the mid-1980s and with a number of affiliated MPs and influence within some unions and in Labour Party youth groups. Militant was highly critical of union ‘bureaucracy’ and aimed to push the Labour Party leadership to adopt more ostensibly left-wing positions, but by the mid-1980s was under sustained attack from both the Labour Party leadership and the Conservative government. Through its newspapers and the extensive activist networks it could access, Militant helped to raise the profile of the strike; some speeches made by Kinnock in 1985/6 that explicitly attacked Militant also called for support for the Silentnight workers.101

Interviewees commonly recalled that the strikers generally ‘weren’t a militant group, but we all became political animals’.102 The role of Militant supporters in providing advice and support to a relatively inexperienced group of industrial and political activists was highly significant:

it became a regular thing for us, an assignment I suppose, in terms of the Militant, to get inthere and support and give advice and guidance . . . we took advice from other members, sat down with strikers, and talked to them about next steps and making demands.103

The branch chair had been a Conservative voter prior to the strike, and later spoke at a Militant rally at the Albert Hall in 1986, attended by 5000 people.104

Support also came from the anarchist groups Class War and the Direct Action Movement; one prank encouraged by these groups involved supporters sending ‘packages of bricks and shit’ to the company’s Freepost address, which the firm would then have to pay for.105 While this wide-ranging support was generally welcomed by the strikers, it presented some challenges in terms of maintaining control over the dispute and the campaign:

We’d get a lot of anarchists coming and we had to stop them . . . they wanted to put metalspikes under the wagons that would burst the tires, you had to explain that if that bus went into a shop and killed four kids you’d be responsible, they didn’t need to do that.106

These links with radical groups caused some consternation locally; in an editorial entitled ‘Attacking the Fabric’, a local newspaper claimed that Militant and the far-left were ‘secretly’ ‘jumping on the back of the Silentnight dispute’, comparing the situation with the teachers and miners’ strikes and, more hysterically, with the riots in Tottenham, Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth earlier in the decade.107 The simplistic caricature of strikes being controlled by shadowy militants and the far-left108 was evident in these criticisms; the strikers themselves were undoubtedly leading the action, but the links they made with such groups were highly significant in terms of publicising and sustaining the dispute.

International links were made, with delegations from the German woodworkers and El Salvador power workers’ unions visiting pickets in August 1985 and October 1986, respectively.109 Strikers attended the International Federation of Building and Wood Workers congress in Rotterdam in late 1985 where an emergency resolution was passed to support Silentnight strikers; imported raw materials used by the firm included timber from Sweden and coir-fibre from Sri Lanka, and unions in Kenya, West Germany, Sweden, Belgium and Holland committed to black materials bound for Silentnight and to publicise and support solidarity action.110 Union members within the Belgian multinational Bekaert pressurised the firm to stop providing mattress ticking to Silentnight due to the dispute.111

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Workers at ports including Fleetwood, Hull, Hartlepool, Liverpool, Felixstowe and Stranraer blacked Silentnight products and materials bound for the firm to varying degrees.112 Campaigns to persuade retailers to boycott Silentnight products had some limited success; the Cooperative Wholesale Society bought around 30% of their output, and while some local Coop retailers refused to stock the beds, the parent organisation refused to implement a complete boycott despite lobbying from the strikers and the wider labour movement.113 A more comprehensive blacking campaign could have placed even greater pressure on the firm, but maintaining this activity beyond initial commitments was very difficult due to communication problems, limited resources and the economic and legal threats including potential sanctions over taking secondary action faced by dockworkers and others in the period. The process of building support for the strike, including solidarity action at national and international level, was remarkable given the relatively small size of the dispute, its isolated location and the low-profile of the workplaces involved.

The law, the collapse of the strike and its aftermathDespite widespread support, the fundamental issue that led to the strikers’ defeat was the weak legal position they held.114 The case was taken to a tribunal in April 1986 but was rejected due to the court’s inability to rule in such cases under Section 62 of the 1978 Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act. A failed appeal took place in October 1986, removing any lingering hope that strikers would be reinstated. From this point on, the remaining strikers’ aim was to cause as much disruption as possible to the company in the hope of a pay-off. Several attempts at mediation through ACAS took place, in the first few months of the strike, then in March and September 1986, but these failed due to the inability of the firm and the union to agree terms of reference. Silentnight suggested they would consider re-employing some of the strikers if positions became available, but this ambiguous commitment was rejected by FTAT.115 The company had previously made it clear that strikers would not be reinstated and that there would be problems reintegrating them into the replacement workforce.116 The strikers had been assured by the regional officer of FTAT that the company’s threats to dismiss them were meaningless as they would then be liable for unfair dismissal claims. This was accepted by the strikers at the time but subsequently there was a huge amount of anger directed at this official for this legally dubious assertion.117

FTAT’s general executive council withdrew official backing for the strike in November 1986.118 The strikers only learnt of this decision on 15 December, when a journalist contacted them for their reaction. Nine strikers visited the FTAT headquarters on 17 December to confront the executive.119 FTAT wrote to its officials, TUC and GFTU affiliates and constituency Labour Party branches announcing the end of the strike, receiving some condemnation from supporters for their perceived capitulation and the way the strikers received the news.120 Financial pressures and the firm’s uncompromising position were the main reasons for withdrawing support, although alternative explanations abounded at the time.121 Ben Rubner, the general secretary for a 10-year period, retired in September 1986 with Colin Christopher elected as replacement.122 Other officials faced re-election at this time, and it was suspected in some cases that their vocal support for the strike aimed to boost their reputations and profile among the membership.123 Other accusations involved the government’s establishment of a tripartite Economic Development Council for

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the furniture industry, which the union felt unable to participate in as Clarke was the lead industry representative.124 The union reacted to these accusations by commissioning an internal report on the strike, which accused the strike committee of being less than transparent in their accounting procedures regarding money collected.125 The regional officer working full-time with the strikers was dismissed in May 1986 over expense claim irregularities.126 The strikers dismissed the accusations levelled at them, and a former manager at Silentnight criticised the report for its errors and inaccuracies, arguing that FTAT was attempting ‘to whitewash a disaster largely of their own less than honourable making’.127

Following the withdrawal of support, 88 strikers remained on strike unofficially until February 1987, when the picket was withdrawn and the dispute ended.128

The strike had a limited effect on Silentnight as a company; in 1985/1986, the firm suffered losses of £830,000 halfway through the year but recovered to post a profit of £270,000 by the year end – while this compares negatively to the profits of £2.23 million and £5.24 million in the previous two years, the company remained profitable.129

Management and ownership have changed numerous times and the Clarke family no longer own or control the company, which still produces furniture at the Barnoldswick site although the Sutton site was closed in the early 1990s. Following the strike, a number of strikers joined together to set up cooperatives producing furniture but these were ultimately short-lived.130 Finding alternative work was difficult due to high regional unemployment levels. Additionally, there were strong suspicions that many of the strikers were blacklisted; the Economic League had its northern office in Skipton at the time.131 A shop steward recalled being told by a source with access to this office that the blacklisting organisation held information on the key participants in the dispute, and Economic League investigators were identified at meetings and events.132 The strikers interviewed described it as a pivotal event in their lives that broadened their horizons and led to them embarking on careers and activism that they would never have contemplated if they had remained at Silentnight. An archival note from one striker described it as ‘the blackest day of my adult life and I don’t wish to dwell on it’133; however, it was also felt that:

they didn’t really want to go back there . . . they found out what life was like in the big wide world,they got self-respect, they knew they were intelligent and could organise things, they weren’t going to go back and be kicked around, they’d only have been victimised if they had.134

ConclusionThe 1985–1987 Silentnight strike was significant for numerous reasons. The mass dismissal of strikers, although lawful for many years, was rarely deployed by employers. Individual strikers involved in lawfully conducted disputes only gained limited protections against dismissal for breach-of-contract following the electoral defeat of the Conservatives in 1997 and subsequent changes in the law.135 This allowed the mass sackings at Silentnight, News International and elsewhere in the print industry, and the later strikes and dismissals among Magnet workers and Liverpool dockers to be carried out with relative impunity. These disputes are emblematic of the broader process of ‘coercive pacification’ and more general delegitimisation of and attacks on unions in this period.136 The strikers could have done little more to change the ultimate outcome of the dispute, given their extensive solidarity campaigning and determined approach to maintaining pickets at the affected factories for nearly two

years. A stronger blacking campaign might have strengthened their position but the challenges in maintaining this, the legal and

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economic context, and a particularly belligerent company owner who had seemingly internalised the logic of the Conservative government’s stigmatisation of the union movement ultimately presented insurmountable obstacles.

The wider political context is of crucial importance to analyses of past disputes, in terms of both broad shifts within national industrial relations systems and the nature of political mobilisation beyond the parameters of particular strikes. The networks of solidarity that developed around the strike, building on foundations developed during the miners’ strike that preceded it, are also highly significant. Links between the traditional labour movement, left groups beyond these established structures and wider social movements opposed to Thatcherism that were catalysed by the miners’ strike and other contemporaneous social struggles were highly significant.137 The decline of these networks can be ascribed partly due to the general weakening of trade unions and falling levels of political participation. Also, the Labour left was hugely important in sustaining these links, and the purges of these sections of the party during the development of what became New Labour is another reason why solidarity campaigns of this nature are rarely witnessed any more. The strike broadly followed the pattern established in mobilisation theory138; collective interests and injustice relating to pay and management practices were the catalyst for the establishment of union organisation within the plants in question, with these grievances and subsequent mobilisation providing the basis for collective action in the shape of strikes in 1984 and 1985. While the process of organising and the move to collective action occurred very quickly, the weaknesses of these forms of organisation when faced with a legal system offering few protections for strikers, and a hostile employer with close links to a fervently anti-union government, are indicative of the challenges faced by workers and unions in the harsh environment of Britain in the 1980s.

Notes on contributorDr Stephen Mustchin is Lecturer in Employment Studies at Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. His main research interests concern industrial relations, trade unions, the role of the state in employment and conflict at work.

Notes1. Employment Gazette, October, 1985, S46. 2. The Times, September 3, 1986.3. Lyddon, “From Strike Wave to Strike Drought.”4. Detailed interviews lasting 90 minutes on average were held with eight key participants in

the strike including five members of the strike committee and three local labour movement activists closely involved in the strike. Initial contacts were suggested by staff at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, who allowed access to two collections of archival sources (the FTAT archives held in WCML TU/FURND/6/C/15, henceforth WCML 1; and an uncatalogued deposit of materials on the strike, henceforth WCML 2); sources were also collected from the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University (MSS).

5. Lyddon, “From Strike Wave to Strike Drought,” 365. 6. Ibid.7. Trade Union Membership 2011, London: BIS, 2012, 22.8. Howell, Trade Unions and the State, 168; Purcell, “The Rediscovery of the Management

Prerogative.”9. MacInnes, Thatcherism at Work, 126.

10. Evans, “The Use of Injunctions.”

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11. Terry, “How Do We Know?” 176. 12. Hyman, Strikes, 199.13. Flanders, Management and Unions, 172; Kelly, Ethical Socialism, 135; and Smith, “Order in

British Industrial Relations,” 148.14. Elgar and Simpson “The Impact of the Law.” 15. Lyddon, “From Strike Wave to Strike Drought.” 16. Towers, “Running the Gauntlet.”17. Napier, “Strikes and the Law of Unfair Dismissal.” 18. Denham, “Unfair Dismissal Law.”19. Ewing, “Industrial Action.”20. Denham, ‘Unfair dismissal law’. These figures are conservative estimates as numbers

dismissed were not reported in 25 of the 83 cases analysed.21. Bain, “The 1986–7 News International Dispute”; Denham, “Unfair Dismissal Law”; and

Lyddon, “From Strike Wave to Strike Drought,” 347.22. Lyddon, “From Strike Wave to Strike Drought,” 347; McBride, Stirling and Winter,

“‘Because We Were Living It’.”23. FTAT 9th Biennial Conference Report, June 13–17, 1988 (WCML 1). 24. Ewing, “Rights and Immunities.”25. McIlroy, “Unfinished Business.”26. Bassett, Strike Free, 148–9; Terry, “How Do We Know?” 176.27. Massey and Wainwright, “Beyond the Coalfields”; Winterton and Winterton, Coal, Crisis

and Conflict, 237–9.28. Darlington, “Agitator ‘Theory’ of Strikes Re-evaluated.”29. Office of National Statistics, JOBS03 Employee Jobs by Industry (UK totals),

http://www.ons. gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery¼%22manufactureþ ‘ofþ furniture%22 (accessed February 26, 2014).

30. Best, “Sector Strategies and Industrial Policy”; FTAT Beneath the Veneer. 31. Reid, The Furniture Makers.32. Waddington, Kahmann, and Hoffmann, A Comparison of the Trade Union Merger Process, 95–8. 33. Northwest Business Monthly, January 1988; 7Days, November 20, 1985.34. Undated document listing firms linked to the Clarke family (WCML 2); Interview, former

shop steward, Sutton.35. Financial Times, February 4, 1985. 36. Financial Times, August 31, 1985. 37. Financial Times, February 4, 1985. 38. Ibid.39. Interview, former branch chair.40. Interview, former convenor, Sutton; interview, former shop steward, Sutton.41. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, May 5, 1978; The Forming of the Union at Silentnight,

undated account (WCML 2).42. Hansard HC Debate, December 3, 1985, Vol. 88 CC210-52, ‘Silentnight PLC’. 43. “More Pay Rises for Rich Directors,” Labour Research, October 1985.44. Letter from K. Murray, Silentnight, to John Lee MP, May 19, 1979 (WCML 2). 45. Guardian, November 29, 1985.46. Letter from R.F. Styles, personnel director at Silentnight, to Colin Christopher of FTAT, May

17, 1984. “Shop Stewards Training” (WCML 2).47. Craven Herald and Pioneer, February 24, 1984. 48. Interview, former union branch chair.49. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, December 23, 1985.50. Financial Times, June 19, 1985; Craven Herald and Pioneer, May 13, 1985. 51. Guardian, July 29, 1987; The Times, October 16, 1985.52. Guardian, July 29, 1987.53. Interview, former union branch chair. 54. Guardian, July 29, 1987.55. Hansard HC Debate, December 3, 1985, Vol. 88, CC210-52, “Silentnight PLC’;

Barnoldswick and Earby Times, April 11, 1986.

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56. Interview, former convenor, Sutton. 57. Interview, former union branch chair.58. Hansard HC Debate, December 3, 1985, Vol. 88, CC210-52, ‘Silentnight PLC’. 59. Craven Herald and Pioneer, November 21, 1985.60. Interview, former shop steward, Barnoldswick. 61. Tribune, March 3, 1986.62. Interview, Labour activist.63. Interview, former shop steward, Sutton. 64. Interview, former convenor, Sutton.65. Tribune, March 3, 1986.66. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, July 1, 1985; Silentnight Striker, Issue 3, October 14, 1985

(all issues in WCML 2); and Guardian, July 29, 1987.67. Interview, former convenor, Sutton.68. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, December 23, 1985. 69. Silentnight Striker, Issue 29, June 16, 1986.70. FTAT Record, February 1986.71. Guardian, December 12, 1985; Bassett, Strike Free, 148–9.72. Militant, December 5, 1986; Lancashire Evening Telegraph, March 14, 1986. 73. Silentnight Striker, Issue 40, October 13, 1986.74. Craven Herald and Pioneer, October 11, 1985.75. Hansard HC Debate, December 3, 1985, Vol. 88, CC210-52, “Silentnight PLC”.76. Craven Herald and Pioneer, June 6, 1986; Hansard HC Debate, December 3, 1985, Vol. 88,

CC210-52, “Silentnight PLC”.77. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, December 23, 1985.78. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, August 12, 1985; Silentnight Striker Issue 18, March 10,

1986; and Craven Herald and Pioneer, July 18, 1986.79. Craven Herald and Pioneer, June 27, 1986.80. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, October 1, 1985; interview, former convenor, Sutton. 81. Hansard November 6, 1985, “Silentnight (Industrial Dispute)”, HC Debate.82.

10th Anniversary Reunion Saturday 10 June 1995. By Ourselves and some of our supporters (10th Anniversary event – pamphlet) (WCML 2); Interview, former shop steward, Barnoldswick.

83. Interview, Labour activist.84. Hansard HC Debate, October 30, 1985; Hansard HC Debate, December 3, 1985, Vol. 88,

CC210-52, “Silentnight PLC”; and Silentnight Striker, Issue 30, June 23, 1986.85. Craven Herald and Pioneer, March 7, 1986. 86. Interview, former branch chair.87. Mustchin, “From Workplace Occupation to Mass Imprisonment.” 88. Ibid.89. Interview, former shop steward, Barnoldswick.90. Socialist Action pamphlet, Support Silentnight Strikers (WCML 1).91. Winterton and Winterton, Coal, Crisis and Conflict, 238; Interview, former convenor, Sutton. 92. Interview, former shop steward, Sutton.93. From a personal collection of photographs shared by a former shop steward, Barnoldswick. 94. 10th Anniversary Reunion Saturday 10 June 1995. By Ourselves and some of our supporters

(10th Anniversary event – pamphlet) (WCML 2); FTAT correspondence with Silentnight supporters (MSS292E/253.147/2 Box E96).

95. Guardian, November 29, 1985; FTAT GEC minutes, December 18–19, 1985 (WCML 1). 96. Silentnight Striker, Issue 26, May 26, 1986 (WCML 2).97. Hansard HC Debate, December 3, 1985, Vol. 88, CC210-52, “Silentnight PLC”; The Times,

October 1, 1986.98. Gee, Charlie – A Working Class Hero, 2010, http://libcom.org/history/working-class-hero-

charlie-gee (accessed June 23, 2014).99. Interview, Labour activists (2).

100. Ibid.101. The Times, September 3, 1986. 102. Interview, former convenor, Sutton.

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103. Ibid.104. Interview, former branch chair.105. Class War, 1986: “Silentnight, Violent Night, Get the Scabs, and Kick Them to Shite!”; and

DAM-IWA Direct Action 36, January–February 1987 (WCML 2).106. Interview, former convenor, Sutton.107. Craven Herald and Pioneer, October 11, 1985.108. Darlington, “Agitator “Theory” of Strikes Re-evaluated.”109. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, August 20, 1985; Silentnight Striker, Issue 40, October 13,

1986.110. FTAT Record, January 1986 (WCML 1).111. Silentnight Striker, Issue 10, December 9, 1985.112. Financial Times, December 28, 1985; Silentnight Striker, Issue 13, January 27, 1986. 113. FTAT Record, July 1986 (WCML 1).114. FTAT 9th Biennial Conference Report, June 13–17, 1988 (WCML 1),115. Lancashire Evening Telegraph, July 24, 1985; Financial Times, August 3, 1985, September

12, 1986; and Ghulam and Others v ABF Ltd (Silentnight Division), Employment Appeal Tribunal, March 4, 1987, Official Transcripts (1980–1989).

116. Yorkshire Post, May 30, 1986; and Craven Herald and Pioneer, March 7, 1986. 117. Craven Herald and Pioneer, March 27, 1987.118. FTAT GEC minutes, November 21, 1986 (WCML 1). 119. News Line, April 1, 1987.120. December 19, 1986 – Letter to GEC members, FTOs and BSs, TUC and GFTU affiliates,

Associations of Trades Councils, CLPs, “Silentnight Bedding PLC – Dispute,” from Colin Christopher (MSS292E/253.147/2 Box E96); Barnoldswick Branch Labour Party – Letter from Jim Tate to Colin Christopher January 29, 1987 (WCML 2).

121. Cabinet Maker, January 9, 1987.122. Financial Times, September 12, 1986. 123. Interview, Labour activist.124. Letter from B. Rubner to N. Willis, TUC, October 4, 1985; Letter from B. Rubner to J.

Pilditch, chairman, EDC for the furniture industry, October 4, 1985 (MSS292E/253.147/2 Box E96).

125. Silentnight Bedding PLC – Dispute. General Executive Council’s Report to the 9th Biennial conference of FTAT, June 1988 (WCML 2).

126. Interview, former branch chair.127. Craven Herald and Pioneer, July 1, 1988. 128. Financial Times, December 19, 1986. 129. Ibid., May 8, 1986.130. Craven Herald and Pioneer, April 10, 2009. 131. Hughes, Spies at Work.132. Interview, Labour activists (2); interview, former shop steward, Sutton. 133. Note on file with Stott, “The Silentnight Strike 1985–1987” (WCML 2). 134. Interview, Labour activists (2).135. McIlroy, “Unfinished Business.”136. Hyman, Strikes, 199; Smith, “Order in British Industrial Relations.”137. Massey and Wainwright, “Beyond the Coalfields”; Winterton and Winterton, Coal, Crisis

and Conflict; and Darlington, “Agitator ‘Theory’ of Strikes Re-evaluated.”138. Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations.

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