Notoriously Militant: The Story of a Union Branch

In 1946, after a series of stormy strikes and a mass occupation at Ford's plant in Dagenham, Essex, thousands of workers came together in a new branch of the Transport and General Workers Union. Later, in the early 1980s, a band of dedicated workplace activists brought branch 1/1107 to explosive life with support for working-class causes from equal opportunities to the stunningly effective boycott of parts for South Africa.

Notoriously Militant, which takes as its title a tabloid journalist's verdict on the branch, covers the history of Ford's Dagenham plant - and its roots in Henry Ford's early US activities - from 20th-century shop-floor struggles to the 21st-century fight against plant closure. Based on original research and oral history, Notoriously Militant offers a primer for activists and analysts on the confrontation between worker militancy and the rigours of "Fordism".

This book is a lively popular history looking at

• Working-class history as made daily by so-called "ordinary" workers
• Crucial questions of direct democracy and membership participation which can offer highly relevant lessons for today's activists and strategists
• Links between basic workplace struggles and - potentially - revolutionary conflict
• The pressures towards "co-operation" between union and management - and the consequences
• The interweaving of gender and ethnicity issues with the class-based structures of a major industrial workplace.

More than a history of structures - a lively popular history!

- Publisher's description