For a long period during the 1970s Ed Emery worked a political activist around the Ford Motor Company’s plant in Dagenham, Essex, as part of the Ford Workers’ Group. He was involved in setting up the national Ford Workers’ Combine, and in that capacity he printed bulletins, leaflets etc. During that period he was a member of Big Flame, and coordinated with worker activists in the BF network. He was also involved in ongoing workers’ inquiry projects in the motor industry, which resulted in printed publications.This activity created a large body of unique printed material, which has now been donated to the May Day Rooms archive.
The collection comprises agitational ephemera, workers’ bulletins, news clippings, and other materials from workers’ struggles at the Ford Motor Company between 1968 and the mid-1980s, with which Ed Emery was involved as an activist. It is probably the most complete set of documents in the country of these important antagonisms in the automobile industry, giving insights into recent developments in capitalist production, class composition, and industrial action in a time of de-industrialisation from the perspective of workers, strikers, and organisers. The collection, which includes materials from across the UK, focuses heavily on materials produced by workers and agitators at Ford’s Dagenham plant, with most of the material arising from the 1970s. During this time, the strikes at Ford were a leading edge in the battles of the working class, from the oil crisis to the Winter of Discontent. Meanwhile, these local struggles were brought into relation with international workers fighting in the car manufacturing, especially in Italy.
We have also digitised a slideshow that Ed made in 1978, in collaboration with Terry Dennett/The Worker Photographer, about the campaigns at Ford. A list of the contents of the archive, is publicly available, and is being continually updated.
For general research inquiries, Ed can be contacted at: ed.emery.soas@gmail.com
View Ed Emery Ford Struggles Collection on Catalogue View digitisations on Leftove.rs