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In the Transport and General Workers Union, you're on your own. They didn't know about management skills or training. Almost immediately the largest group of workers for whom I was responsible had come out on strike. "I didn't know what I was doing, I had nobody to talk to, no-one to stand in the corner and have a tantrum with!"
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My role models were Amy Johnson and Martin Luther King. I had black and white pictures on my wall of Amy Johnson the pilot. "I didn't know much about her background, and I didn't even perceive her as a woman holding her own in a man's world. I saw her as daring and brave, and prepared. Amy deserved a big bit of applause really".
Martin Luther King
was important: "Because of his pride; not taking it laying down, but also not showing off; just proper. He had no-one to stand up for him, and yet he remained proud and proper in those circumstances and at no time did he lose it." If you're proud on the inside the degradation can't hurt you.
Her third role model is quite contemporary, as Dagenham is currently in the West End as a musical, although the equal pay deal of 1968 has yet to be implemented. Forty years on!
The Women's Sewing Machinists at Fords Dagenham are another role model. In 1968 their strike launched the battle for equal pay, against the car giant, when it was still legal to have separate and lower pay rates for women. So the women machinists making seat covers at Ford's Dagenham plant earned 92% of the pay of men who swept floors, and 80% of the earnings of semi-skilled men. Industrial action by the women brought production to a halt.
Although the women had launched the battle for equal pay, Ford managed to adjust the grading of the workers in such a way as to keep the status quo. Later, when the EU set up equal value, the women again challenged in the courts, winning a successful claim for equal pay for work of equal value. Again, the grading of jobs effectively minimized their efforts.
In the face of not a great deal of support, they thought, "this is bloody unfair" and stuck to their guns. In fact they had to challenge it twice as a result of the European Union making another claim possible : the concept of equal value.
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The most memorable event in my career was the period with the Unions, 20 years. "Because of what I achieved, the people I met, the opportunities, the ups and downs, and in between the travel." Previously she'd been involved in the Law Centre East Dulwich. She had been working with a group of friends for over 30 years; supportive, who helped one another, and socialised. "However, in June 1983 Marie Paterson, one of the top union officials, decided to leave office and since the Union had so few women, I applied. So to be a national officer, promoted without training, was amazing. I was astonished by my meteoric rise, scrambling about, TUC General Council and Madrid. Wonderful years, 20 wonderful years".
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My worst moment was when we had little money, making Xmas decorations. Tinsel everywhere and still in the carpet the following July. To be so hard up. It's so depressing. Unable to feel joyful about life. Others could afford things, and I couldn't tell the children why we couldn't afford things. I like to be positive and energetic and get on with life. What kept me going was my kids. Hold on to them.
The most learning I had was when my husband was suddenly in a wheel chair and we were very young. We were poor, but we were the deserving poor. I was involved with the Community Development Project, campaigning to get Southwark to open a day centre for young people with disabilities, because he was young, we both were young, and they only had day care for geriatrics.
It makes me smile, but the community development people asked me to come in and cover at lunch time, because I knew so much about entitlement and benefits; and they paid me £4 a week, that was the most they could pay me without me losing benefits. There I was, working with people with university degrees, and me from a housing estate. I've always been from a housing estate.
Alan Davis said, "Margaret, the success of that project is down to you." But it was a shocking eye-opener. There were children thrown out of school, housing estates due to be pulled down, dysfunctional families.
I had lived on housing estates, but I had never realised that people like that existed.
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Advice for young people starting out. Allan Leighton, Chairman of Royal Mail Group said, "You must always do what you see to be the right thing". Margaret added, "when you close your eyes at night, to be true to what I think is right!"
"Hard work. Yes, you get your stroke of luck, but you must work it all out. Hard, hard work, make your own luck. You can have all the luck in the world, but you must step up to the plate."
Finally like Martin Luther King, you must have confidence in yourself.
She tells the story that recently she went to a retirement at Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) office, where there were many members from around the country. From inside her current world she said that she saw all the people there as "white and old".
"Daily," she said, "I work with young keen people of all colours, many Muslims and Bahá'í. The TGWU are becoming more irrelevant, they are not reflecting the population. But herself, by being at the cutting edge, she has a more relevant and exciting map of the world. May it be a long time before she even thinks about retirement.
©2008christrainers at One London.
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©2014 Christina.ionthecity.com
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