Imperial Typewriters Strike

Imperial Typewriters, Leicester

On May Day 1974 300 employees of four Leicester factories, including Imperial Typewriters, went on strike. While workers at three of these factories returned to work soon afterwards, those at Imperial Typewriters remained on strike, their numbers growing to over 500. The majority of these strikers were South Asian. Many of them were Ugandan, following the 1972 expulsion, and around half were South Asian women, dispelling the myth of docility and passivity that was typically imposed on them at the time.

The dispute was originally centred around limited promotion opportunities and unpaid bonuses although over time it focused on discrimination against racialized workers, too. Strikers also protested against the Transport and General Workers' Union's lack of support for the strike, which made negotiations between the factory management and the workers very difficult. Support for the strikers came from members of the community and the Birmingham Anti-Racist Committee, among other political organizations, while the National Front were actively hostile to them. The Race Relations Board made a visit to the factory to investigate workers' conditions but the strikers did not have faith in their impartiality and the Board's only criticism of management was the lack of an equal opportunities policy.

Some of the strikers were sacked by the end of July, while others returned to work having won a number of concessions. The factory, owned by the American company Litton Industries, closed soon afterwards. Arguably, it helped to pave the way for the much longer Grunwick strike of 1976 in which South Asian workers did find backing from unions.