Indian Workers' Association (post-1950)

The Indian Workers’ Associations (IWAs) that were formed in the 1950s named themselves after the interwar IWA and some, like the Birmingham branch, traced this clearly as a legacy in their publicity materials.

Compared with the ‘intellectual’ and student membership of this earlier IWA, the IWAs of the 1950s mainly consisted of those who had moved to Britain as a result of post-war migration and engaged in industrial labour.

The three most significant IWAs in Britain were IWA Coventry, founded in 1953, IWA Birmingham, founded in 1956, and IWA Southall, founded in 1957. These three IWAs had the largest branch memberships, each reaching into the thousands. The central, national IWA GB was formed after a conference of local IWAs held in September 1958. At this conference, local IWAs became branches of IWA GB, which was based in Birmingham and, to begin with, shared its leadership with the Birmingham branch.

IWA GB and its branches were workers’ rights organizations that sought to connect Indian workers at the local and national levels, to organize collectively in workplace disputes and issues in housing, education and healthcare. Their initial purpose (in the 1950s) was to help Indian migrant workers in dealing with workplace disputes, as British trade unions often refused to support strikes in cases that only impacted racialized workers.

As Indian migrant communities began to develop, IWAs also took on a number of other issues, helping their local communities deal with problems with housing, language skills, lack of social activities and education for their children.

Please follow this link for information on the predecessor organization: Indian Workers’ Association (pre-1950).