Industrial relations

Industrial Relations in the Hosiery Industry

Many people remember relations with the employers as being good. Although trade union membership grew during WW1, the inter-war depression saw a fall in membership, and in some small companies there was no union presence at all. The most famous dispute of this period was the Bedaux strike at Wolsey. Workers objected to the implementation of a time and motion study. With union support, 2,000 women and 1,000 men from other factories joined the strike for eight weeks between December 1931 and February 1932.

• The introduction of the Bedaux system
• The effect of the Bedaux system
• Being on strike
• A brief history of Wolsey
• the BBCi Legacies exhibition, which uses some of the above meaterial

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Victorious Wolsey hosiery workers outside De Monfort Hall following the ending of the strike in February 1932. With thanks to Ned Newitt.