#grunwick strike

“What you are running here is not a factory, it is a zoo. But in a zoo there are many types of animals. Some are monkeys who dance on your fingertips, others are lions who can bite your head off. We are the lions, Mr Manager.”

The ‘strikers in saris’ fought back against racism and changed the labour movement

You are invited to the first comprehensive exhibition about the Grunwick strike that shook industrial relations 40 years ago, the resonances of which live on today. Before punk hit the headlines in 1976, a group of Asian women were leading a strike that obsessed the media, made the police and government go on the offensive and changed the heart of the trade union movement. With unseen photographs, archival material, recently released special branch reports, huge banners, including the original Grunwick strike banner inspired by Russian Constructivism, posters, artworks, soundtracks and films, the story of the Grunwick strike that lasted two years in a backstreet of London and changed the face of Britain comes alive in an exhibition that unravels the complex politics about power, empire, immigrant / migrant workers, class, race and gender. It will be great to see you there. Exhibition 19 Oct 2016  - 26 March 2017. Mon-Fri 9am-8pm| Sat-Sun 10am-5pm Brent Museum, The Library at Willesden Green, 95 High Road, London NW10 2SF "We are the lions" curated by Poulomi Desai, Artistic Director - Usurp Art www.usurp.org.uk

Grunwick Strike 1976-78 

The Grunwick dispute was an industrial dispute involving trade union recognition at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in Willesden, 

Grunwick dispute became a cause célèbre of trade unionism and labour relations law, and "at its height involved thousands of Trade Unionists and police in confrontations

 The mostly female, immigrant, East African Asian strikers – dubbed "strikers in saris" by the news media – were led by Jayaben Desai, whose membership of the union was later suspended following her hunger strike outside the Trades Union Congress (TUC) headquarters in November 1977.