Jayaben Desai

Jayaben Desai was born in the north-western Indian coastal state of Gujarat in 1933, and later moved to East Africa. She married Suryakant Desai in 1955, a manager at a tire factory in Tanganyika, a former British colony in East Africa. The East African Asians primarily made up the merchant classes and lived a prosperous life. After the country gained independence in 1961, policies promoting "Africanisation" led to the expulsion of African Asians, causing many to seek refuge in Britain.

Upon arrival in the UK, Jayaben found work initially as a sewing machinist in a Harlesden sweatshop, and later at the Grunwick photo processing factory in Willesden. The majority of Grunwick workers were Indians of mainly Gujarati origin who had also fled East Africa and despite the fact they were highly educated and experienced, were forced to accept low-paid factory or office work.

Grunwick, like many other firms, took advantage of this. The management favoured employing female immigrants, correctly calculating that such women had little choice but to put up with low wages. Workers at Grunwick were paid around £28, whereas the national average wage at the time was £78 and a female manual worker in London received £44 a week. A Grunwick striker explained: "Imagine how humiliating it was for us, particularly for older women, to be working and to overhear the employer saying to a younger, English girl 'you don't want to come and work here, love, we won't be able to pay the sort of wages that'll keep you here' – while we had to work there because we were trapped."

Grunwick workers protest – Courtesy: Brent Museum & Archives

On the 7 November 1977, 8,000 people arrived at the picket line to protest. The police response was described as “brutal”. Two-hundred and forty-three protesters were treated for injuries, 12 had broken bones and 113 were arrested. The dispute was called off on 14th July 1978. None of the 130 or so workers who had been sacked during the strike was reinstated and no trade union was allowed in Grunwick.

Despite the lack of resolution, the Grunwick Strike is considered important in raising the profile of South Asian workers and for challenging the public prejudices of South Asian women as docile, submissive, difficult to unionise and exploitable cheap labour.

Jayaben Desai speaking at rally, Courtesy: Mayor of London **(Click Here - view footage about the strikes)**

A protest began in August 1976, led by Mrs Desai, whose son claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed from the factory. Mrs Desai resigned after a dispute with the management about overtime. In her parting speech, Mrs Desai accused the management of running a zoo, not a factory. After consulting her family and other colleagues she then picketed the plant, asking other workers to sign a petition demanding trade union recognition. Other workers followed her example and joined the picket lines outside the plant. Those who joined the strike were sacked. Throughout the course of the strike, participants claimed they were subjected to intimidation and violence both by management and the police.

The strikers had the support of other workers, including those at Kodak who blocked photographic supplies to the factory and postal workers, who refused to cross the picket line, severely disrupting Grunwick’s mail-order service. Mail order work could only be brought in by moving port to port and eventually by flying it into small airfields. The strikers also had the support of miners, who were shocked by the level of violence in the dispute.