Fakenham Enterprises was a women's worker co-operative in Fakenham, Norfolk, which formed following an 18-week occupation protest and work-in in a Sexton's shoe factory that began in March 1972.
Sexton's shoe factory occupation
editSexton, Son & Everard was a women's shoe manufacturer that had started operations in Norfolk in the late 1800s.[1] It went into recievership at the end of February 1972,[2] and was sold to a Florida-based developer on the condition that over half its workforce would be fired.[1] It was announced that 800 jobs would be lost across its two factories in Norwich and Fakenham,[2] which meant the closure of the Sexton factory in Fakenham and the immediate unemployment of the 45 women working there. The Fakenham factory had largely been dedicated to sewing uppers - the leather parts above a shoe's sole - together.[1]
In response, the National Union of the Footwear, Leather and Allied Trades (NUFLAT) and the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs (ASTMS) arranged a meeting, and it was decided that the workers would occupy the main factory in Norwich in protest. However, days later, NUFLAT had negotiated a deal with a local property developer in which 500 of the 800 jobs in the Norwich factory would be saved, thus calling off the original plans for a protest. The deal did not include the sattelite factory based in Fakenham, at which the workforce was all women; complaints were made by the Fakenham workforce that the two unions had not consulted them through the negotiation process.[2]
Inspired by the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in that had begun in early 1971 and against the advice of both unions,[2] 20 of the Sexton workers from the Fakenham workforce, led by their supervisor Nancy McGrath as well as Eileen English, barricaded themselves inside the closed Fakenham factory on 17 March 1972, using heavy machinery to block the doors and setting up makeshift beds.[1]
The women remained in the factory for the next 18 weeks.[1][2] They were able to turn away the engineer who had come to turn off the power,[1] and began to work.[1] Edna Roach, one of the women at the factory, recognised that there were few jobs in the area for women, and that leather work was the only manufacturing skill many of the women had. As the protest continued, the women were able to expand their skillsets from sewing together shoe uppers to crafting waistcoats, skirts, dresses, and bags. Individual women were encouraged to craft the garments from start to finish rather than working in an assembly line, and at their own pace.[1]
The protest took place at the outset of a wave of 260 factory occupations across Britain.[2]
Aftermath
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h Ingram, Emily (4 April 2022). "The Fakenham Work-In at 50". Tribune (magazine). Retrieved 28 February 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f Moss, Jonathan (4 April 2019). Women, workplace protest and political identity in England, 1968-85. Manchester University Press. doi:10.7765/9781526124890. ISBN 978-1-5261-2489-0.