Coming of Age : 1976 and the Road to Anti-Racism

This was happening not to me alone, this is how it worked.
HP: And how was it working at Woolf’s rubber factory?
VS: Most people coming from villages were not used to working in industry and it was difficult
in the beginning for them to adapt to the new environment. There was the problem of
language for many, and colleagues who knew English would interpret from charge-hand and
foreman. We, with the Irish, Polish, few West Indians, were in the smelly jobs, burning rubber,
and so on. White people were in the white- collar jobs like transport or admin. Immigrants
were concentrated in production. [Woolf’s made rubber accessories and the process used
carbon black and sulphur which made the work smelly and unpleasant. A sixty-hour week was
considered normal and pay so low that most men did overtime, taking their week to some
seventy-five hours over seven days. (1)
There was no union in the factory for a very long time and people thought, because of the
appalling conditions and very low wages, we must form one. Some of the people [Sharma
himself] already had trade union activity in India so it was not difficult for them to realise that
till we formed a union, our interests would not be protected nor could we compel management
to accept our conditions. So, the first meeting for this purpose was held on 1 May 1957
in the community center. But the management resisted and sacked one or two workers who
wanted the union. [Attempts were made in 1958 and again in 1960 to establish a union.] But
then in 1963, we in the Indian Workers’ Association brought in the Transport Workers’ union
and tried to get everyone to join, but secretly, going house to house in the community, so
management could not know the people who were actively behind this. After two, three,
months majority of the workers in production department had become members of the union
and then the matter was handed over to union officials to negotiate with factory management.
HP: When did the Indian Workers’ Association form, then?
VS: The first Indian Workers’ Association was formed in the UK in late 1930s, but with hardly
any branches, perhaps London, Manchester, Huddersfield and Coventry. Southall people
were first members of the London branch, but Southall branch had its inaugural meeting on
3 March 1957 at the community centre and I think there were about 200 members. They
had then no separate office but met at the community centre. IWA was set up for three
main purposes: as a platform to make people realise they were no longer farmers but now
workers – hence Indian Workers’ Association. (It was not a separate ethnic union, it was also
encouraging its members to join a union to protect their rights.) Second, most of the people
found difficulties in approaching doctors, going to hospitals, or solicitors to buy houses and
such things, so IWA provided a free service, for example of interpreters to people in need.
The third purpose was to organise a campaign against the overwhelming racial prejudice and
discrimination we faced: IWA gave a lead.
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