THESE were the days when industrial strife was common in the motor industry.

Hardly a week seemed to pass without a dispute, or the effects of one or more, disrupting production at the Cowley car factories.

This picture was taken in November 1973 as trade unionists crossed Magdalen Bridge in Oxford during a protest march from St Clement’s to St Giles.

Sir John Donaldson, President of the National Industrial Relations Court, had fined the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) £75,000 and ordered £100,000 of its assets to be seized for contempt of an order to halt strike action at a factory in Surrey.

The Oxford march was part of a nationwide one-day strike in protest at the penalties.

AUEW members, led by their Oxford district secretary Malcolm Young, were joined by colleagues from other unions.

As the column of marchers passed a shop in High Street, some of them were drenched by water thrown from an upstairs window.

The Cowley car assembly plant was at a standstill all day because 12,000 other workers, mainly members of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, were advised not to cross the engineers’ picket lines.

The strike action cost many workers a day’s pay – and cost the company about 1,400 cars.

Mr Young, who addressed a rally in St Giles at the end of the march, described the response to the strike call in Oxford as “generally overwhelming”.

He said: “I sense more feeling of support for this strike because members can see how they could be affected.”

He said the only ‘blackpot’ in Oxford had been the factory of W Lucy and Co in Walton Well Road, where some members had gone to work.

Nationally, it was estimated that 100,000 workers had taken part in the strike, with the car industry worst hit.

Apart from Oxford, British Leyland workers were idle in Birmingham and Solihull. The day’s production losses for the company were put at 3,300 vehicles worth £3,750,000.

It wasn’t the last time that Cowley – and the car industry in general – would be hit by strikes, walkouts and other protests. Industrial unrest continued well into the 1980s.



Memory Lane this week