Movie «Made In Dagenham»: A 1968 strike led to equal pay for women

They set out to fight for a fair deal for themselves; they ended up changing the world of work for generations of women.

The 2010 movie “Made in Dagenham”, the story of the Ford female machinists whose 1968 strike paved the way for legislation on equal pay.

When women machinists at Ford’s Dagenham factory downed tools in 1968 in protest at the fact that they were classed as unskilled workers, while male colleagues doing the same job were thought to be skilled and paid much more for their efforts, they couldn’t have imagined the ramifications.

The three-week strike brought production at the factory – which was the focus of the UK car industry at the time – to a standstill, and the dispute was resolved only when Barbara Castle [then employment minister] was brought in to negotiate a settlement.

The Ford machinists went back to work after agreeing to be paid 92 per cent of male machinists’ wages, and the strike speeded up the introduction of the Equal Pay Act of 1970, which made it illegal to have different pay scales for men and women.

At the time the practice of women being paid less than men for the same jobs was widespread – a tradition that hasn’t entirely died out. In 2010 women working full time in Britain still earn on average 16.4 per cent less per hour than men working full time.

Director: Nigel Cole
Writer: William Ivory
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Andrea Riseborough