Women’s Activism Behind the Screens: Trade Unions and Gender Inequality in the British Film and Television Industries 9781529206302

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WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS TR ADE U NIONS AND GENDER INEQUALIT Y IN THE B RITISH FILM AND TELE VISION INDUS TRIE S FR A N CE S G A LT

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS Trade Unions and Gender Inequality in the British Film and Television Industries Frances C. Galt

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Bristol University Press University of Bristol 1–​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 e: bup-​[email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk © Bristol University Press 2021 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-5292-0629-6 hardcover ISBN 978-1-5292-0631-9 ePub ISBN 978-1-5292-0630-2 ePdf The right of Frances C. Galt to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design: Liam Roberts Front cover image: Bettmann /​ Getty Bristol University Press uses environmentally responsible print partners. Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents List of Figures List of Acronyms Acknowledgements

iv v vii

Introduction 1 Women and the ACT, 1933–​59 2 Catalysts for Change, 1960–​75 3 ‘Regrettably Up-​to-​Date’, 1975–​81 4 Remarkable Political Gains? The 1980s 5 Women and BECTU, 1991–​2017 Conclusion

1 27 63 103 141 173 197

References Index

207 231

iii

List of Figures 1.1 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1

Cartoon depicting ACT organizers Bessie Bond and Harry Middleton organizing the film laboratories. Front cover of Film and Television Technician (November 1972) featuring a female camera operator. Announcement of Sarah Benton’s appointment as Patterns researcher. Front cover of the ACTT’s seminal report on gender discrimination, Patterns of Discrimination (1975). Women activists at the ACTT’s first Women’s Conference in 1981. An audience of women union activists at the ACTT’s 1987 Women’s Conference.

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57 75 91 105 135 159

List of Acronyms ABS ACT ACTT BBC BECTU BETA BFI BUFVC COE CTBF ETU FAN FTT GEC ITV LWFG NATE NATKE NATTKE NCCL NEC NFWW NUJ RPD TGWU

Association of Broadcasting Staff Association of Cine-Technicians Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians British Broadcasting Corporation Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance British Film Institute British Universities Film and Video Council Committee on Equality Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund Electrical Trade Union Feminist Archive North Film and Television Technician General Equality Committee Independent Television London Women’s Film Group National Association of Theatrical Employees National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees National Association of Theatrical, Television and Kine Employees National Council for Civil Liberties National Executive Committee National Federation of Women Workers National Union of Journalists Regional Production Division Transport and General Workers’ Union

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TUC UAW WBFL WFTVN WTUL

Trades Union Congress United Auto Workers Women’s Broadcasting and Film Lobby Women’s Film, Television and Video Network Women’s Trade Union League

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Acknowledgements There are many people I would like to thank for their help in writing this book. Firstly, I would like to thank Sarah Boston, Sarah Benton, Adele Winston and Christine Bond for their participation in this project –​ thank you for so generously sharing your memories with me. Thanks also to the women who have shared their stories with the ‘History of Women in the British Film and Television Industries’ project and the British Entertainment History Project. Your words were invaluable to my research and I hope I have done them justice. I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my research as part of the ‘History of Women in the British Film and Television Industries: 1933–​1989’ project (2014–​17). Special thanks go to the project team –​my supervisors, Vicky Ball and Melanie Bell, for their guidance, encouragement and expertise, and Sue Bradley, for stimulating discussions on oral history. Thanks to the Cinema and Television History Research Institute at De Montfort University for providing a supportive research environment. I am so grateful to have been part of such a welcoming doctoral research community, and would especially like to thank Jennifer Voss, Kieran Sellars and Kieran Foster for their friendship throughout. Thank you to Heather Savigny, Catherine Rottenberg and Vicky Long for their advice and guidance, and to the reviewers for their feedback. Thank you to Stephen Wenham and Caroline Astley at Bristol University Press and Helen Flitton at Newgen Publishing UK for their support and patience throughout the publication process. For facilitating access to archival material and existing oral history interviews, I  would like to thank:  Tracey Hunt, BECTU’s Administrative Officer; Mike Dick, Sue Malden and Elaine Burrows, from the British Entertainment History Project; and Al Garthwaite, from Feminist Archive North. I would like to express my appreciation for the staff at the British Film Institute’s Reuben Library, Special Collections at the University of Leeds, The Women’s Library at the

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London School of Economics, and the National Library of Scotland for their assistance during my visits. Thanks also to Ann Jones and Andrew Dawson for recommending and sharing material which has been of great use to my research. I would like to thank Tracey Hunt, Kate Elliott and Andrew Dawson for facilitating contact with my interview participants. I wish to express my immense gratitude for my amazing support network, without which I may never have finished the book! I thank my parents, Catrin Galt and Bryan Burke, for their enduring support of my academic endeavours, for their invaluable advice and words of comfort, and for their patience. I would also like to express my gratitude to my grandparents, Vaughan and Myra Galt, for all the advice-​filled lunches during which they shared their knowledge and experience of academia with me, and for generously reading drafts of my work. Thank you to my brother, Cameron Galt, for his wit and his kindness, for his excellent television recommendations and for his company. Thanks also to my cat, Elliott, for ensuring that I was never sitting down too long. I am eternally grateful to my partner, James Ferns, for his unwavering belief in my capabilities. Thank you for being my steadfast sounding board, for your interest in this research, for challenging my arguments and providing new insights, for ensuring that I am well fed, for providing me with endless cups of tea (even when I don’t drink them), and, most of all, for your emotional support. Sections of Chapters 1, 3 and 4 have been published in an earlier article that appeared as ‘ “Regrettably Up-​to-​Date”: The Patterns of Discrimination against Women in the Film and Television Industries Report (1975) in Historical Context’, in Ball, Vicky, and Porter, Laraine (eds) Special Issue of Feminist Media Histories, ‘Gender Discrimination in the Creative Industries’ 4(4) (2018).

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Introduction Gender inequality in the film and television industries, particularly in Hollywood, currently dominates mainstream conversation. From the 2014 Sony email leak –​which revealed that Jennifer Lawrence received a considerably lower rate of pay for her role in American Hustle (Director David O. Russell, 2013) than her male co-​stars –​to the 2017 allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Harvey Weinstein, women have illuminated and challenged wage inequality, gender discrimination and the endemic nature of sexual harassment in the film and television industries through campaigns such as Time’s Up and the #MeToo movement. In the context of British broadcasting, a gender pay gap at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was disclosed when the Corporation published a list of its highest earners in July 2017, which revealed that its female stars made up only one-​ third of the BBC’s 96 highest earners (Ruddick, 2017). A subsequent review of BBC staff found that, on average, men earned 9.3% more than women workers at the BBC (Ruddick and Grierson, 2017). Within a climate of mounting frustration around pay inequity, Carrie Gracie, BBC’s China Editor, resigned in January 2018 because she could no longer ‘collude’ in wage discrimination (BBC News, 2018). In a landmark case, BBC presenter Samira Ahmed brought the first equal pay claim against the BBC to employment tribunal in October 2019. Discussions about the role and relevance of trade union organization have also been gathering pace. In relation to the British labour movement, opinion pieces have proclaimed that women’s trade union membership is vital to the continued relevance of trade unions, with titles declaring: ‘With women at the forefront, the unions are relevant again’ (Holmes, 2017) and ‘Working class women in the UK were the unsung heroes of 2016 –​here are four of their major victories’ (Houghton, 2016). In a Guardian opinion piece, Rachel Holmes (2017) concluded: ‘Today equal pay and the gender pay gap are increasingly

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at the forefront of trade union campaigning’. In the Independent, GMB organizer Nadine Houghton (2016) evoked a history of women’s union militancy as a call to arms for current women union members: Women workers have a long and proud history of organising against injustice and now more than ever we need a strategy for winning, one that is based on unleashing our collective strength. Let’s look to the sisters that have gone before us to learn what we need and move forward into the struggle ahead. The development of women’s history as a field of academic enquiry in the 1970s was propelled by activists in the women’s liberation movement who were ‘acutely aware of the importance of understanding women’s past for potential women’s activism’ (Holloway, 2005: 1). This book aims to contribute to important discussions on gender inequality in the present-​day film and television industries and labour movement through a historical analysis of women workers and their trade union in the British film and television industries from 1933 to 2017. In doing so, it seeks to build a body of evidence which could support current stakeholders to effect change. This book concentrates on the three iterations of the technicians’ union:  the Association of Cine-​Technicians (ACT) (1933–​ 56), the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) (1956–​91), and the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) (1991–​2017). There are three key reasons for this focus. Firstly, the ACTT operated as a pre-​ entry closed shop from the Second World War to its amalgamation with the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance (BETA) in 1991 to form BECTU. The pre-​entry closed shop regulated employment in the British film and television industries, as union membership was essential to the attainment of the necessary production skills for entrance to and career progression within the film and television industries (Reid, 2008: 50, 153). From 1991, BECTU acted as the primary union for the entertainment industries, with its membership ranging from the film and television industries to theatre and cinemas. Secondly, the ACTT’s Committee on Equality (COE), established in 1973, produced a seminal report on gender discrimination in the workplace, Patterns of Discrimination Against Women in the Film and Television Industries, published in 1975. The Patterns report quantified women workers’ experiences of discrimination in the industries and union, analysed the structures and attitudes which facilitated gender

2

Introduction

inequality, and outlined an extensive list of recommendations for collective bargaining. Thirdly, the surviving material on the ACT(T)/​ BECTU, while incomplete and fragmented, offered the most coherent narrative on women workers and trade unions in the British film and television industries. This book has two key objectives. Firstly, to identify discrepancies between the union’s official policies regarding gender equality and ‘women’s issues’ and the experiences of women working in the film and television industries. Secondly, to identify and explore the nature and experiential dimensions of women’s participation in the union and the factors which both enabled and inhibited their participation. This analysis is underpinned by three central themes: the operation of a gendered union structure, women’s activism and the relationship between class and gender in the labour movement. These themes are informed by existing scholarship within the fields of women’s labour history, women’s industrial relations literature and women’s film and television history.

Women’s labour history Women’s experiences of trade union activity have traditionally been obscured from labour history by gendered archiving practices; for instance, the surviving sources typically belong to organizations and, as Anna Davin explains, ‘well-​paid workers are more likely to be in organisations, women are rarely regular or well-​paid workers’ (Davin, 1981: 176). Feminist labour historians have sought to rectify women workers’ absence from the field by illuminating women’s experiences of trade union activity and their contribution to the labour movement. Scholarship on women’s labour history has taken four distinct directions: (i) longitudinal studies of women’s participation in the British labour movement; (ii) the examination of women’s labour organizations and trade union representation during the formative years of the British trade union movement from the 1870s to 1914; (iii) an analysis of specific women-​led industrial disputes in Britain during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s; and (iv) case studies of the relationship between women workers and individual trade unions in the American labour movement. Longitudinal studies charting women’s union participation within the British labour movement were the first significant contribution to women’s labour history and have remained key texts within the field. Sheila Lewenhak’s Women and Trade Unions: An Outline History of Women in the British Trade Union Movement (1977) and Sarah Boston’s

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Women Workers and the Trade Unions (2015), first published in 1980, provide a valuable foundation of knowledge on women workers in the British labour movement; in particular, Boston’s work has been praised as a seminal text on women’s trade union history (Davis, 2011b). These longitudinal studies address trends in the unionization of women workers, women-​led industrial disputes, campaigns on women’s issues, the role of prominent individuals, and the policies of individual unions and their collective representative, the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Lewenhak provides an extensive overview of women’s labour organization from the Anglo-​Saxons to the 1960s, although she primarily concentrates on the period between 1815 and the Second World War, whereas Boston’s revised edition surveys women’s union participation from the first consistent attempts to organize women workers in the 1870s to the fortieth anniversary of the Equal Pay Act in 2010. In doing so, these studies reveal continuity and change in trade union policy towards women workers and women’s participation in the British labour movement. Both scholars illustrate the structural exclusion of women workers from the British labour movement and consider how their exclusion was maintained by trade union policy and challenged by women’s activism. These longitudinal studies offer a valuable overview, providing a foundation on which subsequent scholars have built an in-​depth analysis of women and trade unions in Britain. Women’s labour organizations and trade union representation from the 1870s to 1914 has dominated the British historiography on women’s trade unionism. The literature has analysed the activity of the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) and the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW) (Thom, 1986; Holloway, 2011; Hunt, 2011a, 2011b), the representation of women workers in the General Union of Textile Workers (GUTW) (Bornat, 1986) and the 1888 Bryant and May matchwomen strike (Raw, 2011, 2013). Furthermore, contributions in Davis’ edited collection (2011a) primarily focus on women’s trade union participation before 1920. A  similar trend is evident in the American historiography on women’s trade unionism which has also concentrated on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as indicated by Ava Baron and Ruth Milkman’s edited collections, Work Engendered:  Towards a New History of American Labor (Baron, 1993) and Women, Work and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women’s Labor History (Milkman, 1991) respectively. This period has received special academic attention within the British historiography for two reasons. Firstly, the forms of organization adopted by the WTUL and NFWW were unique to the period. The

4

Introduction

WTUL worked to facilitate the establishment of women’s trade unions and the organization of women workers into existing unions, as well as representing women workers’ interests on parliamentary committees (Holloway, 2011: 141–​2). Women’s unions could also affiliate to the WTUL, with 60 unions choosing to do so during the 1890s (Boston, 2015: 35). The NFWW was later formed by the WTUL in 1906 as a general women’s union to organize and represent women workers who were excluded from their industry’s trade unions. The NFWW proved to be effective in unionizing predominantly unskilled women workers and unorganized workplaces, typically recruiting members during industrial disputes by supporting their strikes (Holloway, 2011: 144). However, Deborah Thom (1986) and Gerry Holloway (2011) have argued that the middle-​class ideologies of the WTUL and NFWW’s leaderships inhibited the participation of women workers in these organizations. For instance, Thom (1986: 262) contended that the organizational practices and principles of Mary Macarthur and Julia Varley, leaders of the WTUL and NFWW, ‘put a brake on the women who applied to join unions, ran strikes and entered the labour market’. Similarly, Holloway (2011: 133) has advanced that ‘some of the problems of the organizing women in trade unions were sown in its very early years because of the over-​focus of gender issues over class issues in the minds of the organizers of the movement’. In both organizations ‘working-​class women were absent from decision-​making’ (Holloway, 2011: 136). In 1921 both organizations were disbanded: the WTUL was dissolved by the TUC at its Annual Conference and replaced by a new General Council committee, the Women Workers’ Group, and the NFWW merged with the National Union of General Workers (NUGW). Secondly, 1880–​1914 was a time of increased militancy which ‘witnessed the rise of a mass labour movement’ in Britain (Davis, 2009: 110). The period between 1888 and 1918, referred to as New Unionism, saw the adoption of new organizational strategies and the establishment of new unions which increased trade union membership ‘at a faster rate than at any time in their history’, particularly among unskilled workers (Davis, 2009: 115). Between 1888 and 1914 more women were joining trade unions, with women’s membership rising from 50,000 in 1888 to 432,000 in 1913 (Davis, 2009: 117). 1914 has been identified as a ‘watershed year’ in the historiography, as the outbreak of the First World War altered the role of trade unions and increased demand for women workers (Bornat, 1986:  228). Thom (1986: 281) has indicated that the war led to the demise of women’s labour organizations as it ‘severely restricted the field of operations of

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women’s unions and helped to institutionalize a position for women in trade unions that presumed their inadequacies in the labour market and in self-​organization’. As such, this literature has focused on a unique period of militancy within the British labour movement and a short-​ lived method of organizing women workers which did not survive far beyond the end of the First World War. Since approximately 2009, an emerging body of scholarship has analysed women-​led industrial disputes from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, including:  the 1968 Ford sewing machinists’ strike (Cohen, 2012; Moss, 2015; Stevenson, 2016a); the 1970 Leeds’ clothing workers’ strike (Leicester, 2009); the night cleaners’ campaign in the early 1970s (Stevenson, 2016a); the 1976 Trico equal pay strike (Stevenson, 2016a; 2016b); the 1976–​78 Grunwick Film Processing Laboratory strike (McDowell, Anitha and Pearson, 2014; Stevenson, 2016a); local authority strikes during the Winter of Discontent between 1978 and 1979 (Martin, 2009; Martin López, 2014), and the seven-​month Lee Jeans factory occupation in 1981 (Clark, 2013). As with the scholarship examining women’s trade union participation between the 1870s and 1914, this literature has focused on a unique period of women’s militancy within the British labour movement. The 1970s have infamously been associated with heightened industrial action. During the decade the number of days lost to strike action per annum rose dramatically, numbering close to 24  million in 1972, which was approximately ten times the amount of days lost in the mid-​1960s (Black and Pemberton, 2013:  8). Furthermore, workplaces such as the Ford Dagenham plant were renowned for their militancy, and the women’s claim for an upgrade was one of a multitude of grading grievances (Cohen, 2012: 52–​3). From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, the women’s liberation movement campaigned for greater gender equality, which increased the visibility of gender discrimination in the workplace, and addressed issues such as equal pay, childcare provision, maternity leave and the limited opportunities for career progression available to women workers. There was a proliferation of women-​led industrial action throughout this period around demands including equal pay, re-​g rading and trade union recognition. This literature has made two key contributions to the field of women’s labour history. It firstly challenges orthodox interpretations of celebrated women-​led strikes, such as the 1968 Ford sewing-​ machinist strike, and secondly illustrates the significance of those strikes overlooked in the narrative around women’s militancy from the 1960s to 1980s, such as the 1976 Trico equal pay strike, which

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Introduction

George Stevenson (2016b) referred to as ‘The Forgotten Strike’ in his article on the dispute. Scholarship challenging orthodox interpretations of celebrated strikes has centred on three disputes: the 1968 Ford sewing machinist strike (Cohen, 2012; Moss, 2015), the 1976–​78 Grunwick Film Processing Laboratory strike (McDowell, Anitha and Pearson, 2014), and local authority strikes during the Winter of Discontent between 1978 and 1979 (Martin, 2009; Martin López, 2014). These historians utilized oral history testimonies from women strikers to provide an insight into the experiences of women which contradicted established narratives. Oral history is a valuable methodology for women’s labour historians as it facilitates access to women’s experiences which are obscured in traditional historical documents and prioritizes women’s voices. To take the 1968 Ford sewing machinist strike as an example, Sheila Cohen has challenged pre-​existing historical narratives in her re-​evaluation of the dispute, as she contends that the classification of the dispute as an equal pay strike has obscured its wider relevance within women’s labour history and has ‘eliminate[d]‌the class content of this confrontation with capital’ (Cohen, 2012: 65). Cohen argues that the dispute was defined as an equal pay strike by all parties except the women workers themselves, who consistently perceived the strike as a grading grievance around their demand for an upgrade from B to C grade in recognition of their skill. The dispute was appropriated as an equal pay strike by an alliance of the trade union bureaucracy, Ford management and government. The union leadership was convinced that the equal pay demand would have a greater chance of success, while both the Ford management and Secretary of State for Employment Barbara Castle sought to bring an end to the dispute (Cohen, 2012: 58–​9). Cohen’s re-​evaluation reveals that women’s interests continued to be marginalized within the British labour movement, despite a narrative which focused on gender equality. George Stevenson (2016b), Liz Leicester (2009) and Andy Clark (2013) have incorporated the 1976 Trico equal pay strike, 1970 Leeds’ clothing workers’ strike, and 1981 Lee Jeans factory occupation, respectively, into the historiography’s established timeline on women-​led industrial action. In his analysis of the Trico equal pay strike, Stevenson provides two explanations for its absence from the historiography. Firstly, he argues that the periodization of both feminist and labour historiography has placed the strike outside of two key ‘strike waves’ of the period: the first a ‘women’s “strike wave” over equal pay, low pay, and poor conditions’ between 1968 and 1974, and the second ‘a growing awareness of the significance of race’ from the 1976–​78

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Grunwick strike (Stevenson, 2016b:  142). Stevenson (2016b:  143) therefore contends that the Trico strike is situated in a ‘historiographical grey area of the mid-​1970s’. Secondly, he argues that the success of the Trico strike problematizes the narrative of defeat associated with the late 1970s, which has presented the period as a moment of crisis within the labour movement and fragmentation within the women’s liberation movement (Stevenson, 2016b: 143). Stevenson’s analysis of the ‘forgotten’ Trico strike illustrates women’s militancy in the face of opposition from their unions, the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) and the General and Municipal Workers’ Union (GMWU), and apathy from their male colleagues. Scholarship on women-​led disputes during the 1960s to 1980s has concentrated on women’s activism during moments of heightened militancy, such as strikes and occupations, and so overlooks the day-​to-​day experiences of women’s trade union organization. This book contributes a longitudinal case study of the relationship between women and the ACT(T)/BECTU to the Br itish historiography on women’s trade union participation. As demonstrated, existing scholarship has disproportionately analysed the relationship between women workers and trade unions in unique periods of women’s union activism: firstly, within women’s organizations in the formative years of the trade union movement between the 1870s and 1914, and, secondly, during women-​led industrial disputes in the 1960s to 1980s. This book eschews this approach to analyse the relationship between women and the ACT(T)/​BECTU through periods of both militancy and inertia. The framework of this research was inspired by Nancy Gabin’s contribution to American women’s labour history, Feminism in the Labor Movement:  Women and the United Auto Workers, 1935–​1975 (1990), which provides a longitudinal case study on the relationship between women and the United Auto Workers (UAW). In many regards, the history of the UAW reflects that of the ACTT. While the UAW was a large union representing blue-​collar workers in the American auto industry and the ACTT was a small craft union representing workers in the British film and television industries, both the UAW and ACTT were male-​orientated unions in male-​dominated industries with a small proportion of female members, and both were praised for their progressive position on gender equality. In her analysis, Gabin considers three themes: the gendered structure and operation of the UAW, women’s agency within the union, and the influence of class on women’s activism. This book mobilizes Gabin’s themes as critical

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Introduction

touchstones in its analysis of women and trade unions in the British film and television industries.

Industrial relations scholarship Feminist contributions to industrial relations scholarship, a field which examines the relationship between employers and trade unions, has provided a valuable framework for the analysis of gendered union structures and women’s union activism. From the 1980s, feminist scholars have sought to incorporate an analysis of gender into industrial relations literature, which had previously been overlooked in the field. This feminist intervention was prompted by the increased significance of gender within the trade union movement from the 1980s onwards, as union revitalization strategies focused on the organization and participation of women workers. The union movement’s ‘reassessment of [its] traditional modus operandi’ was the result of diminishing trade union membership caused by economic restructuring, which witnessed the decline of highly unionized heavy industries and the rise of a poorly unionized service sector, as well as the feminization of the labour market (Kirton, 2006: 11). Feminist industrial relations literature has considered:  the key influences on women joining trade unions (Healy and Kirton, 2012; Kirton, 2005); the activity of equality representatives (Moore, Wright and Conley, 2011; Moore and Wright, 2012); the gendered bias of the trade union agenda (Briskin and McDermott, 1993; Cunnison and Stageman, 1995; Kirton, 2006; Kirton and Healy, 1999; Munro, 1999); and women’s separate self-​ organization (Briskin 1993, 2014; Briskin and McDermott, 1993; Colgan and Ledwith, 2000, 2002; Healy and Kirton, 2000; Heery and Kelly, 1988; Kirton, 2006; Kirton and Healy, 2004; Ledwith, 2012). To do so, these scholars conducted case studies within British trade unions, including:  UNISON, the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU), Manufacturing Science and Finance (MSF), Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU), National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE). In its analysis of the ACT(T)/​BECTU’s gendered union structure, this book draws upon sociologist scholar Anne Munro’s thesis that: there operates an institutional mobilization of bias which sets a trade union ‘agenda’ and which excludes a number of issues which are specific to women workers. This agenda

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not only serves to limit the articulation and representation of women’s interests within unions, but also to direct women’s activity away from collective organization in unions. (Munro, 1999: 1) According to Munro, this trade union agenda developed within a ‘particular historical context’ characterized by the ‘dominance of male, skilled, full-​time, white manufacturing workers’, and as the result of a ‘dynamic process … shaped by, but also [shaping], the expectations and demands of members’ which ensured that the agenda was ‘reflected and reproduced by all actors within the union movement, including those members whose interests are excluded’ (Munro, 1999: 3, 197). Therefore, Munro argues that both structural and cultural factors informed the development and maintenance of gendered union structures. Women’s separate self-​organization, which included women’s committees, women’s conferences and women-​only training courses, was a key strategy adopted by women trade union activists to advance their demands within the gendered union structure. Women’s industrial relations scholars have argued that separate self-​organization offers women activists a safe and resourced space within the union structure to develop self-​confidence, activist skills, political consciousness and a collective identity (Briskin 1993, 2014; Briskin and McDermott, 1993; Colgan and Ledwith, 2000, 2002; Healy and Kirton, 2000; Heery and Kelly, 1988; Kirton, 2006; Kirton and Healy, 2004; Ledwith, 2012). These autonomous spaces also provided women with an essential voice to advance their gender-​specific demands and formulate policy. Within the ACTT, this strategy was mobilized from the establishment of the Committee on Equality in 1973, and so women’s separate self-​organization is one of the main forms of women’s activism under examination throughout this book.

Women’s film and television history Feminist film and television scholarship emerged in the 1970s and primarily adopted a ‘cine-​psychoanalysis approach’ which concentrated on women’s onscreen representation and gendered spectatorship (Ball and Bell, 2013a: 548). In comparison, women’s role in film and television production has been relatively under-​researched; however, since the mid-​1990s there has been a growing body of literature on women’s work in the film and television industries. As with women’s labour history, women’s film and television history has sought to

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Introduction

illuminate women’s contribution to film and television production, which has traditionally been obscured within film and television history. The following section traces the development of the field to illustrate the analytical trends of the existing literature and identify the gaps and absences. Women’s film history initially concentrated on women’s contribution to the silent film industry in the United States, as exemplified by the Women’s Film Pioneers Project and the Women and the Silent Screen conference series, first held at Utrecht University in 1999 (Armatage, 2008). The Women’s Film Pioneers Project (Gaines, Vatsal and Dall’Asta, 2013) is an ever-​expanding database of women workers in the silent film industry, including directors, producers, editors, scenario writers, costume designers and exhibitors. The silent film industry has been at the centre of analysis because ‘more women worked at all levels inside and outside the Hollywood film industry in the first two decades than at any time since’ (Gaines, Vatsal and Dall’Asta, 2013). Alternatively, women’s work in British sound cinema has been ‘relatively under-​researched’, while their contribution to independent television is ‘virtually uncharted territory’ (Ball and Bell, 2013a: 550). The only longitudinal study to have been produced on women’s work in the British film industry during the sound era is Sue Harper’s Women in British Cinema: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (2000). Harper analyses the work of women producers, directors, writers, costume designers, art directors and editors from the 1930s to the 1980s to illuminate their contribution to cinema and highlight the barriers to their career progression. Harper (2000: 4) concentrated on the more visible roles performed by women workers in both creative and technical grades (above and below the line) because, she argued, their work was more accessible and so would produce a ‘coherent linear narrative’. Thus, many below-​the-​line roles dominated by women were excluded from her survey, including continuity supervisors and secretaries. In the last decade, women’s film and television history has expanded with a body of scholarship which builds a picture of women’s work in sound cinema and television. The establishment of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-​funded Women’s Film and Television History Network –​UK/​Ireland in 2009 and the biennial Doing Women’s Film and Television History conference, first held at the University of Sunderland in 2012, has increased the visibility of research on women’s work in the film and television industries. Two edited collections showcase the growing body of research which addresses a diverse range of above-​and below-​the-​line roles performed by women workers and the methodological approaches adopted by

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women’s film and television historians. Firstly, Vicky Ball and Melanie Bell’s Special Issue of the Journal of British Cinema and Television, ‘Women at Work in the Film and Television Industries’ (2013b), brought together articles which addressed British production cultures, gendered career pathways, the available routes for women’s career progression, and the creative agency of women workers. Secondly, Christine Gledhill and Julia Knight’s edited collection, Doing Women’s Film History:  Reframing Cinemas, Past and Future (2015a), assembles case studies on women’s work in cinema internationally and considers methodological approaches to uncover women’s work, which often remains undocumented and uncredited. Alongside these edited collections, Erin Hill (2016) and Kate Murphy (2016) have also intervened in women’s film and television history to expand the focus of the scholarship. Erin Hill’s Never Done: A History of Women’s Work in Media Production focused on clerical workers in Hollywood studios, who have been obscured from historical accounts of women’s work in the film industry because they were part of the studio overhead rather than individual productions (Hill, 2016:  9). Hill illustrates the centrality of women clerical workers to the smooth functioning of Hollywood’s production process, and the gendered nature of clerical work; for instance, secretaries ‘looked after the personal lives and emotional needs of executives and major creative personnel’, pointing to the emotional labour performed by women workers (Hill, 2016: 4). In her analysis of women at the BBC during the interwar years, Kate Murphy (2016) also considers women working in clerical, secretarial and technical roles, as well as women who held prominent positions within the BBC, including Mary Somerville and Hilda Matheson. Women’s film and television history has sought to illuminate the structures within the film and television industries which confined women to gendered career pathways, to illustrate the contribution women have made to film and television production, and to analyse women’s day-​to-​day experiences of work. Two AHRC-​funded projects illustrate the ongoing expansion of women’s film and television history and point to the future direction of the field. Melanie Bell and Vicky Ball’s ‘A History of Women in the British Film and Television Industries:  1933–​1989’ (2014–​17) studies the history of women’s work in the British film and television industries to further expand upon the roles examined within the scholarship. Through an analysis of trade union records (including ACTT membership forms), archival documents and 25 new oral history interviews, the project considers the roles performed by women workers, their gendered career trajectories and women’s experiences

12

Introduction

of work in the film and television industries. Studying women’s film and television production roles through trade union records is a unique feature of this project. Outputs of the project currently include a database of digitized ACTT membership forms and oral history interviews hosted by the British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC) and two edited collections from the third Doing Women’s Film and Television History conference in 2016 which explore women’s work in the media industries –​Vicky Ball and Laraine Porter’s Special Issue of Feminist Media Histories, ‘Gendered Patterns of Discrimination in the Creative Industries’ (2018), and Ball, Porter and Pat Kirkham’s Special Issue of Women’s History Review, ‘Structures of Feeling: Contemporary Research in Women’s Film and Broadcasting History’ (2020). Shelley Cobb and Linda Ruth Williams’ ‘Calling the Shots:  Women and Contemporary Film Culture in the UK, 2000–​2015’ (2014–​18) provides a contemporary counterpart to Bell and Ball’s project in its analysis of women’s work in film production between 2000 and 2015. This book emerges from research conducted by the author as an AHRC-​funded PhD student on Bell and Ball’s ‘History of Women in Film and Television’ project. It contributes to women’s film and television history by illustrating the ways in which the union shaped women’s experiences of work in the British film and television industries. Existing scholarship on trade unionism in the British film and television industries and women in the ACTT was predominantly published during the 1970s and 1980s. This scholarship has taken two forms: (i) a historical analysis of the establishment and formative years of the ACT, which has privileged male experiences and was primarily produced by male historians (Chanan, 1976; Jones, 1987); and (ii) an examination of women’s position in the ACTT during the 1970s and 1980s, undertaken by feminist film and television scholars (Johnston, 1975; Skirrow, 1981; Loach, 1987). This literature emerged within the context of both heightened militancy in the British labour movement and increased feminist activism within the British film and television industries. Inspired by the politics of the women’s liberation movement, women’s campaigns emerged to demand greater gender equality within the British film and television industries, including the lobby groups Women in Media, established in 1970, and the Women’s Broadcasting and Film Lobby (WBFL), founded in 1979. Women film and television technicians also sought alternative methods of production, including the formation of all-​women film collectives, such as the London Women’s Film Group. In the late 1970s and early 1980s debates about the future of television further stimulated women’s activism. These

13

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

debates emerged around the proposed introduction of a new fourth channel, the arrival of breakfast television and the re-​allocation of the ITV franchises (Honeyford, 1980; Baehr, 1981; Skirrow, 1981; Gallagher, 1987; Loach, 1987; Antcliff, 2005). The scholarship on the ACTT thus contributed to prevalent discussions in the 1970s and 1980s on trade union militancy and women workers’ position in the film and television industries. Michael Chanan (1976: v) argued that the ‘history of the conditions of labour and trade union struggle’ is one of the ‘many neglected areas of study’ of the British film industry, and so sought to develop a labour history of its unionization in the 1920s and 1930s. Chanan, Stephen Jones (1987), Rachael Low (1997) and, more recently, Tobias Hochscherf (2011) have outlined the incentives for unionization in the film and television industries, including long hours and low wages intensified by quotas for film production, technological changes accompanying the introduction of sound, management’s push for compartmentalized and controlled film production in the studio system, and hostility towards the employment of foreign technicians. However, beyond a brief acknowledgement of the ACTT’s commitment to equal pay from its establishment, these historians have overlooked the relationship between women and the ACT in the union’s formative years. The only insight into women’s activism between 1933 and 1959 is offered by the ACTT’s self-​published history, Action! Fifty Years in the Life of a Union (1983), which includes profiles of women activists Kay Mander, Bessie Bond, Margaret Thomson and Monica Toye. Claire Johnston (1975), Gillian Skirrow (1981) and Loretta Loach’s (1987) contributions to scholarship on labour relations in the film and television industries reveal feminist academic engagement with the ACTT during the height of its activity on women’s issues in the 1970s and 1980s. Their analysis primarily concentrates on the Patterns report and the implementation of its recommendations. As with the women’s labour historiography, this literature comments on the gendered structure of and women’s activism within both the ACTT and the film and television industries. Johnston, Skirrow and Loach provide valuable criticisms of the ACTT’s attitudes towards women workers in this period and a nuanced analysis of women’s union activism. In recent years there has been a renewed interest in labour relations in the British film and television industries. Andrew Dawson and Sean P. Holmes’ documentary, Women in West London Film Laboratories, 1960–​2000 (2016), examines women’s workplace experience in the Denham film laboratory, including the gendered segregation of jobs and the limited opportunities for career progression for women workers.

14

Introduction

Dawson and Holmes address women’s activity in the ACTT during the 1970s and 1980s to argue that class differences between leading women activists and women workers in the film laboratories led to the marginalization of laboratory women in the union’s campaign for gender equality. According to Dawson and Holmes, these class differences manifested in disparate ideas about which issues should be prioritized and conflicting attitudes towards the necessary strategy to conduct these campaigns. This book builds upon the diffuse academic engagement with labour relations in the film and television industries to develop a women’s labour history of the ACT(T)/​BECTU.

Methodology To gain an insight into women’s experiences of trade union participation, women’s labour historians have adopted a methodological approach which combines an examination of a diverse range of archival sources with an analysis of oral history testimonies, including pre-​ existing interviews and new interviews conducted with women union activists and their descendants. Sherry J. Katz (2010: 90) has termed this methodological approach ‘researching around our subjects’, which involves ‘working outward in concentric circles of related sources’ to reconstruct women’s experiences. For Katz (2010: 90), her starting point was a ‘small number of manuscript collections and oral histories of [her] subjects’, from which she expanded her search to include socialist movement newspapers, ephemera from feminist, labour and social campaigns, government documents, and local, state and national press. Gendered archiving practices of film and television have similarly obscured women’s contribution to production and overlooked texts primarily created for female audiences. Christine Gledhill and Julia Knight (2015b:  4) have observed that ‘many women have left few historical traces’ within the surviving sources traditionally analysed by film historians. This, in part, is a result of the value placed on women’s work, as their contribution to production has been ‘obscured by more publicly visible or self-​promotional male partners or concealed behind collective or collaborative practices’ (Gledhill and Knight, 2015b: 4). Gledhill and Knight (2015b: 6–​7) contend that women’s film history challenges traditional film historiography, both through the different sources analysed (including gossip and novelistic representations of cinema-​going) and the production practices under examination (including partnerships, co-​creation and experimental multimedia work). Similarly, Erin Hill (2016:  10–​11) observed that surviving material on women’s work in Hollywood was often preserved in

15

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

documents related to ‘an important actor, writer, director, producer, or film text’, and so she sought out her ‘subjects in peripheral ephemera documents and in the footnotes and margins of other people’s history’. To do so, Hill (2016: 11) examined studio maps, memoirs, biographical accounts, studio newsletters, oral histories, and anecdotes in letters. Therefore, feminist film and television historians have also had to ‘work outwards’ from traditional archive sources to gain an insight into women’s contribution to media production. This book combines an analysis of archival material and oral history testimony to examine the relationship between women and trade unions in the British film and television industries, in line with feminist research practices. This book focuses on the three iterations of the technicians’ union –​the ACT (1933–​56), ACTT (1956–​91) and BECTU (1991–​2017) –​because the available material offers the most robust information on women’s experiences of trade union activity in the British film and television industries, both in terms of the volume of material that has survived and its accessibility to researchers. However, other unions have represented the workforce of the British film and television industries, including: the Association of Broadcasting Staff (ABS), which represented BBC employees between 1945 and 1984; the National Association of Theatrical, Television and Kine Employees (NATTKE),1 which organized theatre workers alongside film and television technicians between 1890 and 1984; and the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance from 1984, which was the result of an amalgamation of ABS and NATTKE (BECTU, nd). In its focus on the ACTT, this book inevitably obscures the experiences of women in the industries’ other trade unions; for instance, NATTKE represented a number of grades which were historically female-​dominated, such as wardrobe and make-​up (Ball and Bell, 2013a: 554), which are not considered. Furthermore, the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), black and disabled women activists were virtually inaccessible through the available archival material, which is indicative of their marginalization within the internal women’s movement of the ACTT. This has resulted in omissions regarding the experiences of these activists. Research on women and the ACT(T) between 1933 and 1991 was conducted between 2014 and 2018 as part of a PhD project connected to Bell and Ball’s ‘History of Women in Film and Television’ project, and further research was conducted in 2018–​19 on

1

Formerly, the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees (NATKE), renamed in 1970 to reflect its representation of television workers (BECTU, nd).

16

Introduction

women and BECTU between 1991 and 2017 to bring this research up to date.

Archival sources This book draws upon archival material from the union’s journal, annual reports, and COE meeting minutes, correspondence and general ephemera. The union’s journal –​The Cine-​Technician (1935–​ 56), Film and Television Technician (1957–​91), FTT & BETA News (1991–​92) and Stage Screen and Radio (1992–​present) –​are the only extant sources available throughout the union’s history, and so provided a logical starting point for this research. These journals were accessed via the British Film Institute (BFI) and National Library of Scotland. The journals were the official mouthpiece of the union and its main method of communication with its membership; as such, the journals indicate the central priorities of the union leadership. Through the journals it was possible to establish a timeline of the relationship between women and the ACT(T)/​BECTU, which provided an outline of the development of union policy and practice towards women workers and recorded the emergence of women’s activism on gender inequality within the union. However, the journal favours ‘official’ union activity, such as office holding, committee membership and moving motions, which overlooks the alternative sites of women’s activism beyond the male-​dominated union structure (Kirton, 2006). ACTT annual reports, held by the BFI, and reports from BECTU’s National Executive Committee (NEC), available online from 1998 to 2009, provided supporting evidence with details of policies proposed at annual conferences, lists of union officials and committee members, and reports from union committees. Furthermore, ACTT membership forms from 1933 to 1989, which were digitized by the BUFVC for the ‘History of Women in Film and Television’ project, provided quantitative data on women joining the ACTT. Committee on Equality meeting minutes, correspondence and general ephemera offered an insight into the committee’s operation and activity. Material on the COE has not been systematically archived, and instead is held across a number of sites, including BECTU’s Head Office and Feminist Archive North (FAN), accessed via Special Collections at the University of Leeds. This presented a challenge, as the material was incomplete and fragmented, addressing the committee’s activity from 1973 to 1977 and 1986 to 1990, and locating this material was time-​consuming. However, it was also an opportunity to examine a substantial body of material on women and the ACTT which had not

17

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

been accessed or studied by other academics, and facilitated discussion on a number of topics which would have remained invisible through an analysis of the union journals alone. The material held by BECTU’s Head Office contains paperwork from the day-​to-​day administration of the ACTT, including membership forms, branch and committee meeting minutes, correspondence and ephemera from industrial disputes. Access to this material was facilitated by BECTU’s Administrative Officer, Tracey Hunt. Apart from the membership forms, which were digitized for the ‘History of Women in Film and Television’ project, this material has not been examined by other academics. The material in these boxes was related to the activity of the COE between 1973 and 1977, and included: COE meeting minutes; correspondence, particularly in relation to the appointment of a researcher; material relating to the discrimination investigation, including questionnaires and drafts of the Patterns report; drafts of a maternity leave report from 1974, reports to annual conferences, and a Code on Sexism in the Media; and publications from external organizations. This material primarily provided an insight into the production of the Patterns report, including the logistics of conducting the investigation into gender discrimination, the process of compiling and distributing the report, and the challenges of implementing its recommendations. To examine the COE’s relationship with external feminist organizations in film and television during the 1970s, the Women in Media collection held by the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics was consulted. Women in Media was established in 1970 and campaigned to improve women’s representation in film, television, radio and print media, in terms of both their depiction and the number of women working in these industries. This material offered a brief insight into the conflicting approaches of trade unions and campaigners, discussed in Chapter 2. While the material held by BECTU illuminated the activity of the COE in its formative years, the documents held by FAN relate to the years between 1986 and 1990, when women’s representation was formalized within the union structure. By this time the COE no longer existed in its original form. At the 1986 Annual Women’s Conference, the four sub-​committees of the COE were restructured as four General Council committees: Women Members’ Committee, Black Members’ Committee, Committee on Disability and Sexuality Committee (Horne, 1986). The Women Members’ Committee was the largest of the four committees. Material on the ACTT’s Women Members’ Committee was contained in two collections:  the Women’s Film,

18

Introduction

Television and Video Network’s (WFTVN) collection, donated by Hilary Readman, and the personal collection of Al Garthwaite. Among these documents were: Equality News, a regular newsletter distributed to ACTT equality representatives from 1986 which notified its readers of conferences and meetings, explained union procedure, provided information on equality issues within wider society and circulated publications; conference reports from the annual women’s conferences; meeting minutes of the Women Members’ Committee; the ACTT’s 1985 sexual harassment report; an equality representative information pack; and publications by the ACTT, other trade unions and wider campaign groups. The files concerning the ACTT in Garthwaite’s collection were newly catalogued in January 2017, indicating that this material had not been accessed by other academics. Margaret Henderson (2013: 91) argued that the movement of documents ‘from the private realm to the public sphere’ was essential to the establishment and expansion of feminist archives. However, this movement is often informed by notions of historical value, which exclude documents on women’s work, activism and personal lives. A historical analysis of the committee’s activity in the late 1980s is subsequently shaped by Garthwaite and Readman’s attitudes towards which of their personal documents were important to maintain for the historical record, and the absence of a wider commitment to maintaining and archiving documents relating to the COE.

Oral history Pre-​eminent oral historian Paul Thompson (2000: 3) has advocated for the transformative potential of oral history in terms of ‘both the content and the purpose of history’ because oral history offers a ‘central place’ to the ‘people who made and experienced history’. Oral history as a methodological approach has facilitated the expansion of historical fields of enquiry such as working-​class history, social and economic history, labour history and women’s history. The value of oral history to both labour history and women’s history has been well-​established. In relation to labour history, Thompson (2000: 90) has argued that oral history enables the historian to ‘get beyond the formalities and heroics of contended leaderships, as represented in newspapers and records, to the more humdrum, confused reality and different standpoints within the rank and file, including even that of the blacklegs’. Documentary sources for women’s history have been criticized as ‘disappointingly poor in both quality and quantity’ as women’s experiences of work, domestic life and leisure activities, as well

19

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

as women’s life cycles, have traditionally remained ‘unrecorded in institutional history’, which has prioritized the history of the male-​ dominated public sphere (Stephenson, 1985–​86:  83). As a result, feminist scholars have praised oral history as an ‘invaluable means of generating new insights about women’s experiences of themselves in their worlds’, with the interview process providing women with an ‘opportunity to tell her own stories in her own terms’ (Anderson and Jack, 1991: 11). Women’s labour historians have used oral history to ‘reassert the women’s position as social actors and historical agents’ (Stevenson, 2016b:  144). In doing so, these historians have foregrounded women’s experiences of union activity and provided counter-​narratives to official union discourses. This book analyses three new interviews with ACTT activists conducted by the author in July 2016: Sarah Boston, ACTT activist from the 1960s to 1980s, documentary filmmaker and author of Women Workers and the Trade Unions (2015); Sarah Benton, Patterns researcher, and Adele Winston, a production secretary at the BBC who was active on the ACTT–​ABS Joint Shops Committee. These participants were selected because of their roles within the ACTT, which offer insights into the operation of the Committee on Equality, the process of the ACTT’s investigation into gender discrimination and the response to the recommendations of the Patterns report. A fourth interview was conducted in November 2019 by the author with Christine Bond, BECTU activist from the 1980s to the present day, chair of the General Equality Committee, and the first woman president of BECTU (2010–​ 14). Bond was selected both for her prominent position in BECTU and her reflections on the changing relationship between women and BECTU since amalgamation. Potential participants were identified based on their role within the union and the frequency with which their names appeared in the archival sources. Contact was established with participants through union and academic connections and the ‘History of Women in Film and Television’ project. The author conducted one interview with each participant, lasting between one and four hours. Informed by feminist oral history methodologies, a semi-​structured interviewing technique was adopted, which allowed the participants to direct the interviews and express their experiences in their own words (Anderson and Jack, 1991). The author endeavoured to produce verbatim transcripts of their oral history interviews, retaining the false starts, hesitations and ‘crutch’ phrases rather than ‘cleaning up’ the interview. This decision was informed by oral history and feminist research practices. For instance, Valerie Raleigh Yow (2005) criticized ‘cleaning up’ the interview as a function of the power relationship

20

Introduction

between researcher and participant. Similarly, Marjorie Devault (1990) contends that editing women’s oral history testimonies operates to distort women’s words. Furthermore, the false starts, hesitations and ‘crutch’ phrases offer a valuable insight into the thought processes of the interviewee. For instance, Yow (2005: 318) reflects that ‘false starts indicate the way the narrator is thinking through the topic as he or she speaks’, while Devault (1990: 103) observed that ‘you know’ was mobilized by female interviewees to communicate that their narrative was about to broach a topic which they found difficult to articulate. Therefore, the extracts from these interviews, quoted throughout the book, remain faithful to the words these women used to articulate their experiences. The mid-​1970s are disproportionately represented by the July 2016 interviews. This is, in part, a result of the participants’ length of employment in the industries, with Winston employed by the BBC between 1963 and 1978, and Benton working for the ACTT between 1973 and 1977. However, the narrative structure of Boston’s interview emphasized the events of the mid-​1970s, despite her involvement in the ACTT spanning from the late 1960s to 1980s. Boston recalled the establishment of the COE in 1973 and the publication of and response to the Patterns report in 1975 in significant detail and at great length, while campaigns of the late 1970s and 1980s were briefly discussed and many of the key developments in this later period were conflated with those of the mid-​1970s. Portelli (1991: 49) termed this narrative tendency ‘velocity’, whereby: some narratives contain substantial shifts … in the ratio between the duration of the events described and the duration of narration. An informant may recount in a few words experiences which lasted a long time, or dwell at length on brief episodes. Portelli argues that these shifts could function to stress the importance of an event or distract from other points. In Boston’s case, the focus on the mid-​1970s reflects the significance of the establishment of the COE and the publication of the Patterns report to the campaign for gender equality in the ACTT. Furthermore, Boston’s prior engagement with academic research informed her testimony. Boston’s recollections of her involvement in the ACTT were often informed by the research she conducted for her book, Women Workers and the Trade Unions (2015), an updated version of which was published a year before the interview. On a number of occasions Boston referred to the arguments she had advanced in her

21

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

book and applied them to the ACTT, notably when asked to reflect on broader trends she witnessed rather than personal experience. In the following three examples, Boston draws on her own research to discuss the atmosphere of union meetings, the power of women’s committees, and women’s separate self-​organization: ‘Em, also I think, which I write in my book a lot, union meetings are quite intimidating, again you know there is all this language about motions and standing orders and suspension of standing orders, and, you know, it’s, and, the guys who run it all know it. … I don’t think we [the COE] had that sort of power, cos one of the criticisms in my book is of union structures is whether the women’s committees, or equality officers, or whatever had any power, and in a lot of unions they exist but they don’t really have any power. … I endlessly in my book discuss separation or integration, I mean I think ultimately it has to be integration but how you get to a real level, you know, real integration, em, I don’t know.’ (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016) It could be argued that Boston expressed her knowledge of events in the ACTT and wider labour movement with reference to her book to give her testimony a greater sense of credibility. Boston’s research also informed her perception of the interview process, as she prioritized campaigns which she had addressed in her own study. This book also utilizes new oral history interviews with women workers in the film and television industries conducted by Sue Bradley between 2014 and 2015 for the ‘History of Women in Film and Television’ project. The recordings and transcripts of the 25 new interviews are hosted on the BUFVC’s ‘Women’s Work’ project website alongside the digitized ACTT membership forms.2 For this project, Bell and Ball ‘prioritised women in roles where there were few existing archival resources or which had yet to be written into media history’, particularly ‘below-​the-​line’ roles, such as production assistants, which had ‘left little to no archival trace’ (Bell, nd-​a). Various participant recruitment methods were adopted, including advertisements in trade publications, such as BECTU’s union journal Stage Screen and Radio, and Prospero, a magazine for retired BBC employees, membership

2

http://bufvc.ac.uk/womenswork.

22

Introduction

organization mailing lists and word-​of-​mouth recommendations (Bell, nd-​a). In particular, this book draws upon the project’s interview with the ACTT’s first Equality Officer, Sandra Horne (2015), which provides invaluable insight into the function of the role during the 1980s and the challenges she encountered. Finally, this book analyses existing oral history interviews conducted by the British Entertainment History Project (originally the ACTT History Project, established in 1986), particularly interviews with Kay Mander (1988), Bessie Bond (1987), Daphne Ancell (1989) and Jenny Hooley (2012), who were prominent activists in the ACTT between 1933 and 1989. These interviews provide an insight into the experiences of women activists in the early period of the union’s history which would otherwise be inaccessible.

Chapter overview This book adopts a chronological approach to its analysis, with each chapter focusing on a distinct period in the relationship between women workers and trade unions in the British film and television industries. Chapter 1 examines the relationship between women and the ACT in the first three decades of the union’s history, between 1933 and 1959. The ACT was established in 1933 to represent technicians in the British film industry and in 1956 the extra T was added to reflect the union’s representation of technicians in commercial television. The chapter explores the institutionalization of a profoundly gendered union structure during the ACT’s establishment and formative years. Firstly, it examines the process of unionization within the British film industry during the 1930s to consider the extent to which men’s interests were prioritized and women’s interests excluded by this process. In particular, it assesses the gendered notion of skill and gendered function of craft unions which informed the organizational practices of the ACT. The chapter then reflects upon the consolidation of the ACT’s power in the film industry and its gendered union structure during the Second World War. It argues that the ACT introduced agreements and adopted organizational practices which safeguarded men’s jobs in response to the influx of women workers into the film industry during the war. Thirdly, it examines debates around which technicians should be represented among ACT’s membership in the post-​war period, including the union’s response to the growth of the commercial television industry in the 1950s. Chapter 1 also surveys women’s activity in the ACT between 1933 and 1959 to consider the evidence for a feminist consciousness among women activists in the decades between Britain’s first-​and second-​wave feminist movements.

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WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

Chapter 2 analyses the relationship between women and the ACTT to identify the catalysts for the establishment of the COE in 1973 and the demand for an investigation into gender discrimination in the film and television industries, which culminated in the publication of the Patterns report in 1975. This chapter is divided into three chronological sections associated with internal developments within the ACTT and external developments within the British labour movement and wider society. The ‘roots’ of women’s militancy from 1968 onwards have been identified within the British labour movement between 1960 and 1968 as a result of the changing composition of the workforce and labour movement, the discrepancy between women’s expectations of greater employment opportunities and their continued low status within the workforce, and a growing focus on the demand for equal pay among women union activists (Boston, 2015: 264). The first section considers whether the ‘roots’ of women’s militancy within the labour movement can similarly be identified within the ACTT between 1960 and 1968. The second section argues that the emergence of the women’s liberation movement and upsurge in industrial militancy in Britain between 1968 and 1973 encouraged women to challenge the gendered union structure of the ACTT. This section particularly highlights the significance of the London Women’s Film Group to women’s activity within the ACTT. The third section investigates the activity of the COE from its establishment in 1973 to the publication of the Patterns report in 1975. It outlines the demands advanced by women activists at the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference, explores the logistics of appointing a researcher and conducting the investigation, considers the obstacles to women’s activity within the gendered union structure, and analyses the function of women’s separate self-​organization. Chapter 3 investigates Gillian Skirrow’s (1981: 94) assertion that the Patterns report remained ‘regrettably up-​to-​date’ by 1981, six years after its publication. The relationship between women and the ACTT was characterized by inertia between 1975 and 1981. The chapter identifies the reasons for slow progress around the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report and considers its impact on women’s activity. It firstly argues that the gendered union structure of the ACTT operated to inhibit the implementation of the report’s recommendations. This is evident in the limited engagement with the Patterns report among the ACTT’s rank and file and the reluctance of male union officials to negotiate around the report’s recommendations. The chapter secondly argues that the COE was detached from the ACTT’s formal union structure, which limited the committee’s power to influence policy and restricted women’s activity between 1975

24

Introduction

and 1981. During this period, women’s activity instead focused on single-​issue campaigns, such as training courses for women workers, childcare provision and abortion rights. This chapter then traces women’s growing frustration with the ACTT’s inactivity from 1980 onwards. It illustrates the influence of external feminist campaigns which emerged from debates on the future of television in the late 1970s and provided the impetus for ACTT women activists to demand a women’s conference. It finally outlines the demands advanced at the ACTT’s first Women’s Conference in 1981, which was a turning point in the relationship between women and the ACTT, as women union activists called for the formalization of women’s representation within the union structure. These demands included the establishment of a network of local equality representatives, a regular equal opportunities page in the union journal to publicize women’s activity, an annual women’s conference, and the appointment of an Equality Officer. Chapter 4 analyses the four methods of formalization introduced over the course of the 1980s. It establishes a narrative of continuity and change in the relationship between women and the ACTT in its exploration of the structural gains achieved within the union by women activists and stasis in the pattern of women’s employment in the film and television industries during the 1980s. The chapter firstly contextualizes the formalization of women’s representation in the ACTT in relation to broader shifts in paid employment and within the trade union movement in Britain during the 1980s. In particular, it considers Margaret Thatcher’s anti-​union legislation and the deregulation of the film and television industries, which limited the ACTT’s bargaining power and derailed campaigns for gender equality. Secondly, it considers each of the four methods of formalization in turn, to explore their impact on women’s political participation. It argues that these new structures established a network of women activists which coordinated women’s activity, facilitated the formulation of policy, and advanced women’s demands at all levels of the union’s structure, from the ACTT’s Head Office to the shop floor. The chapter thirdly reflects upon the limited material gains for women workers in the film and television industries. It argues that women’s demands continued to encounter hostility and apathy from the ACTT’s male officials and rank-​and-​file membership, which inhibited the translation of women’s political gains in the union into material gains in the workforce. The chapter concludes with an epilogue which points to the anxiety of ACTT women activists around the potential impact of amalgamation with BETA on the structural gains achieved in the ACTT as a result of the formalization of women’s representation.

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Chapter 5 explores the relationship between women and BECTU between 1991 and 2017, following the amalgamation between the ACTT and BETA in 1991 to BECTU’s merger with Prospect in 2017 to form the BECTU Sector of Prospect. This chapter examines the impact of amalgamation on women’s representation and union participation to demonstrate that the apprehensions of ACTT women activists were justified. It firstly traces the deterioration of women’s structural gains, as BECTU’s financial crisis resulted in the swift abandonment of annual women’s conferences, the Women Members’ Committee was submerged into the General Equality Committee over the course of the 1990s, and the Equality Officer role was diluted until it ceased to exist altogether in 1999. The chapter secondly examines BECTU’s renewed commitment to women’s representation in the 2000s, signalled by the reintroduction of annual women’s conferences. It argues that these conferences were integral to the union’s recruitment and retainment strategy, and so lacked the militancy of the 1980s women’s conferences. However, women’s separate self-​organization again raised the profile of women’s demands within the union and facilitated women’s activity; for instance, the General Equality Committee pursued a campaign on domestic violence as a workplace issue. The chapter further explores the challenges of organizing intersectional trade union activism during the 1990s and 2000s. Finally, it reflects upon the election and activity of women presidents in BECTU –​Christine Bond (2010–​14), Jane Perry (2014–​16) and Ann Jones (2016–​present) –​during the 2010s. The final chapter draws together the key conclusions advanced within this book in relation to its three central themes: the operation of the gendered union structure, women’s activism and the relationship between class and gender. It also considers the practical implications of this research for campaigns against gender discrimination within the British labour movement and the film and television industries.

26

1

Women and the ACT, 1933–​59 A profoundly gendered union structure was institutionalized within the Association of Cine-​Technicians from its establishment in 1933, which operated to prioritize men’s interests and exclude the interests of women workers in its organizational practices and negotiated agreements. This had significant ramifications for the ACT and its successors, shaping their relationship with women workers from 1933 to the present day. There were three periods of institution building between 1933 and 1959 which defined and solidified the ACT’s gendered union structure. During the establishment and formative years of the ACT in the 1930s the union focused on organizing male-​dominated sections of the British film industry, particularly in the studios, and mobilized a gendered definition of skill to distinguish which grades should be represented by the union. Its focus on male-​dominated sections of the film industry was intensified during the Second World War, as the ACT was appointed as the ‘official vetting body for war-​time film technicians’ (ACTT, 1983: 21) and was established as a pre-​entry closed shop by the end of the war. During the war, the ACT further acted to consolidate gender inequality in the union structure, as it responded to the influx of women workers through agreements and organizational practices which functioned to safeguard men’s wages and conditions. Finally, post-​war debates and inter-​union negotiations around the remit of the ACT and the grades it represented within the film industry consolidated the gendered union structure. This chapter illuminates the process of unionization which institutionalized gender inequality within the ACT’s union structure. Between 1933 and 1959, there was little challenge to the gendered union structure and women remained largely invisible in the ACT. However, this chapter seeks to make visible women’s union participation and highlight sites of proto-​ feminism in this period.

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WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

The establishment and formative years of the ACT Existing scholarship on trade unionism in the film and television industries has primarily provided a historical analysis of the establishment and formative years of the ACT during the 1930s (Chanan, 1976; ACTT, 1983; Jones, 1987; Low, 1997; Reid, 2008; Hochscherf, 2011). Furthermore, articles which retold the history of the ACT’s establishment were featured in the union journal, The Cine-​ Technician, in 1938 and 1954. Existing scholarship has concentrated on two topics:  the incentives for unionization in the British film industry and the process of unionization during the 1930s. However, women workers are largely invisible from this history, beyond fleeting acknowledgements of the ACT’s commitment to equal pay. In its analysis of the establishment and formative years of the ACT, this chapter draws on Nancy Gabin’s (1990) study of women and the United Auto Workers in the American auto industry. Gabin argues that the ‘organising energy’ of the UAW institutionalized gender discrimination within the union structure from its establishment in the 1930s, as the union’s initial efforts to unionize the auto industry focused on male-​dominated sections of the industry, specifically the auto-​body and assembly parts plants (Gabin, 1990:  9). The UAW ‘never systematically developed a program to organize women’, and instead ‘generally left the task of organizing women to women themselves’ (Gabin, 1990: 9, 25). Women were overlooked in the initial unionization process as a result of widely held beliefs that women were unsympathetic to trade unions, were difficult to organize and did not work in the most important parts of the industry (Gabin, 1990:  19, 24)  –​beliefs which find a parallel within historiography concerning women in the British labour movement (Lewenhak, 1977; Boston, 2015). The ‘male orientation’ of the union informed its ‘institutional consolidation’, and so discrimination was codified in the UAW’s contracts, official agreements and verbal agreements within the American auto industry (Gabin, 1990: 9, 175). This section demonstrates that gender discrimination was similarly institutionalized into the ACT’s structure from the outset through the prioritization of male-​dominated sections of the workforce in the unionization process and the mobilization of a gendered definition of skill which excluded women workers. The primary motivation for unionization among British film technicians was the deterioration in working conditions following the introduction of the Cinematograph Act 1927, protective legislation designed to stimulate film production, and the subsequent production

28

Women and the ACT, 1933–59

boom, which saw technicians work increasingly long hours in precarious employment (Chanan, 1976; Jones, 1987). Technological changes accompanying the introduction of sound and management’s push for compartmentalized and controlled film production in the studio system were additional factors; as well as hostility towards the employment of foreign technicians, primarily from the USA and Germany, who were perceived as a threat to the status of British film technicians (Hochscherf, 2011:  119). In 1933, discontented film technicians at the Gaumont-​British Studios in Shepherd’s Bush approached carpenters and electricians to negotiate their entrance into the existing unions which represented the studios, the National Association of Theatrical Employees (NATE) and the Electrical Trade Union (ETU) (Neill-​Brown, July–​August 1938:  49). The success of the ETU in securing overtime pay for electricians, who were the only workers to receive paid overtime in the studios at this point, further incentivized unionization (Anon, May 1954: 102–​3). However, a small group of cameramen opted to organize separately and appointed Captain Mathew Cope, the manager of a local ‘health and strength’ café, as the secretary and organizer of the ACT, initially named the Association of Studio Workers (ASW) (Neill-​Brown, July–​August 1938: 48). The first meeting between Cope and the Shepherd’s Bush technicians has been memorialized in the ACTT’s self-​published history as an all-​male affair, and it is explicitly stated that ‘no women were involved in these embryonic days’ (ACTT, 1983: 10). However, this is called into question by Bill Allan’s recollections of the same meeting during a roundtable discussion on the establishment of the ACT in the 1950s (the transcript of which was published in the union journal), which listed Joan Boswell among the technicians in attendance (Anon, May 1954:  100). Boswell was a continuity supervisor who had worked on the Gaumont-​British production Rome Express (Director Walter Forde, 1932). Allan recalled the names of five other technicians alongside Boswell’s before stating, ‘and others, I’m a little hazy about it’ (Anon, May 1954: 100). By clearly identifying Boswell as a participant in the ACT’s founding meeting over 20 years after the event, Allan’s recollection indicates that her involvement was sufficiently memorable. Unfortunately, this is the only available example of women’s participation in these early and formative meetings. As such, Allan’s account offers both a challenge to the assertion that ‘no women were involved in these embryonic days’, and points to how women have been obscured from later historical accounts of the ACT’s establishment.

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Initially the organizing principle of the ACT was that of a craft union or guild organization which would represent ‘skilled’ workers and promote their professional identity (Chanan, 1976:  28). This was informed by two factors: the attitude of ACT officials and the composition of the workforce. Firstly, the ACT’s General Council, Secretary (Captain Cope) and President (Sir Reginald Mitchell-​Banks) were associated with an ‘old school tie approach’ to union organization (Neill-​Brown, July–​August 1938:  51; ACTT, 1983:  11). Between 1933 and 1935, this manifested in attempts to establish a complex system of grading which would be informed by a range of factors including a member’s length of employment and the number of films they had worked on, with titles such as ‘Senior Fellows’, ‘Fellows’ and ‘Licentiates’ proposed for these grades (Neill-​Brown, July–​August 1938:  51). Secondly, the organizing principle of craft unions/​guild organizations appealed to film technicians who were ‘more middle class than working class’ and so ‘saw themselves as professionals rather than workers’, with a number of technicians university educated (Chanan, 1976:  28). This was ‘especially true of Shepherd’s Bush’, where technicians had first begun to organize, because ‘[Michael] Balcon, head of production for Gaumont-​British, had made a policy of employing such people’ (Chanan, 1976: 28). The film technicians identified themselves as skilled workers and perceived the deterioration of working conditions in the film industry during the 1930s as a threat to their craft, as illustrated by Sid Cole’s claim that technicians ‘didn’t have time to do it as a craftsman’ (Anon, May 1954:  103). There was a ‘violent anti-​trade union attitude’ among ACT members at London Films, B & D and Gainsborough, with ‘only B.I.P. … set on union methods’ (Neill-​Brown, July–​August 1938: 51), illustrating the centrality of the craft union/​guild organization identity in the ACT’s early history. The craft union/​guild organization identity was profoundly gendered and significantly informed the relationship between women and the ACT. Sylvia Walby (1986) argues that trade unions are one of the three patriarchal institutions, alongside the state and employers, which intervene in gender relations in paid employment. During the twentieth century the main strategy adopted by trade unions in response to women’s employment was to use ‘grading and segregation’ to restrain women’s work (Walby, 1986:  244). During its formative years, the ‘organizing energy’ of the ACT was concentrated on skilled workers and the establishment of a craft union, both of which mobilized a gendered definition of union membership which worked to segregate women workers into lower grades with limited career trajectories.

30

Women and the ACT, 1933–59

The skilled worker and creative worker are both significantly gendered concepts. In relation to the former, Anne Phillips and Barbara Taylor (1980: 79) have argued that: ‘Far from being an objective economic fact, skill is often an ideological category imposed on certain types of work by virtue of the sex and power of the workers who perform it’. Similarly, Stephanie Taylor and Karen Littleton (2012: 36), discussing the creative worker, have advanced that the ‘Romantic image of the artist is almost invariably that of a man’. Between 1933 and 1939, women’s work was largely invisible within the union journal, the only extant source through which to trace the relationship between women and the ACT in this period, because it did not fit the dominant and patriarchal notions of skill at play in the union’s disposition. The only article to address women’s work, ‘Script Girl’, discussed the role of the continuity supervisor, which was ‘the only one open to women on the actual floor, or production staff of a film unit’ (Roe, August–​October 1936: 49). The primary function of the continuity supervisor was to record extensive production notes to ensure the seamless integration of scenes during the editing process. As Sue Harper (2000) and Melanie Williams (2013) have observed, the role of the continuity supervisor has been associated with traditional notions of feminine skill, including a ‘feminine aptitude for minute scrutiny’ (Williams, 2013: 610), and so awarded a lower status. Gendered notions of skill continued to be communicated through the union journal between 1933 and 1959 in its articles, images and advertisements. For instance, ‘The Other Man’s Job’ was a regular feature in the journal during the late 1940s and early 1950s which sought to provide ‘personal accounts of the work of various technicians engaged in film production’ (Huntley, November–​December 1949:  194). Among the roles discussed were the draughtsman, camera operator and assistant director. As the title illustrates, the articles made an explicit link between skill and the work of male technicians. Similarly, Kodak advertisements which also appeared in The Cine-​Technician in the late 1940s and early 1950s, usually on the inside page of the journal’s front cover, depicted fictitious female film stars reliant on the skills of male technicians to convincingly perform their roles. These technicians included the laboratory superintendent and his team (Kodak, May–​June 1950), the make-​up artist (Kodak, July–​August 1950) and the sound technician (Kodak, September–​October 1948). The composition of these adverts presented a female star framed to evoke a cinema screen in the top half of the page and the male technicians working behind the scenes, or a male audience viewing the final product, positioned in the bottom corner. A 1950 advert on the laboratory superintendent

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WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

and his team, captioned ‘How she fares depends on him…’ (Kodak, May–​June 1950), shows the female star hanging from the edge of a cliff with a mountain scene in the background, holding on to a rope and grasping the hand of a man, who is only visible by the hand and foot seen in the corner of the image. The safety of the woman in the image is reliant on the unseen man, just as the actress’ performance and its reception are reliant on the unseen work of the male laboratory technicians. The accompanying text provides a detailed description of the skill of the laboratory technician: Through his picture sense … his broad knowledge of photo-​chemistry and the mechanics of processing, his precise control of printing density and contrast … he can bring out the best in every film, make the star’s voice and presence more effective, help protect her popularity with her audience. (Kodak, May–​June 1950) The ‘critical work’ and associated skill of the male laboratory technician is juxtaposed against the performance of the female star, visually depicting women’s dependency to emphasize the skill of the male technician (Kodak, May–​June 1950). This is despite the fact that women workers made up approximately a quarter of the workforce in the laboratories by the early 1960s (Women in West London Film Laboratories, 2016), primarily employed in clerical roles (50%) and assembly work, such as positive examination and negative preparation (20%) (ACTT, 1975: 21). As with continuity supervisors, women’s work in the laboratories was associated with traditional notions of feminine skill, such as ‘manual dexterity and “the patience to do a lot of fiddly work” ’ (ACTT, 1975: 21). Women laboratory workers were omitted from Kodak’s depiction of the skill of laboratory technicians, which reflected the lower status awarded to women’s work. Craft unions operated to enforce ‘rules of entry’ to ‘retain the scarcity of their labour, and thus the price at which it could be sold’ (Walby, 1986:  137, 244). To do so, craft unions often mobilized gendered notions of skill, such as those previously outlined, to exclude women workers from union membership. While Walby cautions that gender is not an essential component of the exclusionary strategy of craft unions, she argues that such styles of organization ‘facilitate the adoption of specifically patriarchal forms of closure to a greater extent than other workplace organizational strategies’ (Walby, 1986: 138). In her examination of craft unionism in America between 1880 and 1910, Ileen A. DeVault (2004: 103) similarly concluded that the American

32

Women and the ACT, 1933–59

Federation of Labor’s (AFL) construction of craft unionism was ‘based on a decidedly masculinist definition of “skill” … [which] ensured the de facto exclusion of women from the nation’s major craft unions’. In the British film industry technicians sought to ‘retain the scarcity of their labour’, and so protect their craft status, by establishing the ACT as a craft union. Therefore, the ACT’s initial organizing principle implicitly excluded women workers from the union. Despite a shift to trade unionism from 1935, to be discussed later, the ACT continued to be associated with craft union principles and strategies between 1933 and 1989. In her critique of the ACTT’s Patterns report in 1975, Claire Johnston (1975: 126) argued that the recommendations of the Patterns report were at odds with the character of the ACTT, which ‘reflect[ed] the petty-​bourgeois, individualistic ethos characteristic of the “creative” craft unions’ and emphasized ‘middle-​class status distinctions, entrepreneurial and anti-​collective values’. The craft union identity institutionalized into the ACT’s organizational practices during its formative years continued to shape the ACTT’s relationship with women workers throughout its history. Historiography on the establishment and formative years of the ACT has identified 1935 as a watershed year for the organization, as it adopted trade union rather than craft union principles. Two factors contributed to this shift:  the unionization of laboratory workers (Chanan, 1976) and the appointment of George Elvin as the ACT’s General Secretary (Chanan, 1976; ACTT, 1983; Jones, 1987; Reid, 2008). Firstly, Michael Chanan (1976: 32) contended that the ACT’s commitment to organizing laboratory technicians from 1935 facilitated the shift to trade union policies because the laboratories were the only section of film production which operated under ‘true factory conditions’ and so provided the union with a ‘working class base’. The class differences between studio workers and laboratory technicians embedded in the union from the 1930s onwards significantly informed divisions among ACTT women activists in the 1970s and 1980s, as explored in Chapters 2–4​ . Secondly, the ACTT’s self-​published history located ‘the real beginning of ACT’s history as a fighting organisation’ in Elvin’s appointment (ACTT, 1983: 13). Unlike Cope, Elvin was familiar with trade union organization as the son of prominent trade unionist Herbert Henry Elvin, General Secretary of the National Union of Clerks and Chairman of the TUC. By the end of 1935 the ACT was holding regular meetings, had established an employment bureau and published a regular journal, The Cine-​Technician (ACTT, 1983:  13). The first industry-​wide agreement was signed between the ACT and the Film Employers’ Federation in 1939; however, the

33

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

ACT’s representation of the film industry was not firmly established until the Second World War. The ACTT’s self-​p ublished history further associated the introduction of the ACT’s equal pay policy with Elvin’s appointment and his ‘strong personal commitment to the elimination of sex-​based differentials to pay’ (ACTT, 1983:  23). Chanan (1976:  41) argued that the ACT’s successful negotiation of equal pay in the 1930s was probably ‘facilitated by the fact that there were only a small number of women film production workers’. Indeed, equal pay was not discussed in The Cine-​Technician during the 1930s. Furthermore, the Patterns report revealed that only 25% of women workers in the film and television industries were covered by equal pay agreements ‘in any real sense’ by the mid-​1970s because sex segregation largely confined women to grades in which few men were employed (ACTT, 1975:  4), thus undermining the claim that the ACT had achieved equal pay from the 1930s. In her examination of the Journeymen Tailors’ Union of America (JTUA), DeVault (2004) revealed that the gendered definition of skill which excluded women from craft unions also operated to prevent women union members from achieving equal pay as outlined in the JTUA’s policies. While the JTUA’s General Secretary and national officers advocated equal pay for women workers, DeVault (2004: 87) found that the union leadership sought to ‘define membership in the union –​and in “the trade” –​so narrowly that many, if not most, women performing tailoring tasks would be effectively excluded’. For instance, women were confined to ‘women’s work’ in three roles  –​the tailoress, helper, and wives and daughters –​which were subordinate to the male tailor because, according to the JTUA, only male tailors had the skills to produce men’s clothing (DeVault, 2004: 93). The ACT also narrowly defined skill in relation to the work of male film technicians, and so confined women to ‘women’s work’ and its attendant low status, effectively excluding women workers from its equal pay policies. While women’s participation in the ACT was more or less invisible within the union journal during the 1930s, an article, ‘Women and the A.C.T.’, appeared in 1938 (Selby-​Lowndes, July–​August 1938: 58). In relation to the UAW, Gabin (1990: 6) observed that a feminist consciousness, evidenced by ‘the presence of feminist values, attitudes, and actions’, existed among women activists in the UAW ‘during years … in which they were not presumed to have existed’ between the first-​and second-​wave feminist movements. In Britain, women’s union activism was less visible and less militant between the early 1920s and late 1960s, excluding the Second World War. This, in

34

Women and the ACT, 1933–59

part, resulted from the loss of ‘organizational independence’ following the merger of women’s organizations, the NFWW and the WTUL, with general trade unions in 1921 and the subsequent absence of ‘appropriate independent organizational forms’ until the late 1960s (Walby, 1986: 175). However, Alison Selby-​Lowndes’ article provides a rare and invaluable insight into both the presence of a proto-​feminist consciousness and women workers’ efforts to organize within the ACT during the 1930s. This article critiques gender segregation within the ACT and wider labour movement:  ‘There is an unreasonable tradition in most industries –​very prevalent in films –​that the men should start the scrap over wages and conditions and the women wait for results’ (Selby-​Lowndes, July–​August 1938: 58). Selby-​Lowndes associates gender segregation in the labour movement with gendered divisions in the workforce and apathy towards trade unionism among women workers. To rectify women’s absence from the ACT, Selby-​Lowndes (July–​ August 1938: 58) proposed separate self-​organization through a women’s section or committee: ‘I personally would like to know the opinion of other women A.C.T. members on a Women’s Section –​or at least a Women’s Committee –​to concentrate on specific women’s problems and the recruiting of women to the Union’. The ‘workable form of organisation’ suggested by Selby-​Lowndes (July–​August 1938: 58) was the establishment of ‘a women’s committee in the studios with one representative elected to attend a central women’s committee’. Among the proposed responsibilities of the section was the clarification of activities performed by women workers, such as continuity supervisors whose roles could vary dramatically from company to company. In the 1930s, the recruitment campaigns of the TUC’s Women’s Advisory Committee, formed in 1930, similarly sought to increase women’s union participation with the establishment of local women’s committees which would concentrate on the concerns of women workers (Davis, 2009: 207). These committees were ultimately unsuccessful, as they encountered ‘solid indifference’, and further campaigns to organize women workers launched by the TUC General Council in 1937 and 1939 instead mobilized gender stereotypes to appeal to women through health and beauty campaigns (Davis, 2009: 207). Selby-​Lowndes’ article reveals both a proto-​feminist consciousness committed to separate self-​ organization in the late 1930s and moves to strengthen the union by organizing women workers. While the extent to which Selby-​Lowndes’ views were representative of ACT women members is impossible to ascertain, no women’s section or committee was established outside of a short-​lived Women’s Committee formed in the isolated circumstances

35

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

of the Second World War, which may suggest Selby-​Lowndes’ article was also met with indifference. Moreover, Selby-​Lowndes’ call to organize women workers was frequently articulated through a vocabulary designed to appeal to men. For instance, Selby-​Lowndes (July–​August 1938: 58) presents the low wages of women workers as a threat to men’s wages and conditions, stating that women’s pay was ‘setting a lower standard of wage rates to which their fellow workers have to conform’. She also described non-​unionized women workers as a ‘dead weight in the struggle for a satisfactory standard of wages and conditions’ and claimed that women workers ‘have not yet understood that unity is the obvious remedy’ (Selby-​Lowndes, July–​August 1938: 58). In relation to the UAW, Gabin (1990: 75–​6) has argued that women leaders stressed the ‘need to organize the new women workers and to teach them about the goals and purposes of trade unionism’, and so ‘exploited the union’s interest in such issues as the preservation of wage standards’. Selby-​Lowndes’ vocabulary could be interpreted in a similar fashion, emphasizing the benefits of organizing women workers for men’s wages and conditions to advance women’s interests without presenting a challenge to the male-​dominated union. However, the tone of Selby-​Lowndes’ article appears to place the blame for this situation on women workers rather than the failure of the union to address women’s needs. ‘Women and the A.C.T.’ further reveals an unsuccessful and otherwise invisible attempt to organize continuity supervisors:  ‘A meeting called to discuss and outline the position of Continuity girls had poor attendance’ (Selby-​Lowndes, July–​August 1938: 58). This poor attendance is attributed to the difficulties of attending an evening meeting in Central London (Selby-​Lowndes, July–​August 1938: 58), which may have resulted from both the isolation of the continuity supervisor as the only woman on set and the late hours of typing notes performed by these women (Williams, 2013). The unsuccessful meeting of continuity supervisors is illustrative of Gabin’s (1990: 25) observation, in relation to the UAW, that ‘the task of organizing women [was generally left] to women themselves’. In fact, it would be another 13 years before continuity supervisors were represented by their own section in the ACT, when the Continuity and Production Secretaries’ Section was established in 1951. An oral history interview with director and continuity supervisor Kay Mander has also provided insight into women’s union activity in the 1930s which was invisible in the archival material beyond

36

Women and the ACT, 1933–59

Selby-​Lowndes’ article. Mander (1988) was, according to her interview with the British Entertainment History Project (then the ACTT History Project), the “first woman on the General Council, and … was on it for a number of years”. In this role, Mander (1988) was involved in the establishment of an apprenticeship and training scheme in 1936, which she described as “forgotten”: “I did one useful thing –​ which I keep on forgetting about because everybody else has forgotten about it –​and that was the apprenticeship and training scheme.” She explained the function of the committee and her responsibilities in her interview: ‘We had a series of committees and I  was chairman of the syllabus –​the committee that got out the syllabi (or whatever you like to call them) for the different grades. And I think we did a magnificent job … And we got out the syllabus  –​every department, so to speak, what the training should consist of, and how many years training, and when they came into the industry at what grade they should come in, and so on. And it was a superb piece of work. And a very satisfying piece of work. But it’s gone into the mists of time. I don’t know whether any of it still exists.’ (Mander, 1988) Mander’s apprenticeship and training scheme appears to have been the ACT’s unsuccessful attempt at a ‘formal apprenticeship scheme’, which has been examined by Iain Reid (2008: 108). Reid (2008: 64) argues that the regulation of future workers through an apprenticeship scheme is a central component of craft union organization, and thus reveals that Mander played an important, if ultimately unsuccessful, role in the formative years of the ACT and the establishment of its craft identity. Between 1933 and 1939 the ‘organizing energy’ of the ACT concentrated on male-​dominated sectors of the British film industry, prioritized men’s interests in its formative agreements, and mobilized a gendered definition of skill to demarcate which grades should be represented by the union. While the ACT formally abandoned the exclusionary organizational practices of craft unionism in 1935 to adopt a trade union remit and extend membership to laboratory technicians, women workers continued to be marginalized. The institutionalization of gender divisions into the ACT’s structure and agreements between 1933 and 1939 was intensified by the Second World War, examined in the next section of this chapter.

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WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

‘Proper safeguards’ during the Second World War The wartime conditions within the British film industry during the Second World War acted as a catalyst for unionization, which enabled the ACT to consolidate its position within the industry and resulted in its establishment as a pre-​entry closed shop (ACTT, 1983; Reid, 2008). The outbreak of the Second World War had a significant impact on the film industry, as the government eased the quota obligations specified by the 1927 and 1938 Cinematograph Acts and halted film production. This had ramifications for the union, which saw its membership decrease from over 1,200 members to 915 by December 1939 (Reid, 2008: 112). However, the government was persuaded of the value of film production to the war effort by a cross-​class campaign orchestrated by the industry’s employers and trade unions, including the ACT, NATKE and ETU, as well as George Elvin (ACT’s General Secretary) and Anthony Asquith’s (ACT’s President) personal lobbying of Lord Beaverbrook (ACTT, 1983: 19–​21). In November 1940 the Ministry of Labour formed a committee comprised of producers and representatives of the industry’s trade unions  –​the ACT, NATKE, ETU and the Musicians’ Union (MU) –​to advise on the reservation of film technicians. The ACT’s employment bureau, established in 1935, was appointed as the ‘official vetting body for war-​time film technicians’ (ACTT, 1983: 21) and was responsible for administering the assessment of which roles were granted reserved occupation status (Reid, 2008: 113), which included camera operators, sound recordists and film editors (Anon, September–​October 1939: 70). Membership of the ACT became an essential requirement to receive reserved occupation status, ensuring that the ACT achieved 100% membership in the film industry by the end of the war (Reid, 2008: 112). Thus, the Second World War hastened the establishment of the ACT as a pre-​ entry closed shop, whereby membership of the union was essential to securing employment in the industry (Reid, 2008: 115). The operation of the ACT as the ‘official vetting body’ for reserved occupation status for male film technicians ensured that the ‘organizing energy’ of the ACT continued to focus on unionizing male technicians during a significant period of institution building which solidified the ACT’s identity and its control of the labour force within the film industry. During the Second World War women were conscripted into British industries to substitute enlisted men, with 1.5 million women entering ‘essential’ industries between 1939 and 1943 (Summerfield, 1984: 29). This influx of women workers prompted two significant responses from the labour movement. Firstly, trade unions negotiated agreements

38

Women and the ACT, 1933–59

which consolidated the segregation of men’s and women’s work to protect men’s wages and conditions (Walby, 1986:  208). Secondly, trade unions recruited women workers by mobilizing a contradictory rhetoric which depicted membership ‘simultaneously as in the interests of male trade unionists and in terms of equality between the sexes’ (Walby, 1986: 209). The British film industry also experienced an influx of women workers during the Second World War, with the number of successful female applicants for ACT membership rising from 51 in 1940 to 391 in 1942, and reaching a peak of 461 in 1946 in the immediate aftermath of the war (Bell, Ball and Galt, nd). As reported in The Cine-​Technician, women workers primarily entered the film laboratories, whereas there were ‘considerably fewer newcomers to the Studio side’ (Mander, January–​February 1941: 19). This could be explained by the craft union definition of skill, which placed greater value on the creative work of the (predominantly middle-​class) studio worker, who was protected by reserved occupation status, than the (predominantly working-​class) laboratory technician who received no such protection. The ACTT’s official history, Action! 50 Years in the Life of a Union, identifies the Second World War as a significant turning point in its relationship with women workers: ‘It was at this time, too, when women first began to join the union in significant numbers, and took on less anonymous roles in film production’ (ACTT, 1983:  23). However, the ACT consolidated gender inequality in the union structure as it primarily acted to safeguard the wages and conditions of male workers during the war. Reflecting the response of the wider labour movement, the ACT both negotiated agreements stipulating the conditions of women’s employment for the duration of the war and mobilized a contradictory rhetoric which simultaneously called for ‘proper safeguards’ (Mander, August–​September 1940: 72) and championed women’s entry into the industry (Craik, November–​ December 1942: 126). An agreement was successfully negotiated between the ACT and the British Film Production Association in 1940 which stipulated the terms of women’s employment in film laboratories during the war. These terms, described as ‘essential safeguards’, committed employers to consultation with the ACT to ensure that ‘there [was] not a sufficient number of unemployed male workers in the grade concerned to fill the vacancy’; to offer employment to ‘relatives of laboratory workers in the Forces’ and ‘unemployed studio technicians desiring to transfer to laboratory work’ before offering the vacancy to women workers; and to pay women substituting male workers ‘the rate of pay and cost-​of-​ living bonus applicable to male workers’ (Mander, August–​September

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1940:  72). The dilution agreement was later extended to include women workers at British Acoustic, who received a wage increase to bring their wages in line with the rate of pay established in the Laboratory Agreement (Mander, October–​December 1940:  98). The terms of ACT’s agreements reflected Extended Employment of Women Agreements established between trade unions and employers throughout British industries during the Second World War. These agreements specified that women performing men’s work would be employed on a temporary basis for the duration of the war, initially receiving women’s rates before progressing to full male rates (Summerfield, 1984: 153). Penny Summerfield (1984: 153) argues that the widespread adoption of dilution agreements in British industries during the war was ‘in itself an indicator of the widespread nature of occupational segregation, since their purpose was to enable employers to use women on work formerly done only by men’. The ACT’s policy response to the influx of women workers sought to safeguard men’s jobs, which conformed to the strategies of the wider labour movement. In doing so, the ACT prioritized the interests of male workers and further segregated women’s work. However, further agreements negotiated by the ACT during and immediately after the war provided greater provisions and protection to women workers in the film industry than other British industries. Firstly, the ACT successfully negotiated equal cost-​of-​living bonuses, also known as war bonuses, for women workers in the film industry, which was a rare achievement in British industries during the Second World War (Boston, 2015: 191). While initial negotiations had failed (Mander, October–​December 1940:  98), the successful conclusion of negotiations on the cost-​of-​living bonus was later announced in a report to the ACT’s 1941 Annual Conference: [I]‌t is particularly gratifying to report that in pursuance of A.C.T.’s policy of equal pay for equal work, during the year the women’s cost-​of-​living bonus in studios has been increased to the same rate as that of men, and laboratories have agreed that where women do work normally done by men they shall receive the same rate of pay. (ACT, 1941: 12) The achievement of negotiating equal cost-​of-​living bonuses is framed within the context of the ACT’s commitment to equal pay for equal work, and indeed these bonuses positioned the ACT ahead of the wider labour movement in promoting the interests of women workers during the Second World War. However, the discrepancy between eligibility

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for women studio workers compared to women laboratory workers reveals the ACT’s continued commitment to the gendered segregation of work and its associated remuneration. While the laboratories saw the greatest influx of women workers, who performed jobs they had ‘never tackled before’ (Mander, August–​September 1940: 72), these women only received equal pay when performing jobs which had previously been solely performed by men. Employers regularly utilized loopholes in the dilution agreements to avoid paying women workers the men’s rates; for example, employers claimed that women drivers were unable to do as much vehicle maintenance as men, and so did not perform the same job (Summerfield, 1984: 167). It can be assumed that similar difficulties plagued women workers in the laboratories, which would prevent them from receiving equal cost-​of-​living bonuses. Secondly, the ACT negotiated an agreement which facilitated women’s continued employment in the film laboratories in the aftermath of the Second World War. The agreement, negotiated with Denlabs, established that: (1) Women shall continue to be employed in the printing room; (2)  where, on the return of ex-​S ervicemen, redundancy arises, the last person employed shall be the first to go; (3) should such redundancy affect a woman who, before entering the printing room, had been employed in another department, employment will be found for her elsewhere in the laboratory without loss of seniority, especially regarding promotion. (Craik, July–​A ugust 1946: 106–​7) The agreement departed from the ethos of the Extended Employment of Women Agreements negotiated within the British labour movement, which enforced the temporary employment status of women workers, and so resulted in their departure from wartime employment in the essential industries and re-​entry into paid work in line with the gendered, pre-​war patterns of employment (Summerfield, 1984: 187). However, the gender segregation of work established by the dilution agreements and gendered definition of skill which informed the ACT’s policies would have continued to confine women workers to gendered patterns of employment in the film laboratories. A contradictory rhetoric around the recruitment of women workers to the ACT was evident in The Cine-​Technician’s editorials and regular columns, which both cautioned the journal’s readership of the threat of non-​unionized women workers and heralded women’s entry into the

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film industry as a sign of progress. This contradictory rhetoric mirrored wider inconsistencies in the representation of women workers in British cinema, as films attempted to both ‘speak to women, acknowledging and encouraging their labor and sacrifice, while also reassuring men of these women’s continued femininity’ (Lant, 1991: 62). The editorial ‘How Not to Break into Films’ responded to the threat posed by women workers with a call for ‘much more discrimination concerning who is brought in to replace those who have been called up’ (Anon, July–​ August 1941: 77). An accompanying anecdote, regarding the response of a recently employed woman when asked to join the ACT, outlines the dangers of women workers: She answered that it wouldn’t be worth it. She really didn’t have to work, her father being a stockbroker or something. It was necessary for her to be in a job when she registered to save doing some other form of national service. After a few months she hoped it would be safe for her to leave. We blame the employer –​just as much as the girl –​for introducing such people into the industry. Further, does he think he will get good service for the trade union rates he is paying her? (Anon, July–​August 1941: 77) The anecdote’s depiction of women workers’ lack of commitment to their employment in the film industry conveys that these women threatened the craft identity of film technicians, which was associated with dedication to the creative product. As such, the article’s call for ‘much more discrimination’ was based on a gendered notion of skill which excluded women workers. On the other hand, Bert Craik, the ACT’s organizer, welcomed the presence of women workers and called for greater gender equality both within film production and throughout British industry. In his regular column, ‘Organiser’s Notebook’, Craik engaged with the conclusions of an editorial, ‘Make Way for Women’, which had been printed in a daily national newspaper. The editorial emphasized the urgent need to release manpower and highlighted the trade union movement’s reluctance ‘to appreciate fully the capabilities of women’ (Craik, November–D ​ ecember 1942: 126). Building upon the editorial’s conclusions, Craik (November–​December 1942: 126) argued that this reluctance was ‘largely a matter of personal prejudice’ resulting from the ‘old idea … that a woman’s job is in the home; or, at the most, behind a shop counter until she is married’. Craik (November–​December 1942: 126) challenged these traditional gender roles to question why

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women were deemed incapable of performing roles such as ‘driving a locomotive or operating a cine sound camera’. This appraisal of the contribution of women workers reflected wider commentary during the Second World War, whereby commentators observed an apparent deterioration of sexual divisions in the workplace, praised women for performing men’s jobs, with particular emphasis on strenuous work, and described women workers as ‘Amazons’ and ‘robust matrons’ (Darwin quoted in Summerfield, 1984: 152). Craik concluded with a call to the British labour movement to challenge gender discrimination: ‘It’s time Industry did something about this problem. Why not a lead from the Film Industry?’ (Craik, November–​December 1942: 126). With this conclusion, Craik’s discussion can be situated within the second narrative identified by Walby (1986: 209), appealing to women workers ‘in terms of equality between the sexes’. During the Second World War a new column, ‘For Women Technicians’, was introduced to The Cine-​Technician which directly addressed women workers and facilitated communication between women and the ACT on issues concerning their work. Prior to the war women workers were largely absent from the pages of the union journals, and so the introduction of ‘For Women Technicians’ in 1940 marked a shift in the union and its journal’s approach to women workers. The column was edited by Kay Mander, who had joined the ACT in 1935 and was a member of the General Council during the 1930s and 1940s. However, the column was short-​lived, with only three articles appearing in consecutive issues of the journal: August–​ September 1940, October–​December 1940 and January–​February 1941. The space dedicated to the column declined in each consecutive issue, initially occupying a full page of the journal, which was reduced to half a page and then less than half a page. Each column was divided into segments which discussed: agreements concerning the rate of pay for women workers; the establishment and progress of the ACT’s Women’s Committee; and activity surrounding women workers within the wider labour movement. The column narrowly focused on negotiated agreements and the operation of the Women’s Committee but did not address gender-​specific issues facing women workers, such as childcare, shopping and the difficulties of combining work and domestic responsibilities, which were central areas of policy discussion on women workers in the Ministry of Labour during the war (Summerfield, 1984) –​though the successful negotiation of leave for shopping was later announced in the ‘Organiser’s Notebook’ (Craik, September–O ​ ctober 1942: 106; November–​December 1942: 126). In fact, the ‘For Women Technicians’ column explicitly presented women

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workers as a threat to the wages and conditions of the male workforce. In its introductory article, the column discussed the necessity of ‘proper safeguards’ to ensure that women were ‘not used by unscrupulous employers as a means of cheap labour’ (Mander, August–​September 1940: 72). Therefore, the ACT’s communication with women workers was framed in a narrative of safeguarding men’s wages and employment. The limited number of ‘For Women Technicians’ columns, declining space dedicated to them, and the focus on agreements further suggests that once the journal had detailed the terms of dilution agreements restricting women’s work during the war, the union had little more to communicate to women workers. Indeed, in the second half of the war, women workers were largely invisible within The Cine-​Technician, and the representation of women’s involvement in the ACT was confined to stereotypically gendered activities, such as organizing social events. For instance, Winifred Pearson’s role in the organization of a Christmas party for the children of serving members of the ACT was discussed twice in the column ‘Cinema Log’, first in 1944 (Gordon, January–​ April 1944:  22) and again upon her resignation as the secretary to ACT’s General Secretary, George Elvin, in 1946 (Wheeler, September–​ October 1946: 114). The ACT’s apathy towards women workers in the second half of the war was mirrored in the wider labour movement, where ‘most trade unions believed that the problem of women workers had been solved’ by the Extended Employment of Women Agreements (Boston, 2015: 208). In addition to the journal column, a Women’s Committee was established during the war to organize women workers and represent their gender-​specific interests; however, the wartime Women’s Committee was another strategy to safeguard men’s jobs. The establishment of the committee was announced in the first ‘For Women’s Technicians’ column under the sub-​heading ‘Women’s Committee Formed’: A meeting of women film technicians was recently convened by the A.C.T. to consider the above and other matters. At that meeting, Miss Kay Mander, representing the General Council, said ‘Women who take the place of men serving in the Forces have a particular duty to see that trade union organisation continues and that when the war is over the full rights of employees have been preserved.’ The meeting appointed a Women’s Committee to form the nucleus of the machinery to pay special attention to women’s organisation and to special women’s problems which would increase

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as the war continues. The committee’s first meeting has been held and special literature will shortly be issued. Miss Mander will be glad to hear from any women technicians who want to help on the work of the committee. (Mander, August–​September 1940: 72) This announcement indicates that the union leadership, rather than women technicians in the ACT’s rank and file, was the driving force behind the establishment of the wartime Women’s Committee. The central role of Kay Mander, as outlined in the announcement, is one such indication. Mander is positioned as both the leader of the Women’s Committee and a member of the union leadership, as she is simultaneously described as ‘representing the General Council’ and listed as the committee’s contact, as well as acting as the editor of ‘For Women Technicians’. As such, Mander is presented as an official voice of the union leadership rather than women technicians. Furthermore, the meeting was ‘convened by the A.C.T.’ and there is no evidence in the surviving archival material that information on the meeting was circulated before this announcement, which suggests that the initial organization of the committee was confined to members of the union leadership before being opened up to women technicians. Mander’s call for women workers to participate in the ACT because of their ‘particular duty’ to preserve trade union organization and protect the employment rights of male technicians presented women’s organization as a strategy to safeguard men’s interests, rather than an opportunity to define and defend women’s interests. Women’s ‘particular duty’ to trade union organization was also emphasized by women union leaders in the wider labour movement; for instance, Florence Hancock, the National Women’s Officer of the TGWU, called for women workers to ‘develop a Trade Union consciousness and … shoulder more responsibility’ (Hancock quoted in Summerfield, 1984: 158–​9). Summerfield (1984: 158) questioned what the labour movement’s vision of women workers as the guardians of men’s jobs had to offer women, and certainly the same could be asked of the ACT’s attitude towards women workers during the Second World War. Mander’s personal recollections of her experiences on the wartime Women’s Committee, shared in an interview with the British Entertainment History Project in 1988, further indicate that the committee was a strategy for safeguarding men’s jobs: ‘I was frequently asked to start a women’s section. [Laughs] And we did start a women’s section, and it was

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a disaster –​I mean three or four of us used to meet in an uncomfortable room, and we didn’t really know what we were meeting for, because there was no positive action for us to take. So, we were none of us married –​well, I was married –​but we weren’t the sort of women who wanted crèches, or anything like that, and we used to have these rather vague meetings. May Dennington was a stalwart and Eve Wilson used to come to them, and I can’t remember who else now. Only five or six people used to come, and it was a dead disaster, we had no urge to do anything. We didn’t feel that we were different, we saw no bonus in having a women’s section, you see?’ (Mander, 1988) Mander’s assertion that the committee was a “dead disaster” despite being “frequently asked to start a women’s section” suggests that the establishment of the committee was not a response to demands for representation from women workers but was orchestrated by the union leadership. As a consequence, the Women’s Committee was directionless because the women technicians involved were not interested in separate self-​organization and did not believe they shared special interests around which to organize as a gender. Mander specifically reflects that the committee members “weren’t the sort of women who wanted crèches”. The activity of the ACT’s Women’s Committee was therefore at odds with women activists in the British labour movement for whom childcare provision was a central demand. For instance, in 1942 the Standing Joint Committee of Working Women Organizations held a conference on nursery facilities which produced a list of demands for the state provision of childcare to working women (Boston, 2015: 196–​7). Mander’s testimony suggests that the Women’s Committee ultimately failed because the ethos of separate self-​organization contradicted the attitudes of the women technicians on the committee. However, Mander’s recollections of the Women’s Committee of the early 1940s were informed by her views on feminism in the late 1980s. In the interview, Mander explicitly rejects the label of feminism, stating “I’m not a feminist”, and argues instead that feminism has had a detrimental impact on gender relations: “the situation is much worse than it ever was before feminism was invented” (Mander, 1988). She is also dismissive of the existence of, and campaigning energy focused on, gender discrimination: “Well it doesn’t matter whether you’re a woman or not. You’re just a person with a certain amount of technical ability, skill, knowledge, imagination which you can apply” (Mander,

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1988). Therefore, Mander’s claims that the committee was a disaster because the women had no shared gender-​specific interests may have been over-​exaggerated. Women’s separate self-​organization, such as women’s committees, has been identified as a central strategy adopted by women union activists by women’s labour historians and industrial relations scholars. Such strategies provide a safe and resourced space within the trade union structure to develop women’s confidence, activist skills, political consciousness and collective identity, as well as offer women workers a voice to advance their gender-​specific demands (Heery and Kelly, 1988; Gabin, 1990; Briskin 1993, 2014; Briskin and McDermott, 1993; Colgan and Ledwith, 2000, 2002; Healy and Kirton, 2000; Kirton and Healy, 2004; Kirton, 2006; Ledwith, 2012). However, the ACT’s wartime Women’s Committee does not appear to have performed such a function. Firstly, the composition of the Women’s Committee, as previously described by Mander (1988), suggests that it was unrepresentative of women workers in the film industry. The named committee members, May Dennington and Eve Wilson, were both studio workers –​an assistant editor and continuity supervisor, respectively –​as was Mander, a documentary film director. Mander’s wording further suggests that the women on the committee were childless, and most were unmarried. Therefore, the voices and demands of working-​class women in the laboratories, as well as working mothers, were absent on the committee. Secondly, the committee met intermittently between 1940 and 1941, and was often hindered by the circumstances of the Second World War; for instance, in late 1940 meetings were postponed as a result of the Blitz (Mander, October–​December 1940: 98). Reports on the activity of the Women’s Committee cease after its report to the 1941 Annual Conference (ACT, 1941: 12), held in April, thus indicating that the committee was inactive beyond this point. As with the disappearance of ‘For Women Technicians’, the decline of the wartime Women’s Committee affirms that the ACT was only interested in organizing women workers when negotiating agreements to safeguard men’s jobs. Historiography on women workers during the Second World War has debated the extent to which women’s employment in British industry followed the narrative of wartime opportunity and post-​war decline. Summerfield (1984:  1) has persuasively argued that there was ‘continuity with pre-​war attitudes and practices towards women’ throughout the Second World War. Patriarchal attitudes towards women’s position in society remained ‘resilient’ among government bodies, employers and trade unions (Summerfield, 1984: 4), and official

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policies introduced by the government, which have been associated with increased wartime opportunities, in fact ‘reinforced the unequal position of women in society’ (Summerfield, 1984: 185). Similarly, dilution agreements negotiated by trade unions, including the ACT’s agreements, ‘operated to perpetuate gender divisions’ (Summerfield, 1984: 152), and so confined women to low paid jobs. Jo Fox (2013) also disputes the narrative of opportunity and decline in her analysis of the wartime experiences of women workers in documentary film production. During the 1930s the ‘informal training and employment structures’ of documentary film production had allowed both men and women to find employment and the war simply ‘extended opportunities for women, accelerated their progress and diversified the nature of their assignments’, partly resulting from an ‘increased demand for information films’ (Fox, 2013: 586). The relationship between women and the ACT during the Second World War similarly contradicts the narrative of wartime opportunity and post-​war decline, and instead reveals a significant degree of continuity with the union’s pre-​war practices. The ‘organizing energy’ of the ACT continued to focus on the unionization of male-​dominated sectors of the industry, which was intensified by the union’s role as the ‘official vetting body’ for reserved occupation status for male film technicians. The ACT further prioritized men’s interests through its agreements and its emphasis on the need for ‘proper safeguards’ in the union journal’s discussion of women workers. The absence of a feminist consciousness among the female technicians involved in the Women’s Committee ensured that the committee did not challenge the union’s position on women workers, and in fact reinforced the perspective that women threatened men’s wages and conditions. Once agreements to safeguard men’s jobs had been established, women’s visibility in The Cine-​Technician diminished. The Second World War consolidated the gendered union structure of the ACT, which shaped the relationship between women and the ACT between 1945 and 1959.

Post-​war debates on ACT membership While women’s trade union membership was at its height in Britain at the end of the Second World War, with over a million women trade union members (Bruley, 1999: 127), society in the late 1940s and 1950s was characterized by the prevalence of traditional and conservative attitudes which emphasized women’s role as wives and mothers (Bruley, 1999; Holloway, 2005; Boston, 2015). Correspondingly, women’s union militancy was uncommon, beyond an equal pay campaign

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to apply pressure on the national government for legislative change which was led by women union activists in the civil service, teaching and local government in the early 1950s. The agreements reached in the civil service and local government in 1955 offered equal pay to professional women and excluded manual grades (Boston, 2015: 251). Furthermore, women workers remained predominantly confined to sex-​segregated employment in secretarial and factory work (Bruley, 1999: 121–​2). There were three trends which informed the relationship between women and the ACT in the decade following the Second World War: firstly, a post-​war debate on which grades were represented by the ACT; secondly, an increase in the number of women holding official positions in the ACT; and thirdly, the extension of the ACT’s remit to include commercial television. The 1947 Demarcation Agreement between the ACT, NATKE and ETU further consolidated the ACT’s position in the British film industry, as it confirmed the union’s representation of all the industry’s technical grades (Reid, 2008:  118). The demarcation of grades represented by the ACT, NATKE and ETU had troubled the three unions from the 1930s. For instance, Kay Mander (1988) recalled “trouble with demarcation” in the 1930s which meant that Mander could not remain an ACT member when she moved from the publicity department to Denham’s budget department: “Tom O’Brien [NATKE’s General Secretary] insisted that I was –​I had to lay down my card”. However, Mander (1988) “refused to join” NATKE and so remained unrepresented during this time. The 1947 Demarcation Agreement clarified the remit of each union operating in the film industry following a dispute between the ACT and NATKE over the representation of repair and despatch workers which had culminated in the 1946 Repair and Despatch Strike. Through the agreement, the ACT exchanged projectionists for sound technicians with the ETU and distribution workers for scenic artists with NATKE (ACTT, 1983: 29). The dispute over repair and despatch workers prompted a wider debate around which grades should be represented by the ACT, as illustrated by two articles defending the ACT’s representation of clerical and publicity workers in The Cine-​Technician in 1946. In the first of the two articles, correspondence between Harry Waxman and George Elvin, the ACT’s General Secretary, discussed the inclusion of clerical workers among the ACT’s membership (Waxman and Elvin, March–​April 1946: 41, 55). Employing search terms including ‘clerical’ and a combination of ‘clerk’ and ‘office’, the BECTU Membership Database revealed that clerical grades were female-​dominated, as women workers comprised 58% and 64% of

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the returned results (Bell, Ball and Galt, nd). In his letter, Waxman announced his displeasure at the inclusion of ‘clerical and general grades working in film processing laboratories’ in the ACT’s agreement with the Association of Film Laboratory Employers (Waxman and Elvin, March–​April 1946: 41). Waxman sought a conclusive answer for ‘this question of what constitutes a “technician” in the eyes of A.C.T.’, arguing: Surely the function of A.C.T.  is to cater for technicians who are peculiar to the film industry, and not every worker in the industry. Will the A.C.T. please enlighten me as to the difference between a clerk who works in a laboratory despatch department and one who works in a timber yard. If there is a difference then why stop at clerks; what about the men on the front gate or the office cleaners? (Waxman and Elvin, March–​April 1946: 41) Waxman mobilized a gendered notion of skill and construction of a craft union identity to justify his challenge of ACT membership for workers who were not ‘peculiar to the film industry’ and were instead deemed to threaten the character of the ACT. In his response, Elvin defended the inclusion of clerical workers in the laboratories within ACT’s membership, opening with the statement:  ‘Whilst A.C.T.  is primarily a Technicians’ Union, it is not exclusively so’ (Waxman and Elvin, March–​April 1946:  41). Elvin proceeds: In the laboratories, for example, we feel it is advisable, and the other Unions in the Industry agree with us, to operate as an Industrial Union catering for all employees; that is why we organise clerks and the other people mentioned by you, including men at the front gate and the office cleaner. In the Studios and other sections of the industry demarcation is covered by Agreements with the other Unions. In the Studios for example, N.A.T.K.E. organise the clerks. (Waxman and Elvin, March–​April 1946: 41) Elvin’s response further illuminates the class distinction between the studios and laboratories within the union. The demarcation of grades was more clearly articulated in the studios and was linked to the craft union principles of the ACT’s formative years, whereas the working-​ class base provided by the laboratories facilitated an industrial union.

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Women and the ACT, 1933–59

While the General Secretary defended the inclusion of clerical workers in this female-​dominated section of the industry, they were not systematically organized by the ACT and instead remained a “voluntary bunch” until the 1950s (Cooper in Ancell, 1989). For instance, Daphne Ancell recalled that the clerical workers had not been unionized when she joined the industry as a clerical worker for Technicolor Laboratories in 1950: “I don’t think the clerical side was organized at all actually, it wasn’t Alf ” (Ancell, 1989). Clerical work in the film laboratories was associated with ‘feminine’ skills, as illustrated by the earlier discussion of the Kodak advert, ‘How she fares depends on him’. Clerical workers were thus excluded by the ACT’s gendered definition of skill which had informed their organization from its establishment. The unionization of clerical workers in the laboratories again mirrors Gabin’s (1990) observations that female-​dominated workplaces were not systematically organized, and the responsibility of organizing women workers was placed on women themselves. In the second of the two articles, Enid Jones, a publicity section member, defended the inclusion of publicity workers within the ACT’s membership (Jones, November–​December 1946: 144, 168). Jones illustrated the arguments mobilized against the inclusion of publicity workers in the opening segment of the article, which included: ‘What are word-​slingers and film salesmen doing in the same Union as cameramen and sound technicians?’ and ‘Wouldn’t we be more suitable enrolled with the canteen workers or the sweepers-​up of studios?’ (Jones, November–​December 1946: 144). These arguments mirrored those advanced by Waxman in opposition to the inclusion of clerical workers and draw upon the same gendered narrative of skill which operated to exclude women workers from the definition of a skilled film technician. Reflecting Elvin’s response to Waxman, Jones (November–​December 1946: 144) argues that publicity workers ‘are an essential … part of film production’, and so share the interests of film technicians. While the BECTU Membership Database suggests that less than a quarter (23%) of publicity workers were women between 1933 and 1959 (Bell, Ball and Galt, nd), the publicity section of the film industry offered an entry point for the careers of a number of women workers and union activists, including Kay Mander, Pamela Mann-​Francis and Ann Skinner. For instance, Mander began her career in a publicity department in 1935 before establishing herself as a continuity supervisor and documentary film director. Similarly, Mann-​Francis entered the industry as a secretary in the Publicity Department of Rank Studios before working as a production secretary during the 1950s. Clerical roles also provided women workers with

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their initial entrance into the industry; for example, Teresa Bolland, one of the ACT’s vice-​presidents in the 1950s, started as the secretary to the Feature and Drama Department of the BBC before working as a continuity supervisor. Furthermore, membership of the ACT was essential to women’s career progression and access to jobs. Mann-​Francis, initially a member of NATKE, discovered that it was “almost impossible to get in to ACT” and thus “impossible … to get in to production” (Mann-​ Francis, 1994). Assessing her career retrospectively, Mann-​Francis (1994) argued that “at that time ACT as a union held me back”. When Mann-​Francis received ACT membership in 1955 it “was the first time I ever felt myself official” and was “officially entitled to call myself a production secretary and do progress reports” (Mann-​Francis, 1994). The demarcation between publicity and film production ensured that Mann-​Francis could not easily progress from her role as secretary in Rank Studios’ Publicity Department to a role in film production. If the career pathways of these women are taken to be reflective of the pathways available to women workers in the film industry between 1933 and 1959, the inclusion of clerical and publicity workers within the ACT enabled women workers to progress from secretarial roles in laboratories and publicity sections to roles in film production. The publication of the Royal Commission on Equal Pay, 1944–​ 1946 –​ Report (Parliament, House of Commons, 1946) prompted a second discussion of women’s place in the ACT through The Cine-​ Technician in 1947 in relation to the ACT’s commitment to equal pay for women workers. Following the 1943 equal pay strike at the Rolls Royce factory in Hillington, Glasgow, the campaign for equal pay for equal work was a priority for the British labour movement for the remainder of the war. This was illustrated by the increased number of resolutions on equal pay at the TUC Women’s Conference, rising from one in 1943 to ten between the 1944 and 1945 conferences (Summerfield, 1984: 173). In 1944, the government established the Royal Commission on Equal Pay to ‘examine the existing relationship between the remuneration of men and women in the public services, in industry and in other fields of employment; to consider the social, economic and financial implications of the claim of equal pay for equal work; and to report’ (Parliament, House of Commons, 1946: 1). To do so, the Commission consulted trade unions, employers, government departments, women’s groups, academics and doctors (Boston, 2015: 226). In 1946 the report recommended equal pay for professional women, for instance, in teaching and the civil service, but not for the majority of women working in industry, who were not considered to

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make an equal contribution to men because, the report concluded, they had less strength, higher rates of absenteeism and were a more transient workforce (Wilson, 1980: 45). The ACT’s response to the Royal Commission’s Report appeared in ACT organizer Bessie Bond’s contribution to the ‘Organiser’s Page’ (March–​April 1947: 55, 60), and two delegate reports from women’s conferences in the wider labour movement (Anon, March–​April 1947: 63; Anon, September–​October 1947: 146), both of which were attended by Bond, the first woman to be appointed as ACT Organizer. All three articles reiterated that the issue of equal pay had already been resolved in the ACT, with statements such as: ‘Women members of the A.C.T. have always enjoyed equal status with men’ (Bond, March–​ April 1947: 55), and ‘In the A.C.T. there is no difference between men and women, but this is not the case in most unions’ (Anon, September–​October 1947: 146). In the late 1940s and 1950s, women were primarily visible in the union journal through delegate reports from national women’s conferences, such as the Conference of Unions Catering for Women, the Women’s TUC, TUC Weekend Schools for women trade unionists and the National Conference of Labour Women, which prioritized campaigns for equal pay during this period. These delegate reports reveal that the ACT’s position on equal pay for equal work remained static throughout the late 1940s and 1950s as they continued to emphasize the ACT’s exceptional commitment to equal pay (Anon, July–​August 1948:  134; Bond, July–​August 1949:  108; Cranston, July 1954: 138; Bond, July 1954: 138–​9). For instance, in 1954 film editor Helga Cranston expressed her surprise that equal pay had not been established in other industries: ‘As a member of A.C.T., where the question of differentiation between the work of men and women is unheard of, it was quite an eye-​opener for me to find that this is the exception rather than the rule’ (Cranston, July 1954: 138). This rhetoric was challenged by Teresa Bolland in a profile of her career as a production secretary and union activity as shop steward for Pinewood (Recorder, August 1953: 97). Following the Second World War, the UAW’s Women’s Bureau circulated profiles of women activists in local union branches within UAW publications to ‘inspire self-​confidence as well as admiration’ among women members (Gabin, 1990: 149). These profiles emphasized the ‘exceptional achievements’ of these women as well as the ‘traits they shared with all women’ (Gabin, 1990: 149). For instance, articles discussed how many children these women had and praised ‘their willingness to combine domestic responsibilities with union activities’ (Gabin, 1990: 150). More recently, the Costume Designer’s Guild’s magazine The Costume Designer featured

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profiles which emphasized women’s personal experience narratives, particularly those related to motherhood (Warner, 2018). While Bolland’s profile was the only one of its kind in The Cine-​Technician between 1945 and 1959, it shared similar traits to the UAW and Costume Designer’s profiles in that it praised traditionally feminine qualities, such as organizational and peacekeeping skills, and highlighted Bolland’s role as a wife as well as a trade union activist (Recorder, August 1953: 97). Paraphrasing Bolland, the profile records her views on the ACT’s commitment to equal pay in relation to the status of continuity supervisors and production secretaries in the British film industry: As regards problems of the Continuity, Assistant Continuity and Production Secretary Section, Teresa says that although A.C.T. had got equal pay for all grades in all agreements, the pay of Continuity girls should be higher –​the work is just as responsible as a 1st Assistant’s, and pay should be on a level with his; a Production Secretary’s wages are not bad, except when you consider she works alongside the Production Manager, and often has to deputise for him. Production Secretary is a job on its own, and should be taken out of the Supplementary Grades of the Studio Agreement. Cheap labour in these responsible jobs never pays a Producer. (Recorder, August 1953: 97) Bolland illuminates the disparity between the wages of continuity supervisors and production secretaries, predominantly performed by women workers, and first assistant directors and production managers, predominantly performed by male workers, despite each role entailing a similar level of responsibility. As such, Bolland’s profile reveals that the ACT paid lip service to equal pay for equal work while maintaining gender segregation through its grading structure. Bolland’s comments on equal pay in the ACT suggest that the organization of women workers into a section within the union structure provided a space and voice to criticize union policies concerning women and points to the presence of a proto-​feminism in the 1950s. However, there is no response to Bolland’s call for re-​g rading recorded in the surviving archival material, and the ACT’s position on equal pay was not challenged again until the 1970s. In January 1951, a Continuity and Production Secretaries’ Section was established in the ACT, which represented film production grades almost exclusively performed by women workers. The section was established 13 years after Selby-​Lowndes’ article, which detailed

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earlier unsuccessful attempts to organize continuity supervisors, and again suggests that women were left to organize themselves. The establishment of this section can be attributed to two possible sources. Firstly, the post-​war production boom resulted in a sharp increase of continuity supervisors and production secretaries, with applications for membership peaking in 1946 and 1947 respectively (Bell, Ball and Galt, nd). Theresa Bolland was among the women entering film production after the Second World War, moving from her position as secretary to the Feature and Drama Department at the BBC to the role of production secretary on Wanted for Murder (Director Lawrence Huntington, 1946). Secondly, Bolland and Muriel Herd were increasingly active in the ACT. Both women were nominated for election to vice-​president and the General Council by the Continuity, Assistant Continuity and Production Secretaries’ section between 1952 and 1956, as detailed in ACT Annual Reports (ACT, 1952; 1953; 1954; 1955; 1956), and Bolland was elected vice-​president in 1955, holding the position for two years (ACT, 1955; 1956). The women’s nomination to official positions from 1952 onwards is an indication of their leading role in the establishment of the Continuity and Production Secretaries’ section. Between 1945 and 1959, a small number of women held official positions in the ACT, including Bessie Bond (ACT organizer between 1945 and 1961), Monica Toye (shop steward at Denham laboratories from 1954)  and Teresa Bolland (shop steward at Pinewood from 1951 and ACT vice-​president between 1955 and 1957). However, these women were rarely visible in the union journal, beyond Bond’s occasional contribution to the ‘Organiser’s Page’ in place of Bert Craik and delegate reports from national women’s conferences. To gain greater insight into women’s involvement in the ACT we must look to other sources, namely oral history, which has been praised be feminist scholars as an ‘invaluable means of generating new insights about women’s experiences of themselves in their worlds’ (Anderson and Jack, 1991: 11). Firstly, Bond’s (1987) interview reveals the pathway she followed into official union activity and the gendered remit of her role. Bond gained her “political education” in Glasgow during the 1920s, both through her involvement in the Tailoring and Garment Workers’ Union (T&GWU) and her membership of the Communist Party (Bond, 1987). While living in London during the 1930s, Bond established connections with senior members of the ACT through her husband Ralph Bond, the co-​founder of the London Workers’ Film Society. Bond initially worked for the ACT in a voluntary capacity during the

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Second World War, entering the union upon the personal request of George Elvin to assist his secretary, Winifred Pearson. In the trajectory mapped out by Bond in her interview, she progressed through the union from working in a supportive role for Craik, to deputizing for him, to working as a full-​time organizer in her own right and was officially appointed as ACT organizer in 1945. Bond was the first woman to be appointed as an organizer within the ACT. Bond was assigned responsibility for the laboratories, the largest section of the union in terms of membership, and expressed an affinity for the section, stating that she “loved the Labs” (ACTT, 1983:  72; Bond, 1987) because they were “the proletariat” (ACTT, 1983: 72). The cartoon shown in Figure 1.1 appeared in The Cine-​Technician, alongside a poem, depicting ACT organizers Bessie Bond and Harry Middleton organizing the film laboratories (J.L., September–​October 1947: 158). However, Bond’s testimony rarely focuses on the specific details of her role, and instead emphasizes her personal relationship with union members. For instance, Bond reflects on her achievements with a statement on her likeability rather than success in negotiations: ‘I have a feeling I was very popular and people thought a lot of me. I think people did like me and a lot of people came to me ‘go and see Bessie she’ll sort it out or help you’. And a lot of people came with their personal problems as I told you, you know.’ (Bond, 1987) Suzanne Franzway (2000) has argued that the caring role performed by women union officials differentiates their experience of union work from those of their male colleagues. Similarly, Bond’s testimony reveals that emotional labour, traditionally associated with ‘women’s work’, was central to her remit as ACT organizer. Secondly, Toye’s recollections of her election as shop steward in Denham laboratories and the challenges she encountered through the role were recorded through direct and reported speech in Action! Fifty Years in the Life of a Union (ACTT, 1983: 71–​2). There was heightened militancy at Denham laboratories in the mid-​1950s, with long-​running disputes between the union and management over wages and conditions and a lockout in 1954. Within this context, the Denham shop steward resigned due to ill health and Toye was elected in the ensuing confusion. Toye evokes the tense atmosphere of the meeting in which she stood for election, stating: “You could hear a pin drop” (ACTT, 1983: 71). Toye’s Action! Profile records the gendered hostility she encountered from male colleagues, who were ‘patronising’, and managers, who ‘bullied

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Figure 1.1: Cartoon depicting ACT organizers Bessie Bond and Harry Middleton organizing the film laboratories.

Courtesy of BECTU –​Sector of Prospect. This cartoon appeared in The Cine-​Technician, alongside a poem, depicting ACT organizers Bessie Bond and Harry Middleton organizing the film laboratories (J.L., September–​October 1947: 158). Bond “loved the Labs” (ACTT, 1983: 72; Bond, 1987) because they were “the proletariat” (ACTT, 1983: 72).

her’ (ACTT, 1983: 71). Toye emphasizes her achievements, including “rates for colour, protective clothing [and] compensation for dermatitis”, which were facilitated by her familiarity with the union’s agreements: “I learned it off by heart –​literally” (ACTT, 1983: 71). Toye’s testimony

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identifies challenges faced by women union activists during the 1950s, namely hostility within the male-​dominated workplace and a need to be particularly well-​versed in the union’s agreements. However, the existing oral histories with women active in the ACT between 1933 and 1959 provide access to a limited number of voices, and the experiences of other women remain unknown through both archival resources and oral history interviews. Furthermore, Bond, Toye and Mander expressed hostility towards the politics of second-​ wave feminism; for instance, Bond described feminist campaigns as “exaggerated” and “overdone”, while Toye argued that feminists were “cutting off their noses to spite their faces” (ACTT, 1983: 72–3​ ). Sheila MacLeod attributed these attitudes to generational divisions between women activists involved in the ACTT prior to and following the women’s liberation movement (ACTT, 1983: 73). Indeed, Mander’s testimony supports such a conclusion: ‘I think if I’d been born when my mother was born, I should have been a Suffragette, but I came in the middle period, when women didn’t have to fight for certain things … And by the time women started fighting for certain things, I really wasn’t interested any longer.’ (Mander, 1988) The absence of an external feminist movement corresponded with the rejection of a feminist consciousness among women activists involved in the ACT in this “middle period” between 1933 and 1959. Following the emergence of commercial television in 1955, the ACT extended its remit to include television technicians. Correspondingly, the ACT changed its name to the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) in 1956. While the ACT represented television workers at the BBC prior to 1955, the union was not officially recognized by the Corporation, and so had no negotiating powers. Instead, BBC employees were represented by the BBC Staff Association, which had been established during the Second World War. The Staff Association did not operate as an independent union, and was instead considerably dependent on the Corporation; for instance, ‘its offices were on BBC premises, its staff were seconded from the Corporation and facilities, including stationary, office furniture, and telephones, were provided by the BBC’ (Seglow, 1983: 161). In 1956 the BBC Staff Association changed its name to the Association of Broadcasting Staff. According to the ACTT’s self-​ published history, the union was initially ‘suspicious of commercial television’ (ACTT, 1983: 29). The Cine-​Technician offers some insight

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into these suspicions. Firstly, members of the union leadership voiced their concern that commercial television threatened the film industry and its workforce. For instance, George Elvin, General Secretary, and Bert Craik, union organizer, argued that the studio space purchased or leased for commercial television confined film production to four studios, compared to the 16 studios previously available, thus hampering production (Elvin, February 1955: 20; Craik, February 1955: 27). In an interview with the British Entertainment History Project, Bond (1987) recalled similar anxieties related to increased competition for jobs in the film industry: “there was a lot of problems because they resented television people getting a job on films”. These anxieties were largely unfounded, as the journal reported higher levels of employment at the end of 1955 as a result of commercial television (Elvin, December 1955: 180; Middy, December 1955: 186). Secondly, the ACT was concerned that the quality of programming would deteriorate as a result of commercial interests in independent television. The ‘Policy on Balance’ stated: This Association is of the strong opinion that immediate steps should be taken to stem the tendency towards an ever decreasing quality and its consequent effect on public taste, and that the enormous power of Commercial Television should not merely be used for frivolous entertainment, but that its beneficial effects should be put to their fullest use. (Anon, November 1956: 170) The ACT’s apprehensions reflected wider anxieties within British society over the potential influence of American culture on Britain’s national identity (Thumim, 2006). In contrast to the ‘Policy on Balance’, the journal also suggests that the ACT championed the organization of commercial television, as it detailed the unionization process and emphasized the shared interests of film and television technicians, whose roles required the ‘same skills and experience’ (Anon, March 1956: 40). The General Council’s decision to organize commercial television was narrowly carried by one vote (ACTT, 1983: 29), suggesting that the union leadership was more polarized on the issue than recorded in the journals. In its self-​published history, the ACTT concluded that the ‘decision was one of the most important that the union ever took’, because it strengthened the union and safeguarded the film industry (ACTT, 1983: 29). The 1950s have been identified as ‘a time of relative opportunity for women in television’ (Murray, 2013a:  636); however, gendered

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archiving practices mean that it is difficult to trace the number of women working in television production during the decade. In relation to programming, Rachel Moseley and Helen Wheatley (2008: 154–​5) argue that gendered archiving practices have prioritized the preservation of programming deemed to have ‘cultural value’, such as drama and current affairs, and overlooked ‘everyday’ television aimed at female audiences. Furthermore, early television was recorded live, and so the history of early television has been pieced together from an examination of camera scripts, production notes and reviews (Cooke, 2003:  7). Despite technological developments which facilitated telerecording from the late 1940s, the process was selective and tapes were often recycled (Cooke, 2003: 7). As such, programming was ephemeral and surviving material is incomplete up to the mid-​1970s (Cooke, 2003: 4). However, the BECTU Membership Database offers some indication of the number of women from television joining the ACTT during the 1950s. Women television workers made up less than 0.21% of new members in the 1940s, which rose to 4% in the 1950s and 8% in the 1960s, pointing to an influx of women workers from commercial television (Ball, statistics provided in personal correspondence). The influence of women from television on the union’s campaign against gender discrimination in the 1970s, discussed in the next chapter, suggests that the organization of television workers marked an important shift in the relationship between women and the ACTT. In the post-​war period the visibility of women in The Cine-T ​ echnician increased incrementally, both as elected officials and in discussions of equal pay. However, for the most part, these articles reaffirmed the ACT’s position towards women workers. For instance, while the ACT emphasized the validity of its representation of clerical and publicity workers in 1947, it failed to systematically organize these workforces. In relation to equal pay, the ACT reiterated its commitment to equal pay policies, thus continuing only to pay lip service to the issue. Furthermore, the increase in women officials did not challenge the gendered union structure, as these women were not active around women’s issues. However, articles such as Theresa Bolland’s profile point to the presence of a proto-​feminism during the 1950s, and Bolland played a central role in organizing women workers through the Continuity and Production Secretary Section. While there was little change in the relationship between women and the ACT between 1945 and 1959, the inclusion of television technicians would later result in an influx of women members who would play a significant role in the campaign for equality.

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Conclusion This chapter has traced the establishment and institutionalization of a profoundly gendered union structure in the ACT between 1933 and 1959. During its establishment and formative years in the 1930s, the ACT focused on organizing male-​dominated sections of the British film industry, particularly in the studios, and prioritized the interests of male technicians. The union mobilized a highly gendered definition of skill which operated to exclude women workers and was codified into the union’s negotiated agreements and organizational practices. Female-​dominated sections of the industry were not systematically organized until the 1950s, and their eventual organization was driven by women members, as demonstrated by Daphne Ancell’s recollections of clerical workers in Technicolor and the establishment of the Continuity and Production Secretary’s Section in 1951. This supports Nancy Gabin’s (1990) observation that the responsibility for organizing women workers was often placed on women themselves. The Second World War was a significant period of institution building which solidified the ACT’s identity and its control of the labour force as a pre-​entry closed shop in the film industry. The ACT’s appointment as the ‘official vetting body for war-​time film technicians’ (ACTT, 1983: 21) intensified its focus on organizing male-​dominated sections of the industry during the war. Furthermore, the ACT responded to the influx of women workers into the industry with agreements and organizational practices which functioned to safeguard men’s wages and conditions and consolidate gender inequality in the union structure. Post-​war debates on the union’s membership, following the 1947 Demarcation Agreement between the ACT, NATKE and ETU, acted to reinforce a gendered definition of skill which continued to exclude women from union activity. However, the organization of technicians in commercial television from 1955 onwards marked a shift in the composition of the union’s membership which would have a significant impact on the relationship between women and the ACTT from the 1960s. Between 1933 and 1959, women remained largely invisible within the ACT. Despite repeated hints at the presence of a proto-​feminism, in Alison Selby-​Lowndes’ 1938 article calling for a women’s section and Theresa Bolland’s 1953 critique of ACT’s equal pay policies, there was no significant challenge to the ACT’s gendered union structure. In fact, the short-​lived wartime Women’s Committee, active between 1940 and 1941, operated to safeguard the jobs of conscripted

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male technicians. This was demonstrated by the rhetoric of the committee –​it was women’s ‘particular duty’ to preserve trade union organization and protect the employment rights of male technicians (Mander, August–​September 1940: 72) –​and the ambivalence of its members: “We didn’t feel that we were different, we saw no bonus in having a women’s section” (Mander, 1988). Furthermore, ACT’s commitment, in principle if not in practice, to equal pay in its early agreements dampened women’s activity when equal pay was the central campaigning focus for women activists in the British labour movement from the Second World War. In 1973, women activists challenged the ACTT’s gendered union structure through the establishment of the Sub-​Committee on Discrimination Against Women and the demand for an investigation of gender discrimination in the film and television industries. The next chapter examines how women organized and fought for change within the ACTT’s profoundly gendered union structure.

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2

Catalysts for Change, 1960–​75 In 1973, ACTT women activists established the Sub-​Committee on Discrimination Against Women –​renamed the Committee on Equality in February 1974 and referred to as such throughout –​and presented three motions to the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference which called on the union to challenge gender discrimination in the British film and television industries. This included the demand for an investigation into gender discrimination which culminated in the publication of the Patterns of Discrimination Against Women in the Film and Television Industries (hereafter Patterns) report in 1975. In his editorial following the conference, Research Officer and Journal Editor Roy Lockett (May 1973: 5) reflected on the magnitude of the motions: ‘It is one of the oddities of ACTT’s history that before the beginning of 1973, the demands made at the Conference hadn’t been heard at any level of the ACTT’s structure’. In her longitudinal study of women in the British labour movement, Sarah Boston (2015: 290) later identified the 1973 conference as the moment when the ACTT was ‘shaken from its complacency’. The conference marked a significant watershed in the relationship between women and the ACTT. This chapter traces the catalysts for the establishment of the COE and the demand for an investigation into gender discrimination at the 1973 conference. Firstly, it examines demographic changes in the workforce and union during the 1960s to contextualize women’s growing frustration with gender discrimination. Secondly, it reflects on the emergence of the women’s liberation movement and upsurge of industrial unrest in Britain between 1968 and 1973 to demonstrate their influence on women’s militancy within the ACTT. The chapter then explores women’s lived experiences of trade union activism in the ACTT following the establishment of the COE in 1973 to the publication of the Patterns report in 1975, with particular focus on the process of the investigation into discrimination.

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1960–​68: the ‘roots’ of later militancy? In her longitudinal study, Sarah Boston (2015: 264) argues that the ‘roots’ of women’s militancy in the British labour movement were evident between 1960 and 1968. In a chapter indicatively titled ‘Little Indication of Progress’, Boston (2015: 264) identifies 1960 to 1968 as a transitional period for women in the British labour movement, situated ‘between the conservation of the 1950s and the new militancy of which the strike of machinists at Fords, Dagenham, in 1968 marked the beginning’. While there was ‘very little evidence of change’ on the surface (Boston, 2015: 264), increased educational opportunities for girls in the post-​war period, the changing composition of the British workforce and labour movement, and attitudinal shifts towards marriage and sexuality contributed to women workers’ growing discontent with their continued low status in sex-​segregated jobs during the 1960s. Within the ACTT, women and their gender-​specific interests continued to be largely invisible in a profoundly gendered union structure which prioritized men’s interests. This section examines whether the ‘roots’ of ACTT women’s militancy from 1973 were similarly evident between 1960 and 1968. Women’s paid employment rose significantly in Britain during the post-​war period. Women’s share of the total workforce stood at 29% in 1931, rising to 31% in 1951, 37% in 1971, and 45% in 1987 (Lewis, 1994 : 65). The post-​war influx of women workers has been attributed to two key factors. Firstly, the expansion of the service sector, which was stimulated by post-​war reconstruction and the establishment of the welfare state, ensured that the demand for women workers was high (Lewis, 1994; Holloway, 2005). However, women’s employment in the emerging service sector was informed by ‘profoundly gendered ideas as to what kind of work is appropriate for women’ (Lewis, 1994: 68), and women were primarily confined to sex-​segregated employment in secretarial and factory work (Bruley, 1999:  121–​2). Secondly, while marriage increased and the average age at marriage declined in the post-​war period, the use of contraception and family planning became more prevalent, which enabled women to control their family size (Holloway, 2005:  194). With smaller families and a longer life expectancy, the proportion of women’s lives occupied by childbearing and child-​rearing decreased, and women had more time available for paid employment (Lewis, 1994: 66; McCloskey, 2001: 168). For instance, the proportion of women workers aged 25–​34 –​considered ‘the prime years for having pre-​school children’ –​increased from 29.5% in 1961 to 38.4% in 1971 and 48.6% in 1981 (McCloskey, 2001: 169).

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Furthermore, married women increasingly entered paid employment, accounting for 38% of the female workforce in 1951 and rising to 64% in 1985 (Lewis, 1994: 74). Women’s greater workforce participation increased their ‘proportionate importance’ to trade unions during the 1960s (Walby, 1986: 209). There was also a major influx of women workers into British trade unions. Between 1959 and 1964 women’s trade union membership increased at twice the rate of women’s employment (Wilson, 1980:  171), and it continued to increase throughout the decade; for instance, ‘women accounted for 70 per cent of the increase in members of trade unions affiliated to the TUC’ between 1964 and 1970 (Boston, 2015: 265). Within the ACTT, the number of women joining the union increased, from 1,550 new women members during the 1950s to 2,533 in the 1960s; however, women’s share of the ACTT’s membership in relation to men remained steady, with women representing 20% of new entrants in the 1960s compared to 21% in the 1950s (Ball, statistics provided in personal correspondence). Furthermore, there was considerable disparity in the number of women joining the union in the different sections of the industries represented by the ACTT. In commercial television women’s employment and trade union membership largely followed post-​war trends. The availability of women’s jobs in ITV –​an independent television network made up of regional television companies –​expanded from the late 1960s, particularly production assistant roles, as its programming became more complex and the number of companies increased (ACTT, 1975: 30). Women entering the ACTT from television made up 41% of the total number of women joining the union in the 1960s compared to 18% in the 1950s, demonstrating an increase in the proportion of women working in television (Ball, statistics provided in personal correspondence). While there was a rapid rate of growth in male membership of the ACTT’s television branch between 1953 and 1969, women’s employment in ACTT grades within ITV increased at a faster rate than men’s from 1969, and, correspondingly, female membership also increased at a higher rate (ACTT, 1975: 26, 30). Alternatively, women’s employment in the film laboratories contradicted post-​war trends. The proportion of women workers in the laboratories declined from 25% in the early 1960s to 14% in 1974, as the introduction of new technologies and associated job losses disproportionately impacted women workers (Women in West London Film Laboratories, 2016). In fact, Andrew Dawson and Sean P. Holmes suggest that gender segregation became more rigid in the laboratories during the 1960s, as women were ‘concentrated in a narrow range

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of occupations, systematically excluded from most traineeships and discouraged from applying for jobs in men’s departments’ (Women in West London Film Laboratories, 2016). Similarly, women’s membership of the ACTT’s film production branch drastically declined by 18% between 1969 and 1974, compared to 9% for male membership, as a result of stagnation in the film industry which had led to high levels of unemployment, an increasingly casualized workforce and an embargo on new entrants (ACTT, 1975: 36–​7). While women’s ‘proportionate importance’ in the ACTT did not increase between 1960 and 1968, trends in women’s employment in commercial television foreshadow their later dominance in campaigns on gender equality during the 1970s. This, however, largely occurred from 1968 onwards, situating the roots of women’s militancy towards the end of the decade. For many new women workers entering paid employment in the 1960s, their experiences of low-​paid and low-​status work in a sex-​ segregated workforce clashed with their expectations of opportunities which had been denied to their mothers. These expectations had been engendered by women’s educational achievements, resulting from the expansion of secondary and tertiary education for girls, and their experiences of growing up with the advantages provided by the welfare state (Lewis, 1994; McCloskey, 2001; Holloway, 2005; Boston, 2015). Furthermore, the introduction of the pill in 1961 presented women with the opportunity to have greater control over their bodies, which ‘helped to create a feeling among women that they must seek control over other aspects of their lives’ (Bruley, 1999: 138–​9). Scholars examining the experiences of women in the BBC in the 1970s, such as Suzanne Franks (2011) and Jean Seaton (2015), identified a similar change in attitudes and expectations among women entering the BBC, which was prompted by the aforementioned trends of the 1960s. Franks and Seaton both stress the significance of the influx of young, well-​educated and often middle-​class women entering the BBC with the expectation that they would perform interesting work, advance in the Corporation and have children –​ambitions which ran counter to the gender discrimination prevalent in the BBC (Franks, 2011: 127; Seaton, 2015: 216). Similarly, Dawson and Holmes (Women in West London Film Laboratories, 2016) identified a generation of young women entering broadcasting with the anticipation of pursuing careers beyond ‘dead-​end secretarial work’ and combining these careers with family life. The disparity between the expectations and lived experiences of women workers entering paid employment during the 1960s fuelled women’s frustrations and contributed to the emergence of the women’s liberation movement (Wilson, 1980; Lewis, 1994; McCloskey, 2001;

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Holloway, 2005; Boston, 2015). Similarly, the disillusionment of women workers in commercial television during the 1960s and early 1970s established roots of discontent which would inform women’s activism in the ACTT from 1973. Between 1960 and 1968, the number of women to hold official positions in the ACTT increased and the activity of these women achieved greater visibility in the union journal than women officials between 1945 and 1959. Among the women to hold a position on the ACTT’s General Council between 1960 and 1968 were: Monica Toye (laboratories), Gloria Sachs (shorts and documentary), Ursula McHale (BBC), Daphne Le Brun (later Ancell) (laboratories), Yvonne Richards (film production) and Winifred Crum Ewing (film production). Notably, none of these women worked in commercial television, again positioning the influence of women television workers after 1968. Three women were elected as ACTT vice-​ presidents between 1960 and 1968: Winifred Crum Ewing (1965), Ursula McHale (1966–​67) and Monica Toye (1966–​69). Articles authored by these women increasingly, although still infrequently, appeared in Film and Television Technician (FTT). Among these articles were commentary pieces on developments in the film and television industries, primarily written by Crum Ewing, including ‘A Case for Pay TV’ (August 1962) and ‘Ultra High Frequency’ (January 1963: 7). Women also authored reports on conference proceedings, General Council meetings and branch activity in articles such as Sachs’ ‘Thoughts on the General Council’ (November 1963: 297; February 1964: 34), Richards’ ‘The General Council Decides’ (July–​August 1965: 152–​3), and shop steward Toye’s regular reports on Denham laboratories in the ‘Lab Topics’ column. Furthermore, women were visibly active in moving motions at the ACTT’s annual conferences, including McHale’s presentation of motions on the recognition of the ACTT by the BBC in 1964 and 1966 (McHale, April 1964: 79; April 1966: 342–​3). However, women union officials were constrained by the gendered union structure of the ACTT. For instance, the Patterns report later speculated that the ACTT had been reluctant to elect more than one female vice-​president:  ‘None of these women has achieved their position because of being a woman, but there may be a feeling that one woman is a good thing, but two’s a crowd’ (ACTT, 1975: 41). Furthermore, those women elected did not, for the most part, visibly discuss gender-​specific issues, such as equal pay and childcare provision, in the union journal between 1960 and 1968. The only article to address women’s position in the film and television industries between 1960 and 1968 was Crum Ewing’s

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‘The Female Technician: Why Women Make Good Directors and Producers’ (June 1963: 169). In this article, Crum Ewing mobilizes difference feminism to argue that women are uniquely qualified for the roles of director and producer because of traditionally feminine skills such as conflict resolution and proficiency with personal relationships. The rhetoric of Crum Ewing’s article reflected the dominant feminist discourse during the 1950s and 1960s, which was underpinned by a separate-​spheres ideology in which gender equality had been achieved, and women’s different and uniquely feminine qualities would have a humanizing influence on society (Bruley, 1999: 145; Birmingham Feminist History Group, 1979: 50). For example, during the 1960s, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament emphasized women’s apparent ‘aversion to violence’ and made appeals to women as mothers (Wilson, 1980: 178–​9). Crum Ewing draws upon this rhetoric to illuminate the disparities between the training opportunities available to men and women in the film industry and calls upon ACTT women to challenge this inequality. While there is no indication that Crum Ewing’s article was followed by action during the 1960s, training provision for women workers was one of the central areas of the COE’s activity between 1973 and 1975. As such, Crum Ewing’s article may point to the roots of women’s later militancy. Furthermore, Crum Ewing (June 1963) observes that while the film industry failed to spot and develop women’s talents, the television industry ‘made great use’ of women workers, thus providing insight into employment trends and women’s career expectations during the 1960s which would inform women’s activity from 1973. Crum Ewing’s criticisms are prefixed with references to the advanced position of women in the ACTT compared to other unions and industries. For instance, the article pays ‘tribute to the men of ACTT for their acceptance of women as creative technicians in their own right’ and emphasizes that the ‘rate of pay is for the job, and is not adjusted to sex’ (Crum Ewing, June 1963: 169). Such caveats indicate that women’s criticism of gender inequality within the ACTT during the 1960s was permissible only when accompanied with an acknowledgement of the union’s commitment to equal pay. Yet the ACTT remained complacent on the issue of equal pay, continuing to pay lip service to the issue through repeated affirmations that its equal pay agreements ensured equality for women in the film and television industries. Between 1960 and 1968, equal pay was discussed twice in FTT in reports on the proceedings of the TUC conference. These reports reiterated that equal pay ‘has always been a principle of our own Union’, reflecting the rhetoric mobilized between 1933 and 1959 (Cole, October

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1963:  267). As illustrated in the previous chapter, women workers were often neglected by the ACTT’s equal pay agreements because they were confined to female-​dominated grades. Alternatively, equal pay became a central campaigning focus for women union activists in the British labour movement between 1960 and 1968, due to a combination of factors. Firstly, as women represented a greater proportion of trade union membership during the 1960s, women’s gender-​specific interests, particularly in relation to equal pay, gained traction in the British labour movement. Secondly, equal pay for professional women workers in the civil service and local government was phased in between 1955 and 1962. Upon receiving equal pay, these women expanded their demands to encompass other women’s issues, such as paid maternity leave and equality of opportunity and promotion (Boston, 2015: 265). The discrepancies between the ‘status, wages and conditions’ of white-​collar women workers in the public sector and manual women workers contributed to women’s mounting discontent over equal pay (Boston, 2015: 265). Thirdly, the Labour Party had ‘made equal pay part of its campaigning platform’ in the 1964 General Election, and yet ‘did little to pursue this aim once in office’ (Wilson, 1980:  174). Labour’s equal pay promise raised expectations which were frustrated by the party’s inactivity in government, further contributing to women’s growing impatience. However, the ACTT’s formal commitment to equal pay meant that there was no activity on the issue between 1960 and 1968 when it was the central focus of women’s activity in the British labour movement. While women’s work and activity remained largely invisible within FTT between 1960 and 1968, sexualized images of women became a regular feature in the journal, particularly between 1963 and 1966. John Paddy Carstairs’ regular column, ‘Reeling Around’, was frequently accompanied by images of pin-​up girls during this three-​year period, with the final instalment featuring a ‘pin-​up gallery’ described as a ‘tribute to his taste, and discernment’ (Carstairs, December 1966:  510–​11). While Carstairs’ column was the most prolific, images of pin-​up girls also appeared in articles such as ‘Film Pin-​Ups (The Bare Facts about what Sells Pictures)’ (Williams, June 1963: 166–​8), and as standalone images with brief descriptions such as: ‘Very pert and very pretty Leslie Caron –​she is a pixie of a pin-​up as viewed here by George Higgins’ (Anon, August 1963: 236). These images were unique to the period, and so the pin-​up girls marked a significant departure from what preceded and followed the decade in their prevalence in the journal.

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The inclusion of sexualized images of women in the journal reflected the increasing sexualization of women in the media during the 1960s, as a result of both the liberalization of censorship laws in Britain in 1960 and a shift in consumerist ideologies which ushered in new advertising styles depicting women ‘as both sexual objects and subjects’ (Bruley, 1999:  139; Birmingham Feminist History Group, 1979:  64). Furthermore, Gillian Murray (2013b:  22) has illustrated that the ‘popular iconography of the pin-​up’ was a feature of regional television news during the 1960s. However, Elizabeth Wilson (1980: 111) argued that the explosion of sexualized images of women in the mass media prompted a rebellion among British feminists ‘against this whole imagery of women as both immature and sexually available [which] was an important part of the beginnings of women’s liberation’. In 1973, ACTT women activists foregrounded their opposition to the media’s depiction of women and called for the ACTT to: ‘Use what power we have over the media to stop the endless trail of anti-​female propaganda which continually assaults us today, And [sic] substitute a realistic image of woman as she actually is in the 1970s’ (Anon, May 1973:  10). As such, the pin-​up girls in the union journal fed into a wider discourse which informed women’s protests against the depiction of women in the media from 1973 onwards. In summation, the roots of women’s later militancy within the British labour movement between 1960 and 1968 have been identified in the influx of women into paid employment and trade unions; the differences between women’s expectations of and experiences within the workplace; and the growing focus on the demand for equal pay among women union members. In comparison, these roots were not identified within the ACTT for two key reasons:  (i) the influx of women workers, particularly into the television industry, occurred in the late 1960s, while women’s employment in film production and the laboratories declined; and (ii) there was no activity on equal pay because it had been established, in principle though rarely in practice, in ACTT agreements from its establishment. However, there were small indications of change in the relationship between women and the ACTT, such as the growing number of women to hold official positions between 1960 and 1968 and the greater, though still limited, visibility of their activity. The political influence of the New Left and the women’s liberation movement on women in the ACTT between 1968 and 1973 significantly shaped women’s activity between 1973 and 1975, as illustrated in the following section.

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1968–​73: the New Left and the women’s liberation movement Nancy Gabin (1990) argued that women auto workers in the US were encouraged to critically assess the role of their union, the United Auto Workers, in the 1960s and 1970s, and acknowledge its role in maintaining gender discrimination, as well as its potential to challenge such discrimination. This was the result of a combination of factors, including a ‘favourable climate for political and social reform, concern about discrimination on the basis of ascriptive and descriptive traits’, and the ‘resurgence of feminism and the emergence of new allies outside the UAW and the labour movement’ (Gabin, 1990:  210). Furthermore, the Equal Rights Act 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 1964 gave women’s demands ‘greater legitimacy’ and the ‘means of contesting discrimination’ (Gabin, 1990: 192–​193). Between 1968 and 1973, women in the ACTT were similarly encouraged to critically assess the ACTT’s role in maintaining gender discrimination in the film and television industries and to recognize its potential to challenge it. Women’s activism in the ACTT was informed by (i) a favourable climate created by the industrial militancy of the British labour movement; (ii) the emergence of the women’s liberation movement and external feminist allies, and (iii) the introduction of equal pay legislation in 1970. During the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a sense of impending revolutionary change within activist circles. This was engendered by an intensification of global protest movements, human rights initiatives, and anti-​imperialist struggles which erupted globally in 1968, among them the intensification of anti-​Vietnam protests; student demonstrations across major European cities; violence in Chicago at the US Democratic Party convention; protests in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia against the violation of civil rights in the Soviet Bloc; resistance against state repression in Northern Ireland, Mexico and Brazil; and anti-​colonial movements throughout Africa. In Britain, this period was marked by ‘heightened political tension between the working class and the political establishment’ (Todd, 2015: 300). From the late 1960s, this political culture found its expression in the New Left and the women’s liberation movement, which together propelled a new generation of trade unionists to challenge traditional trade union structures rooted in the post-​war ethos of strong national union leadership, and advocate greater democratization through the devolution of power to rank-​and-​file activists (Martin, 2009: 54). In the

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ACTT there was a parallel influx of a new generation of trade unionists, as Sarah Boston (interview with the author, 7 July 2016) observed that activists “started moving into the unions, particularly in ACTT … to sort of push for a left-​wing agenda”. Between 1968 and 1974 there was an upsurge in industrial militancy within the British labour movement, during which the frequency of strikes increased from less than 5 million days lost to strike action in 1968 to 13.5 million in 1971 and 23.9 million in 1972 (Cohen, 2008:  396), representing ‘the greatest wave of industrial struggle Britain had seen since the 1920s’ (Harman, 1998:  223). These strikes were often unofficial and orchestrated by rank-​and-​file union members; as such, industrial action was ‘outside and often in opposition to the established union structure and leadership’ (Cohen, 2008: 404). Many of these strikes were also overtly political, as they protested against the Conservative government’s curtailment of rank-​and-​file union activity through anti-​union legislation (Cohen, 2008: 405). For instance, the Industrial Relations Act 1971 confined workers’ bargaining power to the formal union leadership and made intra-​union disputes illegal, including secondary picketing. This period saw a number of significant rank-​and-​file victories for the labour movement, including the 1972 and 1973–​74 miners’ strikes, the 1971 work-​in at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, and the release of the Pentonville Five in 1972. The rank-​and-​file challenge to traditional trade union structures created a favourable climate in which women could acknowledge and challenge the role of trade unions in the maintenance of gender discrimination. The emergence of the British women’s liberation movement from 1968 also facilitated the challenge of gender discrimination within trade unions and encouraged women’s activism. The movement had its origins within the student movement and political activism of the New Left, in groups such as the International Socialists and International Marxist Group, and equal pay campaigns in the labour movement (Bruley, 1999: 149). Many women involved in the women’s liberation movement had gained their political education in the New Left and student movement, learning ‘how to organise’ and ‘work politically’ (Segal, 2013:  153). However, the ‘aggressive form of masculinity’ prevalent within these movements side-​lined women’s gender-​specific concerns and encouraged women activists to ‘[turn] their new political consciousness to their own situation’ (Bruley, 1999: 149). The interests of feminists in the women’s liberation movement and women workers in trade unions coalesced in the 1968 sewing machinist strike at Ford Dagenham. This women-​led strike demonstrated the industrial

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strength of women workers and encouraged increasingly impatient women activists within the wider labour movement to demand action within their own unions, marking a ‘radical turning point’ in women’s militancy in the British labour movement (Boston, 2015: 279). Many of the organizational tactics and demands adopted by ACTT women activists from 1973 find a parallel within the tactics and demands of the women’s liberation movement, as will be explored in the following sections of this chapter. The Equal Pay Act 1970 further galvanized women’s activism within trades unions, as its shortcomings provoked the realization that equal pay did little to challenge the structures of discrimination (Boston, 2015: 284). During the five-​year implementation period of the Act, women’s activity expanded beyond equal pay and turned to campaigns around equal opportunities, including childcare facilities, paid maternity leave, abortion rights and equal access to education and training. As activity extended beyond equal pay within the wider movement, the ACTT could no longer rely on its traditional assertion that equality had been achieved through their equal pay agreements. Sarah Boston’s oral history testimony offers an invaluable insight into the revolutionary atmosphere in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s, and its influence on women’s activism in the ACTT. When asked to reflect on our conversation throughout the interview, Boston emphasized the significance of the political climate, mentioning the events of 1968, the activity of left-​wing organizations and the influence of the women’s liberation movement: ‘I think what I want to sort of stress really because, partly because I’m failing on the sort of particulars is, is about the whole economic, political, social climate of the early seventies, you know, with feminism really taking off, you know, em, all those ideas in ferment, and you know, we’ve had Paris ’68, we’ve had the Vietnam demonstrations, we’ve had the, you know, all of that feeding in to the early seventies and feminism you know really sparking and all those left-​wing groups it was just, and aesthetically too all the arguments about you know, em, how you made political films all of that sort of all buzzing around which, and the political context being that we, we saw trade unions as the body through which we could best try to change things for women … and that’s hard to try and communicate that because everything is so changed now.’ (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016)

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At numerous points in the interview, Boston pointed to the centrality of trade unions to women’s activism, describing unions as “agents of change” and “a place to fight for women”. Furthermore, Boston reflected on the challenges of effectively communicating the atmosphere of the 1970s, revealing the function of intersubjectivity within the interview process, whereby the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee shapes the testimony produced by the interview (Abrams, 2016). Boston’s difficulty may be attributed to the age of the interviewer (mid-​twenties), which situates their life experiences within a post-​Thatcher climate informed by neoliberal politics and significantly removed from the revolutionary atmosphere of the early 1970s. Yet this age gap prompted an illuminating description of the omnipresence of left-​wing and feminist ideas and activity which challenged gender discrimination and traditional union hierarchies during the early 1970s and facilitated such a challenge to the gendered union structure of the ACTT. Despite this political climate, there was little evidence of women’s activity within the pages of the union journal, which continued to be the only available archival resource through which to trace women’s activity until the establishment of the COE in 1973. In the aftermath of the sewing machinist strike at Ford, Dagenham, in June 1968, equal pay was discussed once in the journal in a report on the TUC’s annual conference. Yvonne Richards reported on a radical amendment added to the customary equal pay motion, which had become an ‘annual ritual’ at TUC conferences throughout the 1960s (Boston, 2015: 264). The amendment called for ‘affiliated unions to support those unions who are taking industrial action in support of the principle of equal pay’ (Richards, October 1968: 21). The amendment was opposed by the General Council but was carried overwhelmingly by the conference delegates. While the usual reference to the ACTT’s commitment to equal pay was not included in Richards’ short discussion of the amendment, the ACTT’s continued complacency around equal pay, and women’s issues as a whole, can be inferred from the absence of women in the union journal between 1968 and 1972. The space dedicated to women and their gender-​specific concerns from the November 1972 issue of FTT onwards marked a significant departure from women’s invisibility in the journal between 1960 and 1972. The front cover of the November 1972 issue, as seen in Figure 2.1, featured a female camera operator holding a camera in one hand and a small child in the other, with the caption ‘Would you work with a female camera operator?’ This image was briefly mentioned in passing by Sarah Boston in her oral history interview

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Figure 2.1: Front cover of Film and Television Technician (November 1972) featuring a female camera operator.

Courtesy of BECTU –​Sector of Prospect. The front cover of the November 1972 issue of FTT featured a female camera operator holding a camera in one hand and a small child in the other, with the caption ‘Would you work with a female camera operator?’ The November 1972 issue marked a departure from previous journals with the space it dedicated to women’s issues.

(7 July 2016), indicating the continued resonance of the image in her recollections of women’s activism in the ACTT. Within the issue, there were three articles related to gender discrimination: (i) ‘Women in Television: Questions by Women in Media’ (Women in

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Media, November 1972: 8); (ii) a discussion between Liz Kustow and Bridget Segrave on their feminist debate television programme No Man’s Land which had originally appeared in Over 21, a general interest magazine for women in their twenties (Keenan, November 1972:  9); and (iii) extracts from Women and Film which detailed women’s experiences of work in the American film industry (Anon, November 1972b: 9). The emergence of feminist organizations outside of the ACTT and the labour movement provided women activists with an external impetus to challenge the ACTT’s gendered union structure. The content of and reaction to Women in Media’s article identifies the group as an ally to ACTT women during the early 1970s. Women in Media was a campaign group established in 1970 and comprised of women in broadcasting and journalism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the group challenged the representation of women on screen and in advertising, questioned the absence of women in management in broadcasting and journalism, and, later, informed the scope of Channel 4 regarding its commitment to women’s interests (Seaton, 2015: 213). The article was the first to address women’s unequal status in the British film and television industries in the union journal since Winifred Crum Ewing’s 1963 article on women technicians. It did so through a series of questions designed to illuminate gender inequity and challenge the ACTT’s inactivity: WHY have you never worked with a woman camera operator? A woman sound recordist? A woman dubbing mixer? A  woman boom operator? A  woman floor manager? … WHY doesn’t ACTT insist that these grades be opened to women and that programme companies should hire a quota of women as trainee camera assistants, sound assistants, etc.? … WHY are the vast majority of women working for independent television companies relegated to non-​ decision-​making jobs such as secretaries, PAs, researchers, vision mixers, canteen workers and cleaners? … WHY is your reaction to this article unsympathetic? … WHY are women who do make it to production jobs made to feel like the token black, that they have been hired not because of any intrinsic worth but as a gesture towards liberalism, a sop for the conscience of the trendy male chauvinist? (Women in Media, November 1972: 8)

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The article was praised in two letters featured in subsequent issues of the journal. Firstly, Winifred Crum Ewing, in the letter ‘Now Let’s have the Answers’, called for the General Council to ‘answer the questions’ and suggested that a resolution should be submitted to the ACTT’s next annual conference ‘to define our policy on this important matter’ (Crum Ewing, December 1972: 8). Secondly, the London Women’s Film Group (LWFG) ‘welcome[d]‌the fact that the ACTT has at last expressed some interest in the problem of women in the film industry’, though it criticized the inclusion of statistics relating to the American rather than British film industry as indicative of the ACTT’s ‘token commitment to the whole problem’ (London Women’s Film Group, January 1973: 16). These letters suggest that the Women in Media article sparked a discussion on gender inequality within the ACTT which had previously been absent. However, Women in Media was a short-​lived ally to ACTT women activists. In January 1973, the group distanced itself from the article through an editorial correction which stated: We have been asked to make it clear that the questions attributed to the Women in Media group in the November issue represent the views of several individual members of the group and not necessarily the group as a whole. (Anon, January 1973: 21) Women in Media’s retreat may have resulted from the group’s tenuous relationship with trade unions in the television industry. For instance, Women in Media’s meeting minutes reveal that their Union Sub-​Group split from the wider organization in July 1974, stating that it was ‘a positive disadvantage to be associated with WIM’ (Women in Media, 24 June 1974) and that WIM had a special meaning amongst trade unionists … [which] was not going to help them in putting their case, particularly as some had already been ridiculed; and secondly that there had been no fresh blood from WIM to the group. (Women in Media, 29 July 1974) It could be speculated that the ‘special meaning’ referred to the divergent political interests of the two groups, as the liberal feminist ideals and activity of Women in Media, which focused on legislation and programmes to advance women into management positions,

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clashed with campaigns for change at shop-​floor level among women trade unionists. The LWFG proved to be a more reliable ally to women in the ACTT and played a significant role in the establishment and activity of the COE between 1973 and 1975. Established in January 1972, the LWFG was comprised of women filmmakers who produced films collectively and interchangeably performed roles at every stage of production. Informed by the consciousness-​raising politics of the women’s liberation movement, the group aimed to ‘disseminate Women’s Liberation ideas’ and enable ‘women to learn the skills denied them in the industry’ (London Women’s Film Group, 1999:  119). The LWFG was also committed to pursuing gender equality through trade unions, as illustrated by the films of its members. For instance, Susan Shapiro’s Fakenham Film (1972) documented the successful occupation of a shoe factory in Fakenham by women workers, and Women of the Rhondda (1973), directed by Mary Capps, Mary Kelly and others, compiled interviews with women from the Welsh coalmining valley which focused on women’s work and their experiences of the mining strikes of the 1920s and 1930s. The Amazing Equal Pay Show (1974), directed by the LWFG as the group’s ‘first major collective undertaking’, included a scene in which a union convener dismissed women’s demands for equal pay, and so provided a critique of trade union attitudes towards women workers and their gender-​specific demands (Evans, 2016: 114–​16). The influence of the LWFG on women’s activity in the ACTT can be traced through the union journal (London Women’s Film Group, January 1973: 16), information produced by the group in the 1970s (London Women’s Film Group, 1999: 119–​22), oral history testimonies (Boston, 7 July 2016) and written personal recollections of the group’s activity (Evans, 2016). In January 1973, a letter signed by 13 members of the LWFG, including Claire Johnston, Barbara Evans, Esther Ronay, Jenny Wilkes and Linda Dove, called for ‘a serious enquiry into the position of women in the film industry and into blatant discrimination against them’: This enquiry should be conducted by women and should report and present recommendations at the next Annual Conference. In addition, we would like to see a definite commitment on the part of the Union towards increasing the number of women in the industry, particularly in the areas of work which are effectively closed to them at present. (London Women’s Film Group, January 1973: 16)

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This letter was published in the journal a month before the official establishment of the COE in February 1973 and proposed an enquiry conducted by women which would be the central activity of the committee between 1973 and 1975. In the 1976 statement on the history of the LWFG and its remit, a section on ‘Union Activities’ suggested that the group’s activity on gender discrimination within the union preceded the establishment of the COE: ‘Several of us, already in the union, began raising the issue of discrimination against women in the film industry … Eventually the union formed a so-​called Anti-​ Discrimination Committee, later called the Committee on Equality’ (London Women’s Film Group, 1999: 121). Sarah Boston’s recollections of her involvement in the LWFG and the establishment of the COE corroborate the group’s 1976 statement: ‘Well some of the people in the London Women’s Film Group were, I think union members, em, and through that we sort of met, you know, we began to, women in the union began to sort of meet, unofficially in a way, em, to just moan really.’ (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016) Finally, in her written recollections of the group’s activity Barbara Evans (2016: 117) claimed that ‘The groundbreaking document Patterns of Discrimination Against Women in Film and Television Industries, published in 1975, came about in small part as a result of our efforts’. While it should be noted that these four statements were produced by the LWFG or women involved in the LWFG, and so may over-​emphasize the group’s influence to validate its significance, they provide a clear picture of the pressure exerted by the LWFG to establish the COE and demand an investigation into gender discrimination. The catalysts for the establishment of the COE and the demand for an investigation into gender discrimination in the film and television industries were evident in the political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The industrial upsurge led by rank-​and-​file activists between 1968 and 1974 and the emergence of the women’s liberation movement circulated left-​wing and feminist ideas which created a favourable climate for women’s activism. Furthermore, the Equal Pay Act 1970 galvanized women’s activism and resulted in an extension of women’s demands beyond equal pay. The emergence of the LWFG as an ally outside the ACTT and labour movement, and the involvement of LWFG members in the union, was a driving force for women’s activism in the ACTT which prompted the establishment of the COE and shaped their demands.

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1973: three motions on gender discrimination At the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference, women members presented three motions which called on the union to challenge gender discrimination in the British film and television industries. The conference proceedings were reported in the journal, with the three motions discussed in a section titled ‘Women Win First Round in the Battle for Equal Opportunity’ (Anon, May 1973: 10–​12). The first motion, moved by Maxine Baker, a researcher at the BBC, proposed ‘six practical moves’: the greater representation of women in official union positions; support for women experiencing gender discrimination through shop stewards and union committees; agreements on maternity leave and childcare provision; the introduction of training schemes for women workers; action to address gendered socialization; and to challenge the ‘anti-​female propaganda’ in the media in favour of a more ‘realistic image’ (Anon, May 1973: 10). An amendment to the motion called for consideration of a quota system. The motion committed the ACTT, in principle, to the central demands of the women’s liberation movement. The four key demands agreed upon at the movement’s first national conference at Ruskin College in 1970 were: equal pay; equal access to both education and employment opportunities; access to free contraception and abortion on demand; and the provision of free 24-​hour nurseries. The ‘six practical moves’ outline an intended path for women’s activity in the ACTT, and indeed, campaigns on maternity leave and training provision were undertaken alongside the investigation into discrimination between 1973 and 1975. The motion also enshrined a commitment to these ‘six practical moves’ within union policy to legitimize women’s future activity. The second and third motions called for an investigation into gender discrimination in the British film and television industries and the appointment of a researcher to conduct this investigation. These motions reflected the central objectives of the COE upon its establishment, as specified in its ‘Report to Annual Conference’, including: to investigate the pattern of employment of women within ACTT’s areas of organisation; to analyse the evidence of that investigation and to examine the most effective and relevant means by which any discrimination can be overcome by trade union activity and policy; and to maintain close liaison with other trade unions in entertainment and communications who are addressing themselves to the

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same problem. (ACTT Sub-​Committee on Discrimination Against Women, 1973a) Research into the nature of women’s oppression was a key element of the women’s liberation movement, as activists recognized the value of women’s history to women’s activism (Holloway, 2005). For instance, influential texts such as Juliet Mitchell’s Women: The Longest Revolution (1966) and Sheila Rowbotham’s Hidden from History (1977), first published in 1973, provided a historical analysis of women’s oppression, while Ann Oakley (1974) conducted a sociological survey of housewives to illuminate their experiences of unpaid domestic work. In British broadcasting, the BBC’s Board of Management responded to pressure to address contemporary debates around equal pay and sexual discrimination legislation in Parliament by commissioning a confidential internal report on the position of women in the BBC in January 1973. The resulting report, Limitations to the Recruitment of Women in the BBC (BBC, 1973), illuminated the discrimination faced by women workers in the Corporation and detailed management’s opposition to recruiting, training and promoting women, which included, among other reasons: the physical nature of the work, the potential for marital difficulties if men and women worked alongside each other, and women’s difficulty in accommodating shift patterns. The Limitations report was followed by annual reports which revealed little change in the position of women in the BBC throughout the 1970s. The women’s demand for an investigation within the ACTT thus followed wider trends to address gender discrimination in the workplace and society at large within both the women’s movement and the broadcasting industry. The investigation would provide women activists with evidence of gender discrimination in both the film and television industries and the ACTT to support their future demands. All three motions were passed unanimously at the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference. In her recollections of the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference, Sarah Boston recalled that the presentation of the three motions was “planned very carefully and we got who was moving it and who was seconding it … and who was going to support and we’d asked some blokes to support us, em, who duly did” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). In its 1976 statement, the LWFG had claimed responsibility for this preparation: A Women’s Caucus, independently of the Union Committee, managed to put forward three motions from

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three different shops at the Annual Conference of 1973, which was unprecedented since women represented about 5% of the 500 delegates. One of these motions demanded that the union appoint and pay a researcher to write a report on the situation of women in the film industry. (London Women’s Film Group, 1999: 122) The group’s 1976 statement explicitly positioned its activity outside of the ACTT and the COE, again demonstrating that the LWFG provided external impetus for women’s activity in the ACTT. The statement further illustrates that women’s organization through women-​only groups was integral to the formulation of policy on gender equality within the ACTT. The women members who moved, seconded and supported the three motions were primarily from the ACTT’s television branch and freelance shop. Among these women were Maxine Baker of the Television Branch Committee, Claire Ritchie from the Granada London shop, Jenny Wilkes, a delegate from Thames Euston, and freelance shop members Esther Ronay and Liz Kustow. Daphne Ancell, clerical worker in the laboratories and chairperson of the Committee on Equality, presented the Committee’s report to the 1973 Annual Conference. Women workers in broadcasting dominated the union’s campaign for equality, as they sought to advance their careers beyond secretarial work into roles such as producer, director, production assistant, researcher, camera operator and editor (Women in West London Film Laboratories, 2016). The television branch was the largest in the ACTT, with 39% of the union’s membership, and represented the greatest proportion of women workers, with 49% of the ACTT’s female membership (ACTT, 1975: 26). It also represented the most active women, with 77% of female respondents to the Patterns investigation stating that they always or usually attended branch meetings  –​the highest figure among the branches –​despite barriers to activity created by the isolation of women workers within production teams (ACTT, 1975: 32). This figure is, however, qualified within the Patterns report because the investigation received a greater response from television than other branches and these responses primarily came from members interested in union activity. The ACTT’s Patterns report also emphasized the leading role of women in the freelance shop, stating that freelance women workers provided ‘much of the impetus to change the position of women in the industry’ because they were ‘particularly conscious of discrimination’ as a result of the difficulties they experienced in finding work in the film and television industries and the barriers to securing a

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permanent contract (ACTT, 1975: 41). The new generation of women workers that had entered the film and television industries during the late 1960s with expectations of greater employment opportunities were now advancing their demands within the ACTT. ACTT women also used their platform at the 1973 Annual Conference to challenge the rhetoric on equal pay which had informed the union’s relationship with women workers from its establishment in 1933. While moving the first motion, Baker disputed the ACTT’s longstanding assertion that equal pay agreements ensured equality for women workers, an assertion which was frequently repeated within the journal between 1933 and 1972, as illustrated in this and the previous chapter. Baker argued that ‘the policy of equal pay had proven to be an empty one’: There’s nothing so wonderful about a policy that says women senior engineers will receive exactly the same money as men on the same grade if there aren’t any women senior engineers in the first place. And that is what this motion is all about: equal pay does not mean equal opportunity. (Anon, May 1973: 10) During her presentation of the second motion, Jenny Wilkes, a union member at Thames Euston and signatory of the LWFG letter, also criticized the ACTT’s equal pay policy. Wilkes used a dating analogy to compare equal pay without equal opportunities to ‘having the right to get married without having access to any fellas’ (Anon, May 1973: 11). In the months preceding the 1973 conference, the ACTT’s rhetoric on equal pay had also been challenged in two reports published in FTT:  firstly, in Liz Kustow’s summation of the Labour Party’s Oppositional Green Paper on Discrimination Against Women (January 1973:  20–​21), and secondly, in Sarah Boston’s report on the TUC Equal Pay Conference (March 1973: 9). Kustow (January 1973: 20) argued that trade union activity, within the ACTT and wider labour movement, must go beyond simply supporting equal pay, ‘frequently taken to be the all-​time female panacea’, and acknowledge the wider inequality which has confined women to grades with low pay and status. Similarly, Boston criticized gendered divisions of labour within the film and television industries which ensured that women workers did not receive equal pay, stating: ‘[The ACTT] has an impeccable record in terms of Equal Pay, having accepted the principle in 1933, but it means little to get equal pay if you can’t get a job or even get trained’ (March 1973: 9). These challenges occurred within the context

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of a shift from equal pay to equal opportunities within the wider labour movement, for which the Equal Pay Act 1970 was a ‘catalyst’ (Boston, 2015: 285). Following the 1973 Annual Conference the mixed response of ACTT members to the three motions was evident within FTT, revealing both the support received and hostility faced by women union members. The first response to feature in the journal was ACTT research officer Roy Lockett’s editorial, ‘Jobs for the Girls’, which introduced the May 1973 issue reporting on the conference proceedings. Lockett reflected upon the unprecedented nature of the women’s demands: It is one of the oddities of ACTT’s history that before the beginning of 1973, the demands made at the Conference hadn’t been heard at any level of ACTT’s structure. Perhaps this in itself is an implied criticism of the ACTT. Was it that women didn’t believe that we could or would act effectively to combat discrimination? That we believed that we had solved the problem by achieving equal pay in the 1930’s [sic]? Whatever the reason, the breakthrough at Conference was overdue. The problem is real and it is immediate. If we mean business we will now have to prove it. (Lockett, May 1973: 5) Lockett’s editorial reveals a self-​reflexive awareness of the constraints imposed on women members by the ACTT, in particular acknowledging the limitations of the union’s equal pay rhetoric. He expresses support for the three motions, which he describes as an overdue breakthrough, and publicly commits the ACTT to action in his concluding sentence. Boston and Benton’s oral history testimonies present Lockett as an ally to the COE and situate him within the new generation of activists entering unions in the 1970s, which was influenced by the New Left and women’s liberation movement. For instance, Boston (interview with the author, 7 July 2016)  describes Lockett as “young … he wasn’t old and entrenched in the ways of the ACTT”, while Benton (interview with the author, 18 July 2016) reflects that research officer roles were a route into union activity for “lefty intellectuals”. As the Research Officer, Lockett held a position on the COE to facilitate the investigation into gender discrimination, and so his support was integral to the activity of the COE. The validity of ACTT women’s demands was called to question in the subsequent issue of the journal in film and television producer Irving Teitelbaum’s article, ‘Let the Women Speak… and Speak… and Speak…’

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(June 1973: 18–​19). In her longitudinal study, Boston (2015: 290) noted that ‘there was considerable resentment expressed that women should have taken up so much of the conference’s time’ at the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference. Indeed, the title of Teitelbaum’s article alone is evidence of this ‘considerable resentment’. Teitelbaum’s article presented three areas of criticism. Firstly, Teitelbaum (June 1973: 18) criticized the conduct of the women members moving the motions, as illustrated by the following anecdote: ‘One of them, having over-​run her time, asked coyly whether the red light meant that she had to finish. Laughter all round, but hardly the game to be playing if you are complaining about condescension.’ In her analysis of female ancillary workers’ experiences of trade unionism in the mid-​1980s, Anne Munro (1999: 154) observes that women’s attempts to challenge the formal meeting discourse of trade unions were deemed to be unacceptable. Munro found that women’s behaviour was subsequently the focal point of discussion, and so their initial demands were overshadowed. Similarly, Teitelbaum’s observations act to undermine women’s demands at the 1973 conference. Secondly, Teitelbaum expressed his opposition to the content of the three motions, primarily on the basis of a perceived dichotomy between merit and gender. Teitelbaum particularly objected to the call for greater representation of women in official positions in the ACTT, a quota system in technical grades, and the appointment of a paid officer. In each instance, he argues against the introduction of systems which would favour women workers on the basis of gender, with statements such as: ‘Well, all right, but surely not just because they are women?’; ‘You should not deal with discrimination by creating more’; and ‘It should go to the best available person applying’ (Teitelbaum, June 1973: 18–​19). Teitelbaum’s article reveals that the existence of gender discrimination was a contentious issue within the ACTT and women faced considerable hostility from an audience reluctant to acknowledge the validity of their demands or gender-​specific concerns. Teitelbaum concludes with a criticism of women’s separate self-​ organization, and so implicitly of the operation of the Committee on Equality: The question of the liberation of women –​the question of liberation –​is inextricably bound up with the question of oppression of all human beings and thus has to be part of, but not excluded from, a political struggle directed towards a change in the structure of society as a whole if it is not to be a mere diversion. (Teitelbaum, June 1973: 19)

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While Teitelbaum expresses support for women’s liberation as an ideal, his argument that the trade union movement should concentrate on challenging oppression as a totality denies women a critical space to discuss and organize around their gender-​specific concerns in practice, reinforcing the status quo of the male-​dominated union. His dismissal of women’s separate self-​organization as a divisive tactic, a criticism which the women frequently encountered, was awarded credibility by the space dedicated to his article within the union journal. Furthermore, Teitelbaum’s article is an illustrative example of Linda Briskin’s (1993: 101) conclusion that women’s separate self-​organization is ‘experienced by men as a serious challenge’, as it ‘simultaneously contests gender power and organizational structures’, thus undermining the androcentric union structure. Teitelbaum’s article sparked a discussion on women’s separate self-​ organization in the letters section of FTT. Three letters in the July 1973 issue of the journal challenged Teitelbaum’s assertion that women-​ only spaces were divisive. The first letter, ‘Socialists Who Oppose Women’s Rights’ by Nicholas Garnham, argued that ‘women are a class’ with special interests which required different tactics, and accused Teitelbaum’s argument of being characteristic of the position held by the Socialist Labour League, described as an ‘important ideological grouping within the union … who hide their reactionary and deeply engraved male chauvinism behind a mesh of Marxist rhetoric’ (Various, July 1973: 16). The second letter, ‘Confused Criticism’ from Sarah Boston, questioned Teitelbaum’s choice and interpretation of a quote from leading Bolshevik, Alexandra Kollontai: The sexual crisis cannot be solved unless there is radical reform of the human psyche, and unless man’s potential for loving is increased. And a basic transformation of the socio-​economic relationships along communist lines is essential if the psyche is to be reformed. This is an ‘old truth’ but there is no other way out. (Kollontai quoted in Teitelbaum, June 1973: 19) While Teitelbaum quotes Kollontai to support his argument that women’s liberation should be subsumed within the wider movement, Boston argues that Kollontai actually supported the separate organization of women through the creation of ‘special organs  –​commissions, committees, bureaux or secretariats to whom the party entrusts the special task of serving the women proletariat’ (Kollontai quoted in Various, July 1973: 16). Boston likens the creation of women-​only organizations to

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the role of the Committee on Equality within the ACTT. Finally, a third letter, ‘Job Discrimination and the Lab Grades’ from Rick Novak, extolled the benefits of women’s separate self-​organization as a method to encourage women’s wider participation in the trade union and socialist movements through the achievement of ‘attainable objectives’ (Various, July 1973: 16). Teitelbaum’s article and the responding letters reveal the scrutiny women’s separate self-​organization encountered and speaks to wider conflicts on the issue among the union membership.

1973–​75: the investigation into patterns of discrimination The three motions presented by women members at the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference provided the COE with a mandate to appoint a researcher and conduct an investigation into gender discrimination in the film and television industries. An examination of the process of the investigation offers an insight into the function of women’s separate self-​organization, the logistical challenges women encountered and the barriers to women’s activity within a gendered union structure.

Appointing the researcher Despite this mandate, it was seven months before a researcher was officially appointed in December 1973, with the practicalities of recruiting a researcher and a dispute over the selection of a candidate delaying the eventual appointment. The appointment of a researcher was a slow process which included two rounds of applications and interviews. Following the first round of unsuccessful interviews in early September 1973, the role was re-​advertised ‘in a wider political and sociological field’ (Sapper, 17 September 1973), and a second shortlist of applicants was compiled by October 1973. However, the appointed researcher, Sarah Benton, stressed the significance of the ACTT advertising such a position, as appointments of this type were often made in-​house: “my friend saw this job advertised, which was the first sign, though I didn’t know it then, that they were breaking with the old tradition, because usually these jobs weren’t advertised” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). The delays in the appointment may have resulted from the practicalities of advertising the role beyond the union. In November and December 1973 there was considerable controversy over the appointment of the researcher between ACTT women activists and the union leadership which was invisible in the union journal but

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detailed in correspondence archived in COE files held by BECTU Head Office. While the third motion had specified that the researcher should be a ‘paid woman officer’ (Anon, May 1973: 12), the ACTT’s Finance and General Purposes Committee recommended a male candidate, Andrew McNeil, over the committee’s recommendation, Sarah Benton. In response, a round robin which criticized the actions of the Finance and General Purposes Committee was circulated among women union members and acquired 80 signatures. The round robin protested at the reduction of the timescale of the appointment and the recommendation of a male candidate, both of which ‘[perpetuated] the situation this project was designed to combat’ (Round Robin Signatories, 7 November 1973). In its 1976 statement, the LWFG claimed responsibility for instigating the protest, stating: ‘we heard the union might appoint a male researcher. We picketed the union offices’ (London Women’s Film Group, 1999: 122). The signatories of the round robin included a number of LWFG members, among them Linda Dove, Esther Ronay, Barbara Evans and Lyn Gambles. Furthermore, the 80 signatories were predominantly women union members from television and freelance branches, including 7 women from the freelance shop, 16 from across four BBC branches (Television Centre, Ealing, Norwich and Kensington House), 7 from Inner London Education Authority Educational Television (ILEA ETV), 2 from Granada London, 6 from Granada Manchester, 7 from Tyne Tees and 33 from the Thames Euston branch. As such, the round robin further evidences both the influence of the LWFG on women’s activism in the ACTT and the position of television and freelance women workers at the forefront of the union’s campaign for equality. The union leadership undermined the women’s criticisms outlined in the round robin by focusing on the women’s behaviour, reflecting the response to women’s participation at the 1973 Annual Conference. Firstly, Andrew McNeil objected to a personal remark on his suitability for the role in a letter to ACTT General Secretary Alan Sapper: ‘The letter contains a number of statements which are both inaccurate and likely to damage my standing within the Union and the industry’ (McNeil, 9 November 1973). These statements included:  McNeil was a ‘late applicant’; members of the Finance and General Purposes Committee had not been adequately involved in the interview process to recommend a candidate; and ‘McNeil’s name was added to the short list because of his position in the union and not because of his qualifications’ (Round Robin Signatories, 7 November 1973). In response, Sapper distributed a memo to the signatories of the round robin condemning their remarks regarding McNeil:  ‘your action

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of circulating a letter so damaging to a person’s career was both unnecessary and totally unfair’ (Sapper, 3 December 1973). The focus on the personal remarks on McNeil’s suitability detracted from the central criticism of the round robin –​that the appointment of a male candidate would act to perpetuate gender discrimination. Secondly, the signatories were condemned for bypassing the established routes of activity within the ACTT: ‘We pride ourselves as a Union on our democratic processes and underline the need for these processes to be observed in the letter and spirit’ (Sapper, 3 December 1973). By defining the activity of the signatories as undemocratic, the union leadership essentially dismissed the signatories’ criticism and confined women’s activity to ‘democratic’ forms permitted within the gendered structure of the ACTT. Research Officer Roy Lockett and COE Chairperson Daphne Ancell also condemned the signatories and so distanced the COE from the round robin. Lockett confirmed that ‘no member of the Committee either signed, formulated, encouraged or assisted the circulation of the round robin in question’, and concluded that ‘the committee has worked too hard and too long to see this project brought to a successful conclusion to wish to see its work impugned by the kind of scurrilous nonsense contained in the letter’ (Lockett, 5 December 1973). Lockett and Ancell’s letters suggest that divisions existed between union officials involved in the COE and women rank-​ and-​file members from freelance and television branches influenced by the politics of the women’s liberation movement and the LWFG. Some round robin signatories responded to Sapper’s letter with an apology for the personal offence caused to McNeil; however, many signatories continued to defend the round robin and its central demand for a woman to be appointed in the researcher role. For instance, Katherine Price, a member from Tyne Tees, justified her signature on the round robin with an argument for ‘positive discrimination’: I think the difficulties facing women are such that they can only be resisted by a process of positive discrimination in favour of women. This strategy has been demonstrated in the field of education, and I am astonished that the Union did not take the opportunity of using it when considering this particular appointment. (Price, 4 December 1973) Furthermore, the signatories emphasized their right to comment upon and protest against the activity of the union leadership beyond the confines of the official ‘democratic processes’, as exemplified by Thames Euston member Lyn Gambles’ letter:

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It is our union and you represent us, and we therefore claim the right to keep ourselves informed of union business and to speak up if we think fit. Any union which prides itself on democratic processes need never feel threatened by the participation of its own members. (Gambles, 4 December 1973) The COE files provide an insight into women’s activism within the ACTT which is invisible within the official union discourse available through the union journal, and reveals that a section of the union’s female membership engaged in union activity when it was pertinent to advance their gender-​specific interests. Sarah Benton’s recollections of the dispute illuminate the significance of the appointment of a woman to the researcher role. Following her interview, Benton was informed of the dispute by “one of the women on the women’s equality committee, Sarah Boston” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). Prior to her appointment, Benton was involved in the establishment of two women’s liberation groups, at Warwick University and in Sheffield, and was conducting historical research on the Sheffield labour movement in the 1920s and the 1922 engineering lock-​out. Her activism and research experience made her the COE’s preferred candidate. Alternatively, the men involved in the interview process were “very hostile” to her candidacy because she “knew nothing about television” (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016). Benton speculated that the men’s opposition was rooted in a desire to maintain the status quo: “I think that the thing about, that you didn’t know anything about television, really confirms that they wanted it to be an inside job, and it would have been a little nudge-​ nudge, you know, sort of piece of work” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). Benton’s appointment as Patterns researcher was announced in the union’s journal in December 1973 (Anon, December 1973: 8), as shown in Figure 2.2. With her appointment, the feminist activists had won the argument for a women’s officer. This victory significantly influenced the ACTT’s response to the conclusions of the Patterns report upon its publication in 1975, as explored in the next chapter.

The logistics of the investigation The remit of the investigation was quickly curtailed by the General Council following the 1973 Annual Conference, as it voted to reduce the length of the researcher’s appointment from the nine months recommended by the COE to six months. While the

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Figure 2.2: Announcement of Sarah Benton’s appointment as Patterns researcher.

Courtesy of BECTU –​Sector of Prospect. Sarah Benton’s appointment as Patterns researcher was announced in the union’s journal, Film and Television Technician, in December 1973. Intra-​union conflict over the appointment was invisible in the journal but detailed in the surviving correspondence archived in the COE files held by BECTU Head Office.

COE had justified the proposed timescale because of the ‘extensive inequality of opportunity which characterizes ACTT’s membership’, necessitating six months for the investigation and three months to adequately disseminate the findings, the General Council reasoned

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that nine months was excessive compared to the timescale of other investigations conducted by the union (Anon, July 1973:  6). This indicates that the General Council either underestimated the scale of the investigation or was unwilling to commit resources to it. The General Council further suggested that the ‘task of communicating with the membership at Shop meetings should be undertaken by members of the Sub-​Committee’ (Anon, July 1973: 6), shifting responsibility for dissemination from a paid union official to the voluntary activity of the sub-​committee’s membership. Speaking to the third motion, Esther Ronay, a member of the ACTT’s Freelance Shop and LWFG, emphasized the importance of a paid woman officer to the relationship between women and the ACTT: A paid woman officer could take over the hard work still necessary which voluntary people won’t be able to do in their spare time and she could pursue this question of the women in our industry to some important conclusions which must then be acted on … The paid officer is for me the crux of the motion. It is the difference between the union saying they deplore discrimination in theory and acting to stamp it out in practice. Anything less would be an empty gesture, showing that the union does not take this question seriously. (Anon, May 1973: 12) Trade union activity, such as the timing and location of meetings, has traditionally privileged male patterns of work, and thus excluded women workers who combined work and family (Kirton, 2006: 18, Cunnison and Stageman, 1995:  14). In reducing the appointment and placing increased responsibility on voluntary activity, the General Council placed the investigation at a gendered disadvantage. The reduction in the timescale of the researcher’s appointment proved to be ‘unrealistic’, with Lockett approaching the General Council for a four-​week extension to ensure ‘the completion of the Questionnaire [sic] analysis and the preparation of a full report for open discussion in the union’ (Anon, May 1974: 15). However, the committee’s meeting minutes reveal that Benton continued to work beyond the extended period, increasingly relying on the voluntary activity of committee members. For instance, in minutes from early October 1974, five months after the extension request, Benton asked the committee ‘for help to collate remaining material in order to save money on using the computer’, with the aim of completing a draft of the report by

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mid-​October (ACTT Committee on Equality, 1 October 1974). A few months later, in February 1975, Benton received ‘special thanks’ from the committee ‘for completing it [the report] without pay’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 5 February 1975). The union’s reliance on Benton’s unpaid labour to produce a report on gender discrimination is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, Benton was conducting research for a trade union, an organization which fights for better wages and conditions for its members, illuminating the contradiction between attitudes towards work in industry and work within a union, assumed to be founded upon a personal commitment to the cause. Secondly, as previously illustrated, voluntary activity is gendered and so restricted the activity of Benton and the COE. The reduction of the timescale ensured that the investigation relied on women’s ability to commit time and resources. The economic climate within the ACTT during the 1970s also restricted the resources committed to the investigation. The limitations of the economic climate are referred to twice in the committee’s meeting minutes in the later period of the investigation in 1975 in relation to the dissemination of the Patterns report and the implementation of one of the report’s key recommendations, the creation of a full-​time women’s officer position at the ACTT’s Head Office. Under the sub-​heading ‘Publicity’, minutes from February 1975 discuss the scale and cost of the publication of the Patterns report beyond the union, which would require ‘substantial rewrites and a broadening of the areas covered by the Report’ and a ‘guaranteed sale i.e. an initial contribution by the union of at least £1000’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 26 February 1975). The minutes concluded that ‘this was not considered possible, given the current economic situation’, confining the publicity of the report to its ‘present form’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 26 February 1975). Similarly, minutes from a meeting ahead of the 1975 Annual Conference reveal that the committee resolved that: Even if, in the economic climate at present prevailing, a full time officer is not practicable, they [the Committee] should press for an official at Head Office having direct responsibility across the branches for all matters concerning women. (ACTT Committee on Equality, 9 April 1975) While these examples originate from the period following the completion of the report, rather than discussing the appointment of the researcher and the remit of the investigation, they indicate the context in which the committee and General Council operated and

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so reveal that economic factors, as well as the reluctance of the union leadership, restricted the resources available to the committee. The primary research method adopted by Benton and the COE for the investigation was a questionnaire, which was the most discussed aspect of the investigation in the available COE meeting minutes and was well documented within the COE files, including the final version of the four-​page questionnaire (ACTT Committee on Equality, 1974). Benton described the questionnaire as “the basis of the whole thing”, which guided the structure of the Patterns report (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). The questionnaire surveyed: employment demographics within film production, television and laboratories; access to training schemes and promotion opportunities; official positions held within the ACTT and the regularity of members’ attendance at union meetings; absence from work as a result of domestic responsibilities; and women’s experiences of maternity leave provision (ACTT Committee on Equality, 1974). A tear-​out ‘Attitude Questionnaire’ was also circulated through the union journal and complemented the quantitative questionnaire by providing qualitative evidence of women’s experiences of discrimination. The scope of the questionnaire reflected the campaigns of the COE between 1973 and 1975, particularly in relation to maternity leave schemes and training opportunities. The COE worked collaboratively to distribute the questionnaire and produce the Patterns report. Benton depicted the committee’s work culture during the investigation as “very much a cooperative enterprise” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016); for instance, women activists were responsible for distributing and collecting the questionnaires within their shops, as well as editing drafts of the report. In an aside, Benton’s testimony offered an interesting insight into women’s lived experiences of conducting the investigation in the political climate of the 1970s: “This was all by the way during the three-​day week, I remember having a meeting in my flat with candles because there was no electricity” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). The committee, however, was dominated by women from commercial television and their interests shaped the direction of the committee’s activity. Reading through the names of COE members listed at the front of the Patterns report, Boston confirmed: “Most of these women … would have come through largely ITV” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). Daphne Ancell, COE Chairperson and the only committee member from the laboratories at the time, illustrated the existence and impact of class divisions on the COE:

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‘I know I was, well, Chairperson but, mm, I could never really get, I felt this Equality was sort of a bit, [Pause] mm, I could never get involved and enthusiastic … Well, I often felt that the balance was in the wrong place. I mean I could never get enthusiastic about burning bras, and I mean to me it seemed so stupid to me … I noticed because a lot of them on the committee were very, well, sort of very up-​market from me if you know what I mean.’ (Ancell, 1989) Ancell thus highlights her feelings of exclusion and detachment from the politics of the committee, which were at odds with her experiences and interests as a working-​class woman. Despite this, Ancell expressed her commitment to the central tenet of the committee’s activity, to challenge discrimination in the film and television industries, and was well-​respected by the other committee members (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016). Ancell’s activity was essential to communicating the committee’s demands to working-​class women in the laboratories: ‘Daphne was absolutely key to getting the agreement, a lot of the working-​class women thought oh that was just middle-​class women being silly, em, but she thought it was important that they did it and they didn’t sort of turn their noses up at it.’ (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016) Informed by its composition, the COE primarily represented the interests of middle-​class women workers from commercial television, which were estranged from the interests of working-​class women in the film laboratories. There was one significant dispute over the content of the Patterns report concerning the inclusion of a theoretical introduction, as Benton recalled: ‘there was some argument about how theoretical to be in the introduction, and I  had quite a long theoretical introduction, em, about women in work and one of the chaps on the committee disagreed with it and I thought I  know just cut the whole bloody thing and go straight to the chase, so we cut the entire bit, and then it went

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through relatively unchanged.’ (interview with the author, 18 July 2016) Benton’s testimony reveals that there was a conflicting understanding of the remit of the report between the union leadership and women on the committee. This conflict is perhaps indicative of a desire on the part of the union leadership to distance itself from ideological theories of the women’s liberation movement and produce a pragmatic report which provided a statistical analysis of gender discrimination. While conducting the investigation, Benton held women-​only meetings at shop level to enable women to discuss their experiences of discrimination openly and to formulate policy around their gender-​specific demands. Women-​only spaces were a central form of organization and activity within the women’s liberation movement. Within consciousness-​raising groups women discussed their lives and their experiences of a variety of topics including relationships, motherhood and work, with the aim to analyse and challenge women’s position in society. Feminist activist and historian Sue Bruley (2013: 721) has argued that it was therefore ‘fundamental that it was women only so that women could speak freely and not be marginalised by men’. Women’s industrial relations scholars and women’s labour historians have similarly observed that separate self-​organization in trade unions provides women with an essential space and voice within the trade union structure to discuss their gender-​specific concerns, develop consciousness and skills, and formulate policy (Heery and Kelly, 1988; Gabin, 1990; Briskin, 1993, 2014; Briskin and McDermott, 1993; Colgan and Ledwith, 2000, 2002; Healy and Kirton, 2000; Kirton and Healy, 2004; Kirton, 2006; Ledwith, 2012). In her report on an editorial open meeting, in the article ‘Women’s Work: Dubbing Bird Song or Battle Scenes?’, Benton (March 1974: 23) emphasized the value of women-​only spaces within trade unions: Perhaps the most productive result of the meeting was the chance it gave women to meet each other and discuss ways in which they could collectively, and through the union, work to change the situation, rather than having to fight isolated individual battles against prejudice. During the meeting women workers in editing departments disclosed their experiences of discrimination; for instance, one woman had been prevented from dubbing battle scenes because this was considered ‘man’s work’ (Benton, March 1974: 22). The meeting further addressed

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a number of the women’s gender-​specific concerns and presented potential policies, which included the need for a clearer definition of the role of the assistant editor to avoid women’s relegation to secretarial tasks, such as cleaning the cutting room bench; the absence of maternity leave schemes and childcare facilities, particularly for freelance workers; and the mystifying jargon surrounding editing equipment, which could be combatted with access to training schemes. The publication of Benton’s report indicates that the ACTT was committed to facilitating a dialogue around women’s activity through the union journal, which can be attributed to the support of Journal Editor Roy Lockett. Benton’s report to the Committee on Equality on the women-​only editorial meeting, recorded in the meeting minutes of 13 February 1974, provided additional detail on policies proposed at the meeting:







a) The union should investigate the possibility of providing maternity leave pay for freelance women from a joint employers fund similar to the pension fund that had been suggested in the freelance shop over a year ago. b) An ‘open day’ to be held at the National Film School where instruction in the use and maintenance of equipment commonly used in cutting rooms could be given. c) Work which editorial assistants should not be expected to do (e.g. secretarial, running errands) should be clearly specified by the union, so that an assistant knows whether or not she is justified in complaining, and whether she will get union support if she does. d) An open meeting for all women should be held so that women from all sections of the union can meet and discuss their demands. (ACTT Committee on Equality, 13 February 1974)

These proposals illustrate that women’s separate self-​organization and women-​only meetings did provide an essential space and voice to women workers to express their gender-​specific demands and formulate policy. Women-​only meetings with women workers in the laboratories produced demands which were not proposed by the COE or women workers in other branches –​namely regarding women’s health; for instance, Benton reported on the ‘desire of women in labs for cervical smear tests at the lab’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 13 February 1974). Traditionally, working-​class women in the trade

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union movement campaigned for protectionist policies, for instance, against women working night shifts and long hours (McCloskey, 2001:  171). Class divisions were evident in the divergent demands advanced by women laboratory workers and women in film and television production.

Maternity leave and the provision of training programmes To build upon the momentum of the 1973 Annual Conference and maintain pressure on the ACTT while the investigation into discrimination was ongoing, the COE campaigned for the introduction of a maternity leave scheme and the provision of training programmes for women workers between 1973 and 1975. Firstly, the COE produced a maternity leave paper which was intended to directly inform union policy: ‘The paper would go to all the Committees whose agreements were coming up in July for re-​ negotiation such as Shorts and Documentaries, Features, Television and Laboratories’ (ACTT Sub-​C ommittee on Discrimination Against Women, 14 January 1974). A  draft of the paper justified the prioritization of maternity leave as an important first step in the wider campaign for equal opportunities: ‘Maternity Leave is the first step to insisting that job opportunity, promotion, welfare benefits, etc. are extended equally to women’s work patterns’ (ACTT Sub-​ Committee on Discrimination Against Women, 1973b). In the absence of statutory maternity leave in Britain, union activity was essential to the introduction of maternity leave schemes, as had been illustrated by schemes locally negotiated by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), the General and Municipal Workers’ Union (G&MWU) and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). At the ACTT’s 1974 Annual Conference the COE made two interventions on the issue of maternity leave provision within the film and television industries. The committee submitted a ‘four point action programme’ which included the negotiation of a six-​month paid maternity leave scheme with all the rights and benefits dependent on continuity of service assured; the negotiation of union-​controlled childcare facilities and support for a TUC campaign for state nurseries; the co-​option of a COE member onto ACTT committees which discussed training provision; and a call for the ACTT to lobby the Labour government for sex discrimination legislation (Anon, April 1974b: 21). The negotiation of the six-​month maternity leave scheme was described as an ‘urgent priority’ (Anon, April 1974b: 21). However, the demands were not discussed at the conference ‘due to lack of time’

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and were postponed until the next General Council meeting (Anon, April 1974b: 21). By confining the conversation on the four-​point action programme to the General Council, the ACTT’s leadership perpetuated women’s marginality within the union structure and ensured that the rank-​and-​file membership did not fully engage in a dialogue on women’s issues. The COE’s second intervention was in an amendment to the Laboratory Branch Committee’s phased retirement motion, which proposed the establishment of a sub-​committee to investigate the implementation of phased retirement schemes. The amendment was submitted by the Freelance Shop, moved by Sarah Boston and seconded by Liz Kustow, and called for women’s pension rights and paid maternity leave to be examined within this investigation. Boston argued that without maternity leave to maintain continuity of contributions, women workers would continue to receive substantially lower pensions (Anon, April 1974a: 12). The amendment passed by 221 votes to 65, despite vocal opposition from laboratory delegates who argued that the ‘original proposals could become bogged down if they were considered as part of a wider review’ (Anon, April 1974a: 12–​13). Opposition to the amendment was further voiced in laboratory member George Cunliffe’s letter, ‘Anti-​Dictat’ (April 1974: 25). Cunliffe (April 1974: 25) explained that laboratory members interpreted the amendment as an indication that ‘a group of politically-​motivated Officers of the Union have managed to steam-​roller a potentially whole new way of working life as far as the factory gate, without a chance of shop-​floor discussion haven arisen’. The opposition of the laboratory branch towards the COE’s demand for paid maternity leave was again apparent at the General Council meeting, at which several laboratory delegates argued that the proposed paid maternity leave scheme ‘should be replaced by a more general demand for 6 months’ paid sick leave’ (Anon, May 1974:  15). This argument was challenged by a ‘strong opposition’ which countered that ‘only maternity leave provision could effectively protect the seniority, pension rights, earnings and career structure of ACTT’s women members’ (Anon, May 1974: 15). Women’s gender-​ specific demands were perceived as a direct challenge to the interests of rank-​and-​file workers in the laboratories. Secondly, the COE was involved in the organization of the Women’s Introductory Technical Workshop, a women-​only day school hosted by the National Film School in November 1974 which aimed to familiarize women with the technical equipment used in the industry. The day school offered workshops on the operation of 16mm cameras, as well as more advanced workshops on the éclair NPR (Noiseless

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Portable Reflex) camera and assembling and loading a camera, alongside sound recording and editing workshops. Linda Dove, a member of both Women in Media and the LWFG, approached the COE for support and assistance in the organization of the training event. The format of the workshop reflected the objectives of the LWFG, which produced films collectively and sought to train women to perform roles at every stage of production, further pointing to their influence on the COE’s activity. The women-​only space provided by the workshop functioned in a similar fashion to the women-​only branch meetings, enabling the 60 women in attendance to discuss their gender-​specific concerns and learn technical skills in a supportive environment. The women shared their experiences of hostility and opposition from both employers and male colleagues; for instance, they highlighted the widespread attitude that training women for skilled jobs was counterproductive because they would leave the industry to have children (Dove, January 1975: 7). Reporting on the event in the union journal, Dove (January 1975: 7) concluded: ‘On the whole it was felt that all-​women workshops were best … because women could enjoy learning more in an atmosphere of equality and sympathy.’ A report on the event also appeared in the feminist magazine Spare Rib, and similarly exalted the value of women-​ only spaces for such training schemes: Being taught by women made an enormous difference –​ there was absolutely no putdown, no attitude of how stupid we were not to even know the essentials … Meeting women from different branches of the film and broadcasting industries gave us a chance to compare jobs and prospects. (Landau, February 1975: 24) Furthermore, the article described the opportunity to handle technical equipment in such an environment as ‘liberating’ (Landau, February 1975:  24). The response to the women-​only training event again exemplifies that women’s separate self-​organization was essential to providing a space within the union structure for women to voice their gender-​specific concerns and engage with skilled working practices from which they were largely excluded within the industry.

Conclusion The relationship between women and the ACTT during 1960–​68 was characterized by continuity with their relationship between 1933

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and 1959, examined in Chapter 1, despite evidence of the ‘roots’ of women’s later militancy in the wider labour movement. The influx of young women into the British workforce with the expectation of better opportunities than their mothers’ generation and intensifying campaigns around equal pay in the British labour movement laid the foundations for women’s militancy from 1968. Within the ACTT, a similar influx of women workers into the television industry occurred later in the decade, while women’s employment in laboratories and film production declined, and so the impact of this influx was delayed until the early 1970s. Furthermore, equal pay campaigns did not galvanize ACTT women activists because equal pay had, in principle, been established in ACTT agreements in the 1930s. The roots of women’s later militancy were instead evident in the relationship between women and the ACTT between 1968 and 1973. The catalysts for the establishment of the COE and the demand for an investigation into gender discrimination in the film and television industries were evident in the political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The upsurge in rank-​and-​file industrial militancy and emergence of the women’s liberation movement created a favourable climate which encouraged women to critically assess the ACTT’s role in maintaining gender discrimination in the film and television industries and to recognize its potential to challenge it. The external impetus provided by feminist organizations, particularly the LWFG, outside of the ACTT and the labour movement was instrumental in the establishment of the COE and the formulation of the three motions presented at the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference. The 1973 Annual Conference was a turning point in the relationship between women and the ACTT because it was the first time that women’s demands were advanced within the gendered union structure. Women’s activity concentrated on the investigation into discrimination against women in the film and television industries over the following two years. Women’s separate self-​organization provided ACTT women with a space to discuss their experiences of discrimination and gender-​specific concerns and to formulate policy. Women’s separate self-​organization also presented a serious challenge to the gendered union structure, and the union leadership and rank-​and-​file male membership often acted accordingly. For instance, women’s conference participation was met with criticism for their conduct, and the union leadership sought to appoint a male candidate in the researcher role. With Sarah Benton’s appointment the COE had won the argument for a feminist report. However, the

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relationship between women and the ACTT following the publication of the Patterns report, between 1975 and 1981, was characterized by inertia and inactivity around the report’s recommendations. The next chapter will identify and analyse the key factors which contributed to this inertia.

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‘Regrettably Up-​to-​Date’, 1975–​81 The Patterns of Discrimination Against Women in the Film and Television Industries (hereafter Patterns) report by the ACTT was a seminal publication on gender discrimination in the workplace. Published in 1975, it was the product of a two-​year investigation into gender discrimination in the British film and television industries conducted by the ACTT’s Committee on Equality. The report illuminated widespread gender inequality by quantifying women workers’ experiences of discrimination and analysing the structures and attitudes that facilitated this discrimination within the industry, union, British state and society at large. Upon its publication the Patterns report was heralded as ‘by far the most comprehensive and informed to have been produced within the trade union movement so far’ by feminist film scholar and activist Claire Johnston (1975: 124–​5). Women activists in the ACTT anticipated that the report’s findings and recommendations would provoke radical change in the union’s policies towards women workers. The report provided these women activists with concrete evidence of gender discrimination in both the industries and the union that could not be easily dismissed or disputed and would substantiate their future demands. Retrospectively reflecting on the Patterns report in oral history interviews carried out with the author, ACTT activist Sarah Boston described the conclusions of the report as “immense ammunition” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016), while the report’s researcher, Sarah Benton, reasoned that Patterns ensured that women’s experiences of gender discrimination “couldn’t be dismissed as an anecdote” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). At the ACTT’s 1975 Annual Conference, Benton declared that the Patterns report marked ‘the beginning of the practical fight for women’s rights’ (Anon, May 1975: 8). However, the relationship between women and

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the ACTT was instead characterized by inertia. Indeed, by the time of the ACTT’s first Women’s Conference six years later, in 1981, the Patterns report was described as ‘regrettably up-​to-​date’, indicating that little had changed (Skirrow, 1981: 94). This chapter interrogates the inertia that followed the report’s publication and, in doing so, identifies three reasons for slow progress around the implementation of its recommendations:  the limited engagement of the ACTT’s rank-​and-​file membership; the hostility of male union officials towards the report’s demands, and the COE’s detachment from the ACTT’s formal union structure. It explores each factor in turn to demonstrate how the gendered union structure operated to inhibit women’s demands and to illuminate women’s activism within these constraints.

The Patterns report and the 1975 Annual Conference The Patterns report (Figure 3.1) illuminated the sexual division of labour in the British film and television industries, concluding that women workers were confined to ‘sexual “ghettoes” ’ (ACTT, 1975: 1). Women were completely absent from half of over 150 grades represented by ACTT agreements, while 60% of women were concentrated in three grades:  production secretary, continuity supervisor and ITV production assistant (ACTT, 1975:  1). The Patterns report further revealed that only a quarter of women workers were covered by the ACTT’s equal pay agreements, thus undermining the ACTT’s long-​ held assertion that the union had achieved equality for women from its establishment (ACTT, 1975:  4). The analysis was divided into eight sections reflecting the eight significant causes of discrimination identified by the investigation:  blatant discrimination during the application process; the undervaluation of jobs primarily performed by women; educational and social ‘conditioning’ and the lack of training facilities; the job structure of the industry, which inhibited women’s career progression and confined them to dead-​end jobs; job insecurity; the denial of employment rights and conditions to women workers by both the state and employers; the lack of trade union representation and activity on discrimination, and the inadequacy of legislation. It provided an extensive list of recommendations, which included demands for a minimum of 26 weeks of paid maternity leave and 4 weeks of paternity leave; the provision of childcare facilities within the workplace and at national union meetings; quotas on training courses; the establishment of sub-​committees for women workers in local shops; and the formalization of the COE’s position within the

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Figure 3.1: Front cover of the ACTT’s seminal report on gender discrimination, Patterns of Discrimination (1975).

Courtesy of BECTU –​Sector of Prospect.

ACTT as an elected committee with official power within the union structure (ACTT, 1975: 52–​3). The ACTT’s 1975 Annual Conference officially committed the ACTT to the recommendations of the Patterns report, which was a substantial achievement for ACTT women activists. The significance of the Patterns report was widely recognized, both at the time and in

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retrospect. In 1975, Claire Johnston reviewed the Patterns report in the article ‘Women in the Media Industries’ for Screen, an influential academic journal in the burgeoning field of film studies. Johnston was a renowned feminist film theorist, as the author of the seminal 1973 article ‘Women’s Cinema as Counter-​Cinema’, and an activist in the London Women’s Film Group (LWFG), which had been instrumental in demanding the ACTT’s investigation into gender discrimination, as demonstrated in Chapter 2. In ‘Women in the Media Industries’ Johnston summarized the key conclusions of the Patterns report for an academic audience and, in doing so, established links between theoretical discussions of film texts and the interests of women media workers (Fabian, 2018:  260). Johnston (1975:  124–​5) praised the report as ‘by far the most comprehensive and informed to have been produced within the trade union movement so far’; however, she also identified shortcomings which would limit the implementation of the report’s recommendations. Firstly, Johnston pointed to the mid-​1970s recession in the film industry during which, she reflected, the report’s feminist demands were unlikely to be pursued in light of ‘the consequent weakness of the union’s bargaining power and the general contraction in job opportunities as a whole’ (Johnston, 1975: 125–​6). Secondly, Johnston (1975: 126) argued that the report was ‘unable to give clear indications as to the economic determinants and the matrix of social relations which underpin discrimination and are specific to the film industry’ and instead focused on a lost ‘Golden Age’ as a result of the limited time and resources dedicated to the investigation. As a result, the report was ‘unable to examine in any detail how the present structure of employment could be substantially changed in the short term’ (Johnston, 1975: 126). Thirdly, Johnston (1975: 127) highlighted the conflict between the ‘feminist position’ and ‘fundamental egalitarianism’ of the Patterns report and the craft union characteristics of the ACTT, which included a ‘petty-​bourgeois, individualistic ethos’, a ‘corporatist mode of consciousness’ and ‘fundamentally defensive nature’, and ‘ideological parochialism’. This conflict points to a fundamental disjuncture between the report’s recommendations and the union’s agenda. Fourthly, Johnston (1975: 127) criticized the report’s focus on ‘conditioning’, which she contends is ‘a fundamental flaw in the Report for feminism’ because it separates a struggle on the issue of sexist ideology from women’s activism on workplace discrimination. Johnston’s article offers a feminist critique of the report which both illuminates external academic engagement with the report’s conclusions

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and indicates that the scope of the report itself contributed to inertia between 1975 and 1981. In her longitudinal study of women workers in the British labour movement, Sarah Boston retrospectively emphasized the importance of the Patterns report: The report is unique in that to date it is the most detailed survey conducted by a trade union of the position of women both within that union and within the industry it organized … The survey revealed nothing new about discrimination. But the fact that the ACTT had been prepared to study and make public the patterns of discrimination within its own orbit in a detailed manner made the report extremely valuable, not only for its own members, but for all women in the trade union movement. (Boston, 2015: 290–​92) Similarly, Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell (1982: 145) described the report as ‘a classic reference point for feminists and trade unionists, as well as a valuable bargaining counter for women in the ACTT’. Sarah Benton (interview with the author, 18 July 2016)  recollected that the Patterns report inspired other unions, such as the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and the National and Local Government Officers’ Association (NALGO), to conduct similar investigations. The Patterns report was intended to be “pragmatic” and the recommendations were “feasible things rather than idealistic ambitions” (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016). Benton recalled that there was no organized opposition to the Patterns report within the ACTT because the argument had been “won” prior to the commencement of the investigation through the appointment of a “young feminist who didn’t know anything about television or film” over “the person the chaps wanted” (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016). However, despite the wider impact of the Patterns report, the efforts to ensure that the recommendations were achievable, and the absence of an organized opposition, the ACTT’s reluctance to engage with the conclusions of the report was evident between 1975 and 1981. The ACTT’s limited engagement with the report was immediately illustrated at its 1975 Annual Conference by the attempt to bury the motion towards the end of the conference agenda, the inadequate distribution of and discussion around the Patterns report, and the response of conference delegates.

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Firstly, the discussion of the Patterns report was originally scheduled for the final session of the conference at 5pm on Sunday by the Standing Orders Committee (SOC), which was responsible for arranging the agenda of the ACTT’s annual conferences (ACTT Committee on Equality, 9 April 1975). During her interview, Boston (interview with the author, 7 July 2016) explained that scheduling motions at the end of the conference was a well-​known strategy of ‘burying’, whereby contentious motions would be placed towards the end of the agenda to ensure a limited discussion. The ACTT had established a precedent for burying motions on gender equality, as the COE’s four-​ point action programme was excluded from the agenda of the 1974 Annual Conference due to ‘lack of time’ (Anon, April 1974b: 21), as discussed in Chapter 2. This continued throughout the period 1975–​ 81. For instance, at the 1977 Annual Conference Film and Television Technician reported a ‘collapse in seriousness’ during a motion on women’s exclusion from the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund’s Annual Stag Party because it was ‘the final motion to be discussed at the end of a long weekend’ (Anon, May 1977: 14). Boston (interview with the author, 7 July 2016) did not recall accusations of the ACTT burying motions on women’s issues within their conference agendas: “I don’t think one could actually accuse them of burying … I don’t ever remember moaning that women’s issues or women’s motions had been put, you know, late in the afternoon”. However, the meeting minutes of the COE reveal that the discussion of the Patterns report was rescheduled for 3pm upon the request of the committee, indicating their concern that the discussion would be buried in the later time slot (ACTT Committee on Equality, 9 April 1975). Secondly, in her critique of the Patterns report Johnston (1975: 126) noted the limited distribution and discussion of the report at the 1975 Annual Conference: ‘there was virtually no debate of the issues and the individual recommendations, and the Report itself has not been circulated to the membership as a whole’. This criticism is supported by the archival evidence available through the union’s journal. For instance, advertisements for the Patterns report reveal that ‘it was only possible to distribute a limited number of copies of the full Report to [union] shops free of charge’ due to the cost of production (Anon, April 1975: 10). Copies of the Patterns report were sold to members for 25p, and so distribution relied on the personal commitment of members to purchase the report. It could thus be speculated that the readership of the Patterns report was limited to members who were interested in its conclusions and in challenging gender discrimination. Prior to the conference a four-​page supplement summarizing the content of Part

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One of the report and containing the COE’s recommendations was included in the March 1975 issue of FTT (ACTT, March 1975). This four-​page supplement would have been distributed to the ACTT’s entire membership, as indicated by the 1965 article ‘This Is Your Journal’ (Anon, September 1965: 160) which reported that a revision in the union’s rules would result in the distribution of the journal to the whole ACTT membership, although it is impossible to determine how widely read this supplement would have been. While further supplements were promised relating to film production, television and the laboratories, these supplements did not appear in the journal in the following months. Furthermore, the journal’s coverage of the conference proceedings indicates that the report’s findings were discussed, with a selection of examples from the Patterns report, but the recommendations were not explicitly addressed and the practicalities of their implementation were not detailed (Anon, May 1975: 8–​9). This coverage supports Johnston’s assertion that there was little debate of the individual recommendations at the 1975 Annual Conference. Thirdly, ACTT women activists encountered derision from male delegates at the 1975 Annual Conference. While there was no organized opposition, the male delegates made their hostility apparent by belittling the Patterns report, as Benton recalled, “they didn’t have an argument that they could put cogently in opposition they really just wanted to deride it”. This derision took the form of “silly jokes about the women” (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016). For instance, the FTT’s coverage of the 1975 Annual Conference recorded a ‘controversial speech’ from ACTT member Charles Smith, who denounced the Patterns report as ‘prejudice’ for its conclusion that women workers were confined to ‘sexual ghettoes’ while those jobs predominantly performed by men were deemed to be discriminatory, claiming that women wanted to ‘[have] it both ways’ (Anon, May 1975: 8–​9). Smith proceeded to criticize working mothers because he considered childrearing to be the ‘most rewarding job in the world’: ‘ “Any woman” he continued “who has the choice of bringing up a baby and prefers to spend her nights in the laboratory grading my negatives, is something that passes my comprehension” ’ (Anon, May 1975: 9). Smith mobilized gender stereotypes and separate-​spheres ideology to undermine the conclusions of the Patterns report, indicating the contentious nature of the report’s demands among the ACTT’s members. Furthermore, women’s conduct at the 1975 Annual Conference was criticized in the letters section which featured in the journal alongside the report on conference proceedings. For instance, Terry Cummins (May 1975: 4) expressed concern ‘that any critical comment

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was greeted with derision by many delegates, both male and female’. To illustrate the behaviour which concerned him, Cummins (May 1975: 4) discussed the instance ‘when one “mere” male [presumably controversial speechmaker Charles Smith] attempted a lighthearted slant in his contribution, he was howled at from the floor of the hall’. Cummins denounced the castigation of ‘speakers who oppose your point of view’, stating: I resent very much the attitude, put forward in the name of ‘equality for women’, that any male who offers critical comment is a chauvinist pig and any female is some sort of freak who only needs the benefit of your superior knowledge and intelligence to convert her to your cause. (Cummins, May 1975: 4) Cummins’ letter undermined the demands outlined in the Patterns report by focusing on women’s conduct at the conference, reflecting Irving Teitelbaum’s response to the three motions on gender discrimination presented at the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference, discussed in Chapter 2. As such, Cummins’ letter provides further support to Anne Munro’s (1999:  154) observation that women’s demands are often overshadowed by criticism of their behaviour when they challenge the trade union agenda. Despite officially supporting the Patterns report, the response of the 1975 Annual Conference foreshadowed the inertia which characterized the relationship between women and the ACTT between 1975 and 1981.

Rank-​and-​file  apathy Following the 1975 Annual Conference there was no unified strategy around the dissemination and implementation of the report’s findings and recommendations within the ACTT. Meetings to discuss the Patterns report were organized sporadically and responses varied widely throughout the union, from the rejection of the report’s recommendations to the appointment of an officer responsible for addressing women’s issues on the shop floor. This chapter argues that the gendered union structure of the ACTT operated to inhibit the implementation of the Patterns report’s recommendations in light of sociologist scholar Anne Munro’s (1999: 1) thesis that ‘there operates an institutional mobilization of bias which sets a trade union “agenda” and which excludes a number of issues which are specific to women workers’. Within this trade union agenda, men’s interests

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are considered to be synonymous with class interests and therefore with trade unionism, while women’s issues are deemed sectional and divisive (Munro, 1999: 197–​8). Munro (1999: 177) further argues that, ‘Despite pressure for change, the impetus within unions is to retain the status quo’. Between 1975 and 1981, the ACTT proved resilient to the pressure for change exerted by women union activists through the Patterns report and sought to maintain the status quo through inactivity around their demands. Reflecting Munro’s conclusions, the ACTT’s inactivity was informed by a belief system that women’s issues were not trade union issues. This belief system was evidenced by the reluctance of ACTT members, of which 85.2% were men (ACTT, 1975: 1), to read the Patterns report or discuss its recommendations at branch level. In an interview conducted by Journal Editor Roy Lockett, Brian Hibbert (shop steward at Thames TV Teddington) explained the membership’s reluctance to read the Patterns report as follows: RL: Is there general concern on the Shop Committee about the kind of issues raised in the Committee on Equality Report? BH: Frankly, no. I don’t think it’s anything to do with women’s equality, it’s the fact that the membership generally don’t read or consider documents like that. They are concerned with tackling immediate issues; they react to actual problems. It’s very difficult to interest members in planning forward strategies. (Anon, September 1975: 5; emphasis added) Hibbert dismissed discrimination against women as a marginal problem with low priority on the ACTT’s agenda at shop level. The surviving COE meeting minutes and correspondence reveal that the dissemination of the report’s findings and recommendations was a slow and arduous process which encountered considerable apathy from the union’s branches. Following the Patterns report’s publication, the COE’s activity was dominated by the organization of meetings with local shops and negotiating committees to discuss the report’s findings and the inclusion of its recommendations in the negotiation of ACTT agreements. The significance of these meetings to the implementation of the report’s recommendations was outlined by the COE: The committee re-​iterated its desire to meet Negotiating Committees as a matter of urgency in order to discuss those recommendations in the report which could be implemented immediately without cost to managements

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and to explain its point of view on other items. (ACTT Committee on Equality, 3 July 1975) In July 1975, the committee’s minutes reported that the request for meetings had received a ‘scattered response’ from across the film production, local radio, laboratory and ITV branches, which was attributed to the ‘current economic crisis’ in which ‘it was difficult to get committees to consider any but the most basic issues’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 3 July 1975). In January 1976, the committee’s minutes revealed further difficulty in arranging meetings with the film production branch due to its ‘heavy agenda’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 16 January 1976). During the 1970s, the British economy was characterized by stagflation and unemployment, marking the end of the post-​war economic boom. The British film industry was in a state of disarray throughout the 1970s as feature film production dramatically declined over the course of the decade, from 84 features to 41 per year, primarily as a result of the withdrawal of American funding (Shail, 2008: xiv). As previously discussed, Johnston (1975: 125–​6) cited the ‘recession in the film industry’ and the ‘consequent weakness of the union’s bargaining power’ among her reservations regarding the implementation of the Patterns report. During the economic recession, women’s demands were further diminished within the trade union agenda. The strategy for the implementation of the Patterns report’s recommendations relied significantly on the position adopted by the local branches, as illustrated by the responses of the Yorkshire sub-​ section of the film production branch and the Laboratory Branch Committee, which produced uneven results across the ACTT. The tone of the Special General Meeting of the Yorkshire sub-​section, as recorded in the union journal, mirrored wider apathy towards the report among the ACTT’s membership. During the discussion at the male-​dominated meeting ‘it became clear that many had either not read the Report at all, or only given it a cursory glance’ (Anon, October 1975: 6). Furthermore, two male members minuted their opposition to discussing the Patterns report on the grounds that the report, and specifically the recommendation for union support of abortion rights, ‘had nothing whatsoever to do with Union business, and that in future the Yorkshire Sub-​Section should only deal with matters directly affecting its members’ (Anon, October 1975: 6). While this response conformed to the wider belief system that women’s issues were not trade union issues, the meeting also elected a Women’s Officer, Jacqui Samuels. Samuels was committed

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to establishing communication networks to enable women to raise their concerns through the union and had arranged a joint meeting between ACTT, NATTKE and ABS members. This is the only recorded incident of a section electing a Women’s Officer in response to the recommendations of the Patterns report. The Laboratory Branch Committee was opposed to a number of the Patterns report’s recommendations and requested that the COE ‘reconsider some of their recommendations such as Maternity Leave, Childcare Facilities and quota [sic]’ (Shemmings, 6 November 1975). An Open University documentary, Patterns of Inequality D302:  ‘A Woman’s Work …’ (1975), recorded a laboratory shop meeting in which members voiced their opposition to childcare facilities in the workplace. Opposition was expressed through a separate-​spheres ideology, as one female member explained that such facilities would encourage mothers to re-​enter the workplace to the detriment of wider society: “To me the violence of today is put down to women at work with children”(Patterns of Inequality, 1975). Benton (interview with the author, 18 July 2016) recalled that many women workers in the laboratories perceived the recommendation for childcare facilities as a “ridiculous” demand and “middle-​class women being silly”. Andrew Dawson and Sean P. Holmes (Women in West London Film Laboratories, 2016) suggest that the prevalence of such attitudes was the result of the ‘compressed career ladders’ of working-​class women in the laboratories compared to middle-​class women in broadcasting, which prompted women in the laboratories to prioritize their family life over their work. These attitudes could further be attributed to the operation of the trade union agenda, which, Munro (1999: 197) argues, ‘is shaped by, but also shapes, the expectations and demands of members’, and so ‘tends to be reflected and reproduced by all actors within the union movement, including those members whose interests are excluded’. Childcare facilities were also perceived as a threat to wages, as one male laboratory member argued: ‘For instance, the cost of setting up these cages, or crèches or whatever you like to call them, must come from the management. Now if we get down to the nitty gritty of this, every year we put in, I hope, for a rise, now there’s so much money available for a rise, now if they come to us and say I’m sorry these childcare facilities have in fact cost us x amount of money so instead of your usual 5 per cent I’m afraid we’ll reduce this to 4 per cent. Now you

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are discriminating against everybody in the firm who has not got a child.’ (Patterns of Inequality, 1975) Valerie Antcliff (2005:  853) has observed that ‘equal opportunities policies can be defined as a ‘perk’, creating feelings of low entitlement among those who benefit from them and resentment among those who do not’. From the 1960s onward, new technologies and the associated job losses in film laboratories ensured that childcare facilities were perceived as a perk beyond the remit of the union agenda among the majority of laboratory branch members.

The hostility of male union officials Reluctance to discuss and implement the recommendations of the Patterns report was not only apparent through limited engagement with the report among the ACTT’s rank and file, but also through the hostility of the ACTT’s male officials to negotiate around women’s demands. Linda Briskin (1993: 101) has observed that women’s separate self-​organization represents a significant ‘challenge to organizational practices’ of male trade unionists as it ‘simultaneously contests gender power and organizational structures’. As such, it follows that ‘trade unions, at best, are only prepared to take up issues relevant to women when they do not challenge the basic structure of the labour market’, as argued by Munro (1999: 31). Scholarship on the renowned 1968 equal pay strike of Ford sewing machinists supports Briskin and Munro’s argument, as Sheila Cohen (2012) and Jonathan Moss (2015) argue that the National Union of Vehicle Builders (NUVB) and the Union of Engineering and Foundry Workers (AEF) prioritized the demand for equal pay rather than the women’s demand for re-​grading because it would have less impact on the unions’ negotiated structures. In the ACTT, the Patterns report was the first major challenge to the established structures of both the union and industry which operated in the interests of male union officials and workers. The ACTT’s officials thus adopted a defensive strategy, acting to preserve the union structures which worked in their favour, not through active and open opposition but through implicit behaviours, such as refusing to discuss women’s issues and disrupt negotiations with management. Benton and Boston’s oral history testimonies provide an invaluable insight into the hostility women encountered following the publication of the Patterns report, as they discuss the atmosphere of union meetings and behaviours of male union officials which are invisible within the archival material. Reflecting on the impact of the Patterns report within

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the ACTT, Benton attested that “there was little direct use made of the report by the actual organizers who were the, sort of the powerful people in the industry, in the union” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). She explained that the officials would not negotiate around women’s demands because these demands would disrupt their productive relationship with management: ‘the organizers em had established their working relationships with em the employers which was essentially about pay increases, that’s what they did, they negotiated in a perfectly amicable way to get more money for the workforce and they didn’t take up other issues, they weren’t going to go in and say why don’t you give us the crèche as well, they thought this was silly stuff they didn’t take it seriously at all.’ (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016) Boston’s testimony echoed Benton’s account, as she described how the establishment of the COE and the publication of the Patterns report “rocked the boat you know, they’d [the officials] got everything all running very nicely [laughs]” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). Throughout her oral history testimony, Benton described the ACTT’s union officials as a ‘brotherhood’, which acted collectively to protect the organizing practices and structures which operated in their interests (interview with the author, 18 July 2016). She explained that the union’s closed shop policy required a union card to work in the industry, but that it was necessary to have a job in the industry to apply for ACTT membership, resulting in a ‘self-​regulating’ industry in which these ‘brotherhoods’ maintained their power through the exclusion of women workers: ‘there were very few men in those brotherhoods who wanted to disrupt them by saying well actually my sister’s daughter would like to be a sound man or something like that, em, and they’d say well she can be an editor or, you couldn’t break up these ranks’. (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016) These ‘brotherhoods’ were founded upon the male workforces’ shared desire to defend their position within the industry; men “didn’t have to know each other but they shared a concern of maintaining status” (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016). During the interview

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Benton was self-​reflexive about her use of the term ‘brotherhood’, which she applied retrospectively after reading Germaine Tillion’s The Republic of Cousins (1983). Benton was struck by the similarities between the behaviour of men in the film and television industries, particularly cameramen, and Tillion’s analysis of brothers and cousins in Mediterranean countries who “patrol and police women’s behaviour” (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016). Benton’s use of the term ‘brotherhood’ illuminates the tacit understanding between male union officials, as well as the wider male membership, of the need to defend the structures which maintained their status within the union and industry. The hostility of male union officials was implicitly communicated in their behaviour towards ACTT women activists. While the political atmosphere of the mid-​1970s, discussed in Chapter 2, and the ACTT’s commitment to the ‘principles of equality’ from its establishment ensured that the officials “couldn’t publicly stand up and oppose a motion”, their reluctance to discuss women’s demands was palpable: ‘It’s that sort of thing that you go to the pub, Nellie Dean in Soho around the corner from ACTT, you’re having drinks, and you just know that they aren’t going to talk to you about women’s rights, that they don’t want to know, they don’t want to kind of engage with it, they don’t want to, you know, there’s a sort of, a sort of way of them indicating their lack of commitment.’ (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016) While the ACTT had committed itself to challenging gender discrimination in principle, the union’s male officials proved that they would not advance women’s demands in practice. The officials’ disregard for women’s demands reflected a wider apathy in the British trade union movement. For instance, George Stevenson’s analysis of the 1976 Trico equal pay strike complicates the historical narrative established by the TUC’s project, ‘Winning Equal Pay: The Value of Women’s Work’, which depicted the trade union movement as ‘apathetic until the Dagenham strike in 1968 … [and] wholeheartedly committed to women’s equality struggles thereafter’ (Stevenson, 2016b:  156). Stevenson reveals that the Labour Party and TUC did not discuss the Trico dispute at major conferences and meetings during the strike, between May and October 1976, and ‘failed explicitly to recognize the significance of the dispute for trade

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unionism, the women’s movement, and class politics’ (Stevenson, 2016b: 166). Furthermore, President of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) Hugh Scanlon’s address to the 1976 Labour Conference was concerned with unemployment rather than the ongoing equal pay dispute within his union (Stevenson, 2016b: 155). Similarly, Sarah Boston (2015: 336) observed that ‘having published a booklet on the [women’s] issue concerned, [the TUC] took no further action unless provoked or pressured’ during the 1970s. Apathy towards women’s demands within the wider labour movement reinforced ACTT male officials’ reluctance to pursue the implementation of the report’s recommendations. ACTT women activists did receive some support from individuals in the union leadership, specifically Alan Sapper, ACTT’s General Secretary, and Roy Lockett, Research Officer and Journal Editor. Benton and Boston both emphasized the significance of these men’s help; for instance, Benton (interview with the author, 18 July 2016) claimed that their backing ensured that there was no organized resistance to the Patterns report, and Boston described the journal as “one of our supporters on the whole” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). Sapper and Lockett’s support was attributed to their larger politics: Benton described Sapper as “left wing” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016), and Boston explained that Lockett was “young … he wasn’t old and entrenched in the ways of the ACTT” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). Sapper and Lockett championed external political movements and campaigns, such as the women’s liberation movement, while the union officials and rank-​and-​file members were militant on economistic issues, such as wages –​a conflict of interests which came to a head during the 1980s in the context of Thatcher’s ideological attack on organized labour, as discussed in Chapter  4. Their support ensured that women’s demands were awarded a degree of visibility within the journal following the publication of the Patterns report, for instance in articles which reported on the discussion at meetings organized to disseminate the report’s findings. However, in her study of the public sector union UNISON, Munro (1999: 157, 177) concluded that ‘the [trade union] agenda is extremely resilient at a local level despite the national developments in UNISON towards proportionality, fair representation and self-​organization’ and that ‘the expectations of members, shop stewards and union officers remain narrowly defined’. Despite support from the ACTT’s leadership, the belief system that women’s issues were not trade union issues persisted among union officials.

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The Committee on Equality’s detachment from the formal union structure The archived general ephemera of the COE reveals that women union activists were self-​reflexive about the potential impact of the membership’s limited engagement with the Patterns report and the union officials’ hostility towards its recommendations, minuting that:  ‘Concern was expressed that women’s issues could sink into oblivion if the impetus gained with the publication of the report was not maintained and pressed now’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 3 July 1975). The COE’s detachment from the formal union structure was another factor which undermined the impetus women’s activism gained with the Patterns report. Recommendation 2g of the Patterns report called for: ‘The Committee on Equality to become an elected committee of the union, representative of all branches of the union, and with the power to co-​opt’, as well as the appointment of a union official on the COE with responsibility for ‘matters relevant to women in the industry’ and other groups facing discrimination (ACTT, 1975: 52–3​ ). The proposed remit of the COE, as outlined in recommendation 2g, included compiling information on women’s work, wages and cases of discrimination; corresponding with the union membership regarding the activity of the committee; formulating recommendations and policies within the ACTT; and liaising with other union bodies, both internally and externally, regarding women’s issues (ACTT, 1975: 53). However, between 1975 and 1981, recommendation 2g was not formally implemented and so the COE remained detached from the ACTT’s union structure, which ensured that women did not have access to the necessary mechanisms to pursue the report’s recommendations. Munro (1999: 177) argues that women’s separate self-​organization ‘requires resources and commitment from all levels of the union’; however, the resources and commitment the COE received from the ACTT were inadequate. While the committee was “fully part of the union in the sense that it was serviced by the union”, which saw the ACTT facilitate the committee’s activity by typing and circulating COE meeting information, agendas and minutes (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016), it remained isolated from the union structure, with no remit to propose motions. As such, the committee was unable to independently pursue its own agenda within the ACTT. The powerlessness of the COE was succinctly summarized by Helen Baehr in her analysis of women’s employment in television in the 1970s and 1980s:

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Implementation of the recommendations proposed in the 1975 ACTT report was made the task of the union’s Committee on Equality, but as it was given no real power its sole achievement has been negotiating a maternity leave scheme in local radio. (Baehr, 1981: 131) To advance its demands and put forward motions, the committee instead relied on those women members elected to other committees, as Boston explained: ‘I don’t think the Equality Committee sort of had the ability to put motions up to wherever, em, but there were a number of women who were on the Equality Committee who were also on other committees and Executive so it would have been fed up through that sort of way.’ (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016) Furthermore, it was difficult for women to advance their demands through the ACTT’s grassroots. For instance, women’s action groups established within local television shops, including Thames, Granada and Yorkshire, found that ‘there was no way these groups could influence union policy since they could not persuade their shops to put motions to Annual Conference’ (Skirrow, 1981: 98). Similarly, women were under-​represented on union committees because women workers were concentrated in a limited number of grades (ACTT, 1975: 14). As such, the COE’s detachment from the formal union structure, the operation of the trade union agenda and the gendered segregation of work excluded women’s demands. The COE’s detachment from the union structure also resulted in the absence of a formal structure and associated procedure to address individual cases of discrimination in the film and television industries through the official channels established by the Equal Pay Act 1970 and Sex Discrimination Act 1975. For instance, the discrimination case of a Granada member was taken directly to a Disputes Tribunal, by-​passing both the woman’s shop and the COE (ACTT Committee on Equality, 25 May 1976). In fact, the shop did not take up the case, reflecting the ‘ad hoc manner’, identified by Munro (1999: 168), in which trade unions and management responded to women’s gender-​ specific issues which were regarded as external to the workplace. The COE noted its dissatisfaction, minuting: ‘It was felt that the advisory capacity of our Committee is underused and regretted that this member

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had not consulted us’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 25 May 1976). The COE was not recognized as an official channel through which to pursue cases of discrimination. While the committee’s minutes detail their intention to produce a document outlining the standard procedure for discrimination cases within the ACTT during 1976 and 1977, there is no further record of such a document. The external impetus provided by feminist organizations outside of the ACTT diminished between 1975 and 1980 as the activity of these groups declined. The LWFG, which had been instrumental in the establishment and activity of the COE between 1973 and 1975, ceased to exist by 1977. Group member Barbara Evans (2016: 119) attributed the LWFG’s demise to the dispersal of the core group of activists who had facilitated the LWFG’s activity from 1972, as they moved away from London, struggled to combine voluntary, unpaid activity in the LWFG with paid employment, or pursued alternative campaigns. From the mid-​1970s, divisions increasingly emerged in the women’s liberation movement around race, class and sexuality, which challenged the movement’s depiction of a unified sisterhood. There were fierce contestations over the direction of the movement at the 1978 national women’s liberation conference, as revolutionary feminists argued that men’s sexual violence against women was the cause of women’s oppression and so should be the campaigning focus of the movement (Segal, 2013: 160). The 1978 conference was the last national conference of the British women’s liberation movement. As argued in Chapter 2, external allies outside of the ACTT and labour movement encouraged ACTT women activists to challenge gender discrimination; however, between 1975 and 1980, women did not receive such support and their activity was inhibited as a result. Within the British labour movement, women activists were optimistic about the prospect of radical change in the mid-​1970s (Boston, 2015:  309). In the ACTT, COE activists were similarly optimistic about the advancements they had achieved in the mid-​ 1970s and did not identify the committee’s detachment from the formal union structure as a key concern, as demonstrated by Boston’s recollection: ‘as one of the first unions to have an equality committee I don’t think that sort of you know really was something that, that sort of troubled us at that point, I don’t think we really clocked that we hadn’t got real power within the union structure, and also because at that point we were winning things, em, so yes, but we didn’t, I don’t think

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the committee had real power within the union structure’. (interview with the author, 7 July 2016) However, the socio-​economic climate of the late 1970s inhibited women’s progress across British industries, as women workers ‘progressed little between 1976 and 1986 and in important aspects slipped backwards’ (Boston, 2015:  309). The 1976 International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis prompted the Labour government to introduce ‘draconian budgetary cutbacks in welfare state expenditure’ to satisfy the terms of their $3.9 billion loan (Harvey, 2005: 58). As a result, the British labour movement adopted an increasingly defensive position in which women’s demands were further marginalized within the union agenda.

Single-​issue campaigns In the late 1970s, women remained active within the British labour movement through single-​issues campaigns, which broadened women’s demands to include issues such as abortion rights and sexual harassment (Boston, 2015: 311–​12). Similarly, ACTT women activists increasingly focused on single-​issue campaigns in the film and television industries, specifically: training courses for women workers, childcare facilities and abortion rights. The challenges of implementing the Patterns report’s recommendations in a male-​dominated institution confined women’s activity to campaigns which were local, sporadic, reliant on external resources, and often initiated outside of the union between 1975 and 1980.

Training courses for women workers Among its recommendations for collective bargaining in the film and television industries, the Patterns report called for the provision of day and/​or block release training courses for women workers and the introduction of a 15% quota for women’s participation on training courses (ACTT, 1975:  52). However, the organization of training courses was a contentious issue for the COE. Following the success of the Women’s Introductory Technical Workshop at the National Film School in November 1974, discussed in Chapter 2, the COE distanced itself from organizing further women-​only training courses. When approached by a group of women to organize a second day school, the COE minuted its position that ‘pressure should now come from it onto the employers to provide proper training courses for women

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(as well as men)’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 26 February 1975). The involvement of women who were not members of the ACTT informed this position, as the minutes reported that the committee ‘did not feel they could take responsibility for further such events, particularly since non-​members were involved’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 26 February 1975). Two factors may have contributed to the COE’s reluctance to pursue training courses. Firstly, the COE received limited resources to distribute the Patterns report, and so it follows that it did not have sufficient resources to organize a training workshop. Secondly, the COE may have wished to distance itself from external groups with conflicting priorities to the ACTT. As illustrated in Chapter 2, women’s activity which by-​passed established routes of activity within the ACTT was condemned as undemocratic, therefore the COE may have prioritized negotiations between the union and employers to ensure that their actions were considered to be legitimate. Between October 1975 and April 1978, the COE meeting minutes and correspondence document the organization of further training workshops for women workers in television. The COE’s change of heart can perhaps be attributed to the committee’s desire to pursue a campaign which had already proven to be achievable, alongside the continued demands from women workers for women-​only training courses. The COE’s renewed campaign for women-​only training courses relied significantly on external resources from television companies. The COE first contacted the Association of Broadcasting Staff to jointly approach the BBC to utilize their premises at Woodstock Grove (ACTT Committee on Equality, 27 October 1975). However, this was cut short by ABS’s Paddy Leach, who deemed it ‘inappropriate’ to jointly approach the BBC during amalgamation negotiations (ACTT Committee on Equality, 25 May 1976). The circumstances of the inter-​ union relationship between the ACTT and ABS undermined women’s attempt to organize cross-​union training courses for women workers. The COE subsequently organized women-​only training courses with Thames Television (ACTT Committee on Equality, 9 September 1976). The first familiarization day school hosted by Thames in February 1977 was described as a ‘great success’ (ACTT Committee on Equality, 21 February 1977). However, the COE noted that there was a poor response in both applications to and eventual attendance at the day school (ACTT Committee on Equality, 21 February 1977; 22 March 1977). Thames Television’s second familiarization day school in February 1978 received wider coverage in the union journal, and it was reported that 40 women (both members and non-​members) were in attendance from across film and television production (Anon,

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April 1978: 16). Reflecting the response to the Women’s Introductory Technical Workshop, attendees emphasized the value of women-​only spaces, describing the event as ‘a small oasis in the desert of television technology training’ (Anon, April 1978: 16). The COE’s experience of organizing women-​only training courses illuminates the lived practice of women’s activism in which women activists had to struggle to accrue adequate resources from external sources and to balance the conflicting interests of the ACTT, employers and women workers.

Childcare facilities The Patterns report called for the provision of childcare facilities within the workplace and at the ACTT’s annual conferences, General Council, and other national conferences (ACTT, 1975: 52). In 1976, the ACTT’s General Council voted to include a motion on childcare provision as one of the two motions it would present at the TUC’s 1976 Annual Conference, indicating its support for the demand. The motion called for the TUC to pursue a national campaign for government-​funded nurseries. Sarah Boston moved the motion at the TUC conference and recalled the apathetic response she received, which she attributed to a belief among delegates that women’s demands would not be pursued in practice: “oh well give the women this motion we’re not actually going to do anything about it you know we’ll just vote for it and you know look like a civilised TUC” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). Despite the ACTT’s initial display of commitment to childcare provision, Boston’s oral history testimony reveals that the ACTT’s progress on this recommendation was virtually non-​existent between 1975 and 1981: “We never got very far on childcare … Well I don’t think we ever managed to get the union to support a crèche” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). Instead, campaigns for workplace crèches were locally organized and advanced by women activists outside of the ACTT. The most significant crèche campaign between 1975 and 1981 was a two-​year campaign at BBC’s Kensington House between 1978 and 1980 that successfully concluded with the introduction of a crèche. The campaign was organized by a women’s group outside of the ABS and ACTT, because the women doubted the unions’ commitment to negotiating for childcare facilities, as reported in the union journal: ‘the main mover behind it was not the union –​ ABS or ACTT –​but the women’s group at Ken House. They felt that the Union had been inclined to give lip service to the idea of a crèche’ (Anon, June 1978: 3). The women’s group organized

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meetings, the first of which was attended by over 40 women (Anon, January 1979: 8), and demonstrations, including a demonstration held outside of Kensington House which was attended by 21 women, 3 men and a baby (Anon, June 1978: 3). The women’s group also produced a regular newspaper, Groundswell (Anon, January 1979: 8). The campaign prompted a joint union–​management sub-​committee report which ‘strongly recommend[ed] work-​place nurseries’ and resulted in the establishment of a crèche for the children of 30 BBC employees (Anon, August–​September 1980:  17). The challenges of advancing demands for childcare provision within the male-​ dominated union structure encouraged women workers to pursue their demands externally; however, the Kensington House campaign illustrates that women’s activity outside of the ABS could pressure the union into action. Reports on the Kensington House campaign touched upon corresponding crèche campaigns within the ACTT; for instance, one article mentions the ‘ground breaking efforts by ACTT members at LWT, Thames and Granada London’ which had ‘boosted the BBC campaign’ (Anon, January 1979: 8). However, the activity of ACTT members at LWT, Thames and Granada London were otherwise absent from the journal, and were not discussed in the available COE ephemera. Between 1975 and 1981 crèche campaigns were locally organized and often confined to one workplace, and so are largely invisible within the surviving archival sources, both the journal and COE ephemera, and oral history testimonies which were conducted with women activists who held positions within the union hierarchy. As such, women’s activity within the rank and file has been obscured from the historical record. In her oral history testimony, Boston explained that the casualization of the British film and television industries during the 1970s was a primary obstacle to women’s campaigns for childcare facilities: ‘one of the problems for a lot of the women campaigning was a lot were on short-​term contracts, were in fact sort of freelance like me so you were never in one place of work so what you really needed was a good local, good, available, affordable childcare facilities’. (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016) The organization of work within the film and television industries meant that freelance women workers would receive greater benefit from local, government-​funded nurseries. Thus, union campaigns

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for childcare facilities encountered external restrictions which would require a significant challenge to the structure of the industry.

Abortion rights Abortion rights campaigns in the ACTT emerged in response to two parliamentary bills between 1975 and 1981 –​the 1975 James White Abortion (Amendment) Bill and the 1979 John Corrie Abortion Amendment Bill  –​which threatened to restrict women’s access to abortion as outlined in the Abortion Act 1967. Women’s activity around abortion rights in 1975–​76 primarily took the form of motions to the ACTT’s General Council and 1976 Annual Conference. These motions called for the ACTT to oppose the White Bill, to support the aims of the National Abortion Campaign (NAC), and to encourage ACTT members to attend national demonstrations for women’s right to choose. The NAC, established in 1975 in response to the White Bill, was committed to building the pro-​choice movement through an alliance with the British labour movement. The COE produced a document, published in the union journal, which explained ‘why the union should adamantly oppose the Bill’: The ACTT is committed to a policy of working actively for women’s rights. The freedom to control her own body is one of the most crucial of women’s rights and must be defended and extended by all organisations which represent women’s interests. (Anon, July–​August 1975: 9) At the 1976 Annual Conference, the BBC Bristol shop presented a motion that called for official support of the NAC; this was the first time abortion rights had been raised in this forum. When moving the motion, Liz Thoyts emphasized that the ‘National Abortion Campaign (NAC) had asked its supporters to take the argument into the trade union movement’ (Anon, May 1976:  11). External pressure from the women’s movement ensured that abortion rights were discussed within the ACTT. The James White Abortion (Amendment) Bill was defeated in 1976. Discussion of abortion rights re-​emerged in the ACTT in 1979–​ 80, with articles again explaining the need for union opposition to the new amendments proposed by the 1979 Corrie Bill. Support for abortion rights in the British labour movement was substantial in 1979. An 80,000-strong demonstration against the Corrie Bill in October 1979, organized by the TUC, was ‘the largest trade

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union demonstration ever held for a cause which lay beyond the traditional scope of collective bargaining; it was also the biggest ever pro-​choice march’ (Coote and Campbell, 1982: 147). Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell described the defeat of the Bill as ‘one of the trade unions’ few major, tangible achievements for women’ (Coote and Campbell, 1982:  148; original emphasis). Drawing on Coote and Campbell’s analysis, Munro (1999) speculated that the labour movement actively supported abortion rights because the demand was external to both the trade union movement and British industries, and so did not challenge traditional structures and hierarchies. Joanna Bornat made a similar observation in her examination of women’s participation in the General Union of Textile Workers between 1875 and 1914. Bornat (1986: 208) argued that the ‘segregation of women’s political and economic roles meant that while women’s suffrage was promoted, women’s role in production was consistently portrayed as marginal’. The ACTT’s support for abortion rights could similarly be attributed to the separation between abortion rights campaigns and recommendations within the Patterns report that challenged the ACTT’s gendered union structure. Abortion rights was a contentious issue in the ACTT, as rank-​ and-​file members challenged the legitimacy of the ACTT’s activity during both the 1975–​76 and 1979–​80 campaigns. For instance, male members of the Special General Meeting of the Yorkshire sub-​ section of the film production branch argued that abortion rights should not be discussed because it ‘had nothing whatsoever to do with Union business’ (Anon, October 1975:  6). Similarly, in 1980 a letters section titled ‘Should Trade Unionists Support Abortion?’ (Various, February 1980: 9) contributed to a debate that spanned the letters sections of three consecutive issues between January and March 1980. In this section, a letter from John McDonald, a member from Scottish TV, expressed ‘disgust’ towards an article on the John Corrie Bill and ‘complain[ed] about the misuse of a trade union newspaper’ (Various, February 1980: 9). The three letters that appeared alongside McDonald’s supported the union’s stance on abortion. Shirin Hirsch’s analysis of Chile solidarity in the British labour movement during the 1970s offers a framework in which to understand the ACTT’s mixed response to abortion rights campaigns. Hirsch (2016: 254) argues that union support for Chile ‘was not an inevitable outcome but a continual debate as to why a foreign country should play a role within the struggles of the British workforce’. The upsurge in industrial militancy within the British labour movement during the 1970s facilitated international solidarity campaigns, which included

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strikes and occupations; however, economic struggles continued to be the central preoccupation of the British labour movement (Hirsch, 2016: 243–​4). While the power of the left encouraged trade unions to pursue explicitly political campaigns, such as Chile solidarity and abortion rights, there was an ongoing conflict between left-​wing support for external political campaigns and the right-​wing focus on internal economic demands. The debate on abortion rights within the ACTT reflects a similar conflict.

Informal activity The available archival sources do not provide a full picture of women’s activity within the ACTT between 1975 and 1981. The union journals provide the official discourse of the ACTT, which was informed by a trade union agenda which prioritized men’s interests, while the general ephemera of the COE reflects the formal activity of women within the ACTT. Similarly, existing and newly conducted interviews have primarily focused on women with official positions in the union or activists on the COE. Munro (1999: 179) has argued that, as a result of the restrictions placed on women’s activity by the union agenda, ‘women are more likely to engage in forms of activity and resistance outside of formal union structures’. Thus, the archival sources and oral history testimonies largely obscure women’s engagement in activity and resistance beyond the formal union structure. However, Sarah Boston and Adele Winston’s testimonies point to informal activity within the ACTT. Firstly, Boston (interview with the author, 7 July 2016) recalled a “phone list” of women union members which provided both a “supportive network” to offer women advice on performing workplace tasks and a network of activists which could be quickly mobilized into action. The network of activists was called into action when ACTT women discovered that members of the union’s leadership planned to attend the exclusively male annual stag party of the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund (CTBF), a charity for film and television professionals: ‘Well we went and organized a protest outside the hotel [laughs]. Well our union guys never went again, you know, so, but I remember that was absolutely rent-​a-​mob, you know the phone lists, you know, phone up, who was free, because we only found out quite late and getting down to the hotel and protest outside a hotel in Bayswater.’ (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016)

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The CTBF’s annual stag party excluded women workers from the film and television industries, but encouraged their male guests to ‘pay a higher fee to have a glamorous hostess at their table’ (Anon, May 1977:  14), illuminating the sexist culture in which the union leadership socialized. Women’s informal activity against the CTBF’s stag party occurred alongside formal activity; for instance, a motion was presented to the ACTT’s 1977 Annual Conference calling for a boycott of the annual stag party as long as it continued to exclude women. While presenting the motion, Marilyse Morgan, from the Writers’ Section, was catcalled from the conference floor (Anon, May 1977: 14). ACTT President Robert Bolt criticized the motion, stating that he was ‘appalled’ by the suggestion of a withdrawal of financial support because ‘the CTBF was a very important cause’ (Anon, May 1977: 14). The motion passed, but the response of male union members again reveals their hostility to women’s demands which clashed with their traditional forms of operating. Winston, a member of the ABS–​ACTT Joint Shops Committee, also utilized an informal phone network to rally support for childcare facilities within the BBC. Winston responded to “a tiny piece of paper on a notice board somewhere” concerning the potential provision of a crèche, although she speculated that “they had clearly done it as a matter of form and didn’t want a response” (Winston, interview with the author, 15 July 2016). Winston described how she “rang every department everywhere … they got a phenomenal response … they didn’t do anything about it, but I gave them a run for their money, little old me” (interview with the author, 15 July 2016). Such activity is otherwise invisible within the history of the ACTT, illustrating the gaps and absences in the record of women’s activism in the ACTT and pointing to potential areas of further research.

The ACTT’s 1980 Annual Conference In 1980, ACTT women activists challenged the inertia that had characterized the relationship between women and the ACTT from 1975 and had resulted in the union’s slow progress around the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report. Women activists presented two motions at the ACTT’s 1980 Annual Conference, which demanded that the ACTT investigate the enduring discrimination against women workers in the film and television industries and establish a timeline for the implementation of the Patterns report’s recommendations ‘as a matter of urgency’ (Anon, May 1980:  21). The motions called for a report on the union’s

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progress within six months of the conference. In her analysis of women’s experiences of factory life in the early 1970s, Anna Pollert (1981: 199) observed that women’s political consciousness ‘could take rapid turns, in spite of years of apparent inertia’. Pollert illustrated this with an example of the stirrings of rank-​and-​file militancy among women workers at a Bristol tobacco factory in the summer of 1971 in response to redundancies. Women workers attended an ‘ad-​hoc factory gate meeting’, which was separate from the union’s meetings and was facilitated by a local socialist women’s group, including a female shop steward from a neighbouring tobacco factory who addressed the meeting (Pollert, 1981: 198; original emphasis). This meeting discussed alternatives to redundancy around which the women campaigned. Women’s demands at the ACTT’s 1980 Annual Conference similarly marked a ‘rapid turn’ in women’s activism despite the previous five years of inertia in the relationship between women and the ACTT. Two factors triggered women’s renewed activity around the recommendations of the Patterns report: external feminist campaigns and the changing structure of the industry. Firstly, the emergence of external feminist campaigns in the television industry provided ACTT women activists with the impetus to challenge the ACTT’s inactivity. These campaigns had developed in response to debates about the future of television, which arose from the proposed introduction of a new fourth channel, the advent of breakfast television, and the re-​allocation of ITV franchises (Honeyford, 1980; Baehr, 1981; Skirrow, 1981; Gallagher, 1987; Loach, 1987; Antcliff, 2005). In 1977, the Annan Committee on the future of broadcasting recommended the establishment of an independent fourth channel. The ABS and ACTT had submitted evidence to the Annan Committee on gender discrimination in the film and television industries in 1975 (Hallam, 2005:  19–​20). Channel 4’s commitment ‘to cater for substantial groups presently neglected’ (Gallagher, 1987: 148) provided women with an opportunity to challenge institutional structures which had historically excluded women workers, and so reshape the industry’s working practices and the kinds of programmes produced (Honeyford, 1980; Baehr, 1981; Skirrow, 1981; Gallagher, 1987; Loach, 1987; Antcliff, 2005). Feminist campaigners also petitioned the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to consider the treatment of women in the reallocation of ITV franchises. These campaigners were inspired by the licence challenge strategy mobilized by women in the American television industry, ‘which had led to the licences of several television stations being revoked by the Federal Communications Commission, on the grounds of discrimination in either programming

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or employment practices’ (Gallagher, 1987: 147–​8). However, these campaigns were dominated by senior women in the television industry, and so ‘focused on the commissioning process and the visibility of female producers, while concerns about working hours and childcare were largely ignored’ (Antcliff, 2005: 847–​8). As such, these campaigns continued to prioritize the interests of middle-​class women pursuing careers in the television industry over gender-​specific issues which concerned all women workers. These campaigns acted as an external ally to ACTT women activists between 1980 and 1981, as the LWFG had between 1973 and 1975. Their influence can be traced through the union journal, with articles on the campaign groups pre-​dating the demands put forward at the 1980 Annual Conference. ‘The Monstrous Regiment is on the March’ was the first article to report on the emergence of ‘pressure groups to lobby for better career opportunities and fight sexism both in work relationships and in the content of programmes’ (Anon, January 1980:  6–​7). The article occupied two pages of the journal and detailed the objectives and activity of two women’s lobby groups in the film and television industries: the Women’s Broadcasting and Film Lobby and Women in Entertainment. As outlined in the article, the WBFL sought to influence discussions around the reallocation of ITV franchises and the establishment of the fourth channel in relation to women’s representation in the governing structures of the fourth channel, the provision of training schemes for women workers, and women’s portrayal in their programming. Women in Entertainment aimed to provide a network of women in film, television, music and theatre to discuss and challenge their position in these industries. The article emphasized the importance of the ACTT’s support to advance the demands of these campaigns, stating: ‘Active union support is the next essential step’ (Anon, January 1980:  6–​7). As such, the article could be interpreted as a call to action for union members. In a second article, ‘Time to Recognise That This “Minority” is a Majority’, Jan Mathew (March 1980: 10) identified the ‘large attendance’ at a conference planned by women teachers at the National Film School as ‘yet another indicator of the growing concern of women workers in the film and television industry’. Mathew (March 1980: 10) argued that this conference was part of a wider trend of meetings, conferences and organizations which provided ‘solid evidence that women in this industry are no longer prepared to accept their existing unequal position’. The journal reported that the ACTT’s General Council ‘voted overwhelmingly to support the four aims of the Women’s Broadcasting and Film Lobby’ in May 1980 (Anon, July 1980:  3),

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illustrating the influence of these external campaign groups upon official union policy. Furthermore, the establishment of the WBFL, which was at the forefront of feminist campaigns in the television industry, in October 1979, was: a response from women working in broadcasting to organize autonomously and independently from the unions. WBFL’s ultimate aim is to strengthen women’s position and women’s issues at union branch and shop levels but the experience of women trade unionists … has resulted in the creation of a separate organization. (Baehr, 1981: 132) Baehr’s analysis reveals that the challenges of organizing within a union agenda which denied the validity of many gender-​specific demands encouraged women activists to seek separate self-​organization outside of the ACTT in the hopes of applying external pressure to change union policy. Secondly, the introduction of new technologies, such as the video-​ disc, changed production and distribution practices in the television industry. The resulting re-​structuring of the media industries meant that the ACTT’s own structure was ‘out-​of-​date’ (Skirrow, 1981: 97). For instance, the shift in employment practices in ITV companies from in-​house staff to freelance contracts weakened the union’s position in its largest branch (Skirrow, 1981: 97). However, Gillian Skirrow (1981: 97) argued that the evolving structure of the industries would ensure that ‘a rather different Union is going to emerge … and the patterns of agreements in which discrimination against women are embedded have already been disturbed’. The potential of this ‘rather different Union’ in relation to gender equality was outlined in ‘The Shape of ACTT to Come’, which documented proposals from the union’s committees and branches on the re-​structuring of the ACTT (Anon, January 1981: 8–​9). In their proposal, the COE argued that while the current union structure ‘failed to produce improvements in the position of ACTT women … Restructuring could open the door for ACTT to integrate anti-​discrimination work into the mainstream of union affairs’ (Anon, January 1981:  9). Therefore, the changing structure of both the industry and union provided women activists with an opportunity to challenge existing patterns of organization which favoured male workers. When presenting the two motions at the ACTT’s 1980 Annual Conference women activists encountered significant hostility from the

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conference floor. The two motions criticized the ACTT’s slow progress towards the implementation of the Patterns report’s recommendations, asserting that they had not ‘been pursued rigorously, if at all’ (Anon, May 1980: 21). Male delegates hindered the discussion by introducing ‘a procedural motion to move straight to a vote’ (Anon, May 1980: 21). This motion was ‘denounced as sexist by supporters of the Motions’; for instance, Yvonne Richards argued that:  ‘Conference had sat through many non-​controversial motions, this was the only one where it was moved that the vote be taken –​proposed and seconded by men’ (Anon, May 1980: 21). The male delegates acted to defend their organizational practices by preventing a full discussion of women’s demands, representing a continuation of the behaviour of male union officials and rank-​and-​file members between 1975 and 1980 which had entrenched inertia around the recommendations of the Patterns report.

The ACTT’s first Women’s Conference Six months after the ACTT’s 1980 Annual Conference the General Council had not produced the requested report on its progress with a renewed investigation into discrimination against women and the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report (Skirrow, 1981). ACTT women activists identified the COE’s detachment from the formal union structure as a contributing factor to the ACTT’s slow progress between 1975 and 1980. For instance, the COE observed that their isolation ‘from the specific negotiating procedures and structures within the Union’ restricted the scope of their activity, and meant that the union had ‘achieved very little when measured against the brief laid down by the 1974 [sic] Annual Conference’ (Anon, January 1981:  9). Women activists on the COE quickly responded to the ACTT’s continued inactivity with a demand, presented in a motion to the ACTT’s General Council, for a women-​only conference ‘to discuss problems faced by women members in the union and industry’ (Anon, October 1980: 3). Women activists in the ACTT’s rank and file also exerted pressure for greater separate self-​organization within the union. For instance, Lynn Lloyd was frustrated by the ACTT’s inactivity around the recommendations of the Patterns report and so established a local, inter-​union women’s group at Granada. The group was formed independently of the COE and brought together women workers represented by the ACTT, Electrical Trade Union, National Association of Theatrical, Television and Kine Employees, and National Union of Journalists (ACTT, 1983: 75). However, male workers were openly

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and actively hostile to women organizing in the workplace, defacing notices that advertised the meetings of the women’s groups until the women, Lloyd recalled, “ended up putting them in the ladies’ loos” (ACTT, 1983: 75). The women’s group started a crèche campaign, but their activity “fizzled out” because they were not recognized by management and so “had no power” (ACTT, 1983: 75). The challenges facing women-​only groups organizing around women’s issues at shop-​ floor level encouraged Lloyd to pursue the demand for greater separate self-​organization through the women’s conference. The motion for a women’s conference received a mixed response from the ACTT’s General Council, revealing that women’s demands remained contentious. The motion passed with 37 votes to 4, indicating strong but not unanimous support among the members of the ACTT’s main governing body (Anon, October 1980: 3). Skirrow (1981: 98) attributes the General Council’s support to two factors: Deputy General Secretary Roy Lockett’s ‘very forceful speech’ in favour of the motion and the ‘state of near chaos’ created by the restructuring of the union. Firstly, as established earlier in the chapter, Lockett was a key ally who facilitated the discussion of women’s demands within the union leadership and the visibility of these demands within the journal. Secondly, the re-​structuring of the ACTT, brought about by structural changes in the film and television industries, provided a space within the union’s governing body to debate women’s demands. Skirrow (1981: 95) further observed that the ACTT’s financial contribution to the women’s conference reflected a ‘new and significant commitment’ to women’s issues. However, members of the General Council also vocally opposed the motion for a women’s conference, as recorded in the journal’s report on the meeting. For instance, Television Vice-​President Dennis Sippings argued against the motion because: ‘He was afraid a conference would be just an airy-​fairy event, cut off from the real world. He thought that any conference should be mixed, not only women, so that all members could hear the problems’ (Anon, October 1980: 3). Despite her earlier commitment to challenging gender inequality, discussed in Chapter 2, Winifred Crum Ewing similarly criticized the proposed conference because ‘discrimination could not be countered by counting heads’ and claimed that ‘there was no problem within the ACTT’ (Anon, October 1980: 3). Women’s separate self-​organization was still perceived as a threat to the ACTT’s structure and organizational practices among sections of the union leadership. Furthermore, male shop stewards in the rank and file of the ACTT frequently obstructed women’s organization of and attendance at the

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women-​only conference. For instance, Skirrow (1981: 99) noted that shop stewards ‘had received the notices about the Conference but had not displayed them or taken any steps to notify their women members about the Conference’. As with Claire Johnston’s 1975 critique of the Patterns report, Skirrow’s reflection on the 1981 Women’s Conference was published in the academic film studies journal, Screen, revealing a continued engagement with trade union activity among feminist film scholars into the 1980s. At the conference, COE Chairperson Daphne Ancell shared an anecdote which corroborates Skirrow’s observation:  ‘ “I was inundated by phone calls”, she said. “Many women said they had never been informed of the conference by their shop stewards” ’ (Avis, February 1981: 5). Instead, women had found out about the conference ‘because they had read of the event in FTT’ (Avis, February 1981: 5). As with sections of the union leadership, male shop stewards were reluctant to promote the Women’s Conference because it threatened the gendered union structure which operated in their favour and which they had previously preserved through their apathy towards the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report. The ACTT’s first Women’s Conference, on 18 January 1981, was a significant watershed in the history of the relationship between women and the ACTT (Skirrow, 1981; ACTT, 1983), and was described as the ‘catalyst the women in the Union needed’ (Skirrow, 1981: 99). Prior to the conference, the COE had largely been isolated from women in the union’s rank and file. Munro (1999:  203) observed that despite the increased visibility of women’s issues in the trade union movement during the 1980s and 1990s, the issues facing women ancillary workers continued to be marginalized. From its establishment in 1973, the COE was dominated by middle-​class women from commercial television, and so the committee’s activity was informed by their desire to pursue careers in television beyond secretarial work and combine these careers with family life. As a result, the committee’s activity often did not engage with the interests of working-​class women in the union’s rank and file, as illustrated by laboratory women’s ambivalence towards demands for childcare provision. The isolation of the COE from rank-​and-​file women members meant that members of the COE ‘felt they had no support at local level’, while rank-​and-​file women members ‘felt powerless to act, and were very angry’ (ACTT, 1983: 75). The 1981 Women’s Conference was thus the first time women from the COE had met with women from the union’s rank and file to discuss the problems women workers faced throughout the film and television industries

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Figure 3.2: Women activists at the ACTT’s first Women’s Conference in 1981.

Photographer: Sheila Gray. Courtesy of BECTU –​Sector of Prospect. These images of women union activists, including Sarah Boston, participating in the ACTT’s first women’s conference in 1981 accompanied a report on the event in the union journal (Avis, February 1981: 5). The conference challenged the inertia which had characterized the ACTT’s response to the recommendations of the Patterns report.

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(ACTT, 1983: 75). Figure 3.2 shows women union activists, including Sarah Boston, participating in the ACTT’s first women’s conference in 1981; the photographs accompanied a report on the event in the union journal (Avis, February 1981: 5). The conference was attended by 100 ACTT women members, and brought together feminist activists with experience of organizing around women’s issues, within both the union and women’s movement, and women shop stewards who did not identify as feminists (Skirrow, 1981: 99). Lloyd described the atmosphere of the conference as such: “There was this euphoric feeling of, at last we’re together” (ACTT, 1983: 75). The Women’s Conference was a significant departure from women’s activity between 1975 and 1980, as women in the union’s leadership and rank and file organized together to press their demands collectively. Moreover, the conference was open to women only, and so provided an essential space for women workers to express their demands and coordinate their strategy, supporting the conclusion of women’s industrial relations scholars and women’s labour historians regarding the value of women’s separate self-​organization, discussed in the Introduction. Boston emphasized that the women-​only space at the conference was vital to the delegates: “it was really important it was all women, you know, could really say what they were feeling and experiencing, wanted, because there were no men there to kind of, you know, inform that, em, you know, with the union” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). The women-​only space enabled women workers to advance their demands in an environment where the significance and impact of these issues were understood and were not dismissed as sectional, divisive or beyond the remit of the union. The resolutions passed at the 1981 Women’s Conference demanded structural changes to the ACTT which would formalize women’s representation within the union structure. Among the recommended structural changes were: the establishment of local women’s committees, a regular equal opportunities page in the union journal to publicize women’s activity, an annual women’s conference, and the appointment of an Equality Officer. The conference also identified areas for action, such as national training schemes funded by employers, quotas and childcare provision in the workplace and union. These resolutions were among the recommendations of the Patterns report in 1975 and were key demands pursued in single-​issue campaigns between 1975 and 1980. As such, the resolutions point to the breadth of inertia and women’s mounting frustration regarding the union’s slow progress on training and childcare facilities. While the latter demands were pursued

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via the ACTT’s General Council, thus circumventing the hostile shop stewards, the demand for an Equality Officer was taken forward to the 1981 Annual Conference. At the ACTT’s 1981 Annual Conference, an Emergency Motion was presented which called for the appointment of an Equality Officer in the ACTT’s Head Office ‘with responsibility for implementing long-​ standing Union policy on all issues of equal opportunity in the industry’ (Anon, May 1981: 10). This motion was ‘carried overwhelmingly’, and so formalized women’s representation within the union structure (Anon, May 1981:  10). Lloyd moved the Emergency Motion and explained the logistics of this decision as follows: ‘We didn’t think the motion would get through Annual Conference … I  proposed it because I  was known as a shop steward and not one of those middle-​class feminists. This was an appeal to the Labs where they’re all good trade unionists.’ (ACTT, 1983: 72) Women activists explicitly stressed their commitment to class politics and trade unionism over feminism through their strategic decision to appoint Lloyd, a working-​class woman and shop steward, as the motion’s mover. In doing so, the activists sought to emphasize that women’s interests were also class interests, and to insulate the motion from accusations that it was divisive and sectional. However, the Emergency Motion was still contentious and met with the same criticisms as women’s demands had encountered between 1975 and 1981. For instance, laboratory branch member Tony Cummins argued that the appointment of an Equality Officer would be divisive, stating: ‘Don’t separate yourselves from us by having special women’s conferences or having that sort of committee’ (Anon, May 1981: 10). Cummins further insisted that ‘no special cases should be made for people  –​whether women or any other category  –​in the Union’ (Anon, May 1981: 10). Male union officials also expressed hostility to the appointment of an Equality Officer, as Lloyd recalled: “We’d managed to counter opposition from officials at national level, who’d felt that the appointment was some sort of criticism of them” (ACTT, 1983: 75). The Emergency Motion officially committed the ACTT to the appointment of an Equality Officer who would pursue policies on gender equality; however, the response of union officials and the male membership indicates the continued endurance of a trade union agenda which excluded women’s issues.

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Conclusion Between 1975 and 1981 the relationship between women and the ACTT was characterized by inertia. Despite women’s initial optimism following the publication of the Patterns report, the ACTT made slow progress in its implementation of the report’s recommendations and by 1981 the Patterns report remained ‘regrettably up-​to-​date’ (Skirrow, 1981:  94). This chapter has identified two reasons for the ACTT’s slow progress. Firstly, there was limited engagement with the Patterns report within the union’s rank and file, as union branches responded apathetically to the COE’s request for meetings and the membership did not read the report. Secondly, male union officials responded to the Patterns report with hostility, as they refused to disrupt their negotiations with management by including the report’s recommendations and communicated their reluctance to pursue women’s demands through implicit behaviours towards women activists. The Patterns report threatened the gendered union structure which operated in men’s interests, and so the ACTT sought to maintain the status quo through inactivity around women’s demands. This inactivity was informed by the belief system that women’s issues were not trade union issues. Inertia was also perpetuated by the COE’s detachment from the formal union structure. The committee had no remit to propose motions, and so had no real power to independently pursue the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report. Instead, the COE relied on those women elected to other committees to advance their demands and put forward motions within a gendered union structure which continued to exclude women’s interests. Between 1975 and 1980, women activists alternatively pursued individual recommendations, including training facilities and childcare provision, through single-​issue campaigns which were local, sporadic, reliant on external resources, and often initiated outside the ACTT. As this chapter has illustrated, the lived experiences of women’s activism in a hostile union environment included struggles to accrue adequate resources and balance conflicting interests, as well as challenges to the legitimacy of their campaigns. In 1980 there was a rapid change in the direction of women’s activism. Women challenged inertia with two motions at the ACTT’s 1980 Annual Conference, which called for a renewed investigation into gender discrimination and the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report. The impetus for women’s activity was provided by: (i) external feminist campaigns in the television industry prompted by the introduction of a new fourth channel, the advent of breakfast

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television, and the reallocation of ITV franchises; and (ii) the changing structure of the industry and union which offered women activists space to pursue their demands. When the ACTT failed to make progress within the six-​month time frame established by the two motions, ACTT women activists demanded greater separate self-​organization through a women-​only conference. The 1981 Women’s Conference was the ‘catalyst the women in the Union needed’ (Skirrow, 1981: 99), as it brought together women from the union’s leadership and rank and file, and provided an essential space for women to express their demands and formulate policies. The central demand to emerge from the Women’s Conference was for the formalization of women’s representation in the ACTT through the appointment of an Equality Officer, the establishment of local equality committees, an annual women’s conference, and the introduction of an equal opportunities page in the union journal. The next chapter explores the impact of formalization on the relationship between women and the ACTT.

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Remarkable Political Gains? The 1980s In her report to the 1985 Annual Women’s Conference, interim Equality Officer Diane Abbott concluded:  ‘It is clear that women members have made remarkable political gains inside the union … But if you look at mainstream ITV and film production the pattern of womens’ [sic] employment has altered very little in ten years’ (Abbott, 1985). Abbott’s observation succinctly captures the trends of continuity and change in the relationship between women and the ACTT during the 1980s. Reflecting on wider trends in the British labour movement, Sarah Boston (2015:  309–​11) similarly observed that women workers ‘progressed little between 1976 and 1986 and in important aspects slipped backwards’; for instance, the gender pay gap widened, women’s employment declined, and women workers were increasingly concentrated in a narrow range of jobs. However, trade unions laid the ‘groundwork’ for future activity by introducing new structures which provided the ‘channels through which [women] could express their needs and make their demands’ (Boston, 2015: 346). At the ACTT’s first Women’s Conference in January 1981, women activists demanded the formalization of women’s representation within the union structure to counteract the inertia which had characterized their relationship with the ACTT since 1975. Over the course of the 1980s, four methods of formalization were adopted by the ACTT: the appointment of a full-​time Equality Officer in the ACTT’s Head Office in 1982; the establishment of a network of local equality representatives, a role which became mandatory in the union’s shops from 1986; the introduction of an annual women’s conference from 1981; and the increased visibility of women’s activity through the union’s publications, including a regular equal opportunities page within the journal and the circulation of a newsletter, Equality News. These methods established

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a network of women activists which coordinated women’s activities, facilitated the formulation of policy and advanced women’s demands at all levels of the union’s structure, from the ACTT’s Head Office to the shop floor. However, the political gains inside the union were undermined by the socio-​politico-​economic climate of the 1980s that followed the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979. The 1980s witnessed the wholesale privatization of industries, the casualization of the British workforce, the contraction of the welfare state, the curtailment of trade union rights, and the deregulation of the British film and television industries. The impetus to maintain the status quo within the ACTT, which had inhibited the implementation of the Patterns report between 1975 and 1981, was bolstered by this climate, as the threat of Thatcherism encouraged the ACTT to prioritize traditional union demands, such as wages and conditions, which had historically favoured male interests. Women’s demands increasingly became a ‘campaigning luxury’ as women union activists, and the labour movement as a whole, were forced to adopt a defensive strategy (Loach, 1987: 67). This chapter assesses continuity and change in the relationship between women and the ACTT during the 1980s through its examination of the new structures introduced by formalization and the obstacles created by the socio-​politico-​economic climate.

ACTT in the era of Thatcherism The formalization of women’s representation within the ACTT can be usefully contextualized in relation to broader shifts in paid employment and within the trade union movement. In the 1980s, there was a global ideological shift towards neoliberalism, which was associated with the economic reforms of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the elections of Margaret Thatcher in Britain in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in the United States in 1981. David Harvey (2005: 11) argued that the neoliberal alignment of the 1980s represented a ‘political project to re-​establish the conditions for capital accumulation to restore the power of economic elites’. Thatcher’s Conservative government sought to revolutionize the British state’s fiscal and social policies through its complete rejection of state intervention in the economy and its ideological commitment to the free market (Harvey, 2005: 23). A central component of Thatcher’s political project was an orchestrated attack on organized labour. Thatcher undermined the strength of the British labour movement by reducing state subsidization of Britain’s heavy industries, including the steel industry, coal mining, shipbuilding

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and the automobile industry, which were renowned for their militant trade unions. High levels of unemployment, which remained above 10% for most of the 1980s (Todd, 2015: 326), also diminished trade union membership. For instance, the TUC’s membership declined by 17% between 1979 and 1984 (Harvey, 2005: 59). Furthermore, trade union rights were eroded by anti-​union legislation, including the Employment Act 1980, Employment Act 1982, Trade Union Act 1984 and Employment Act 1990. This legislation limited the scope of legal picketing, reduced the requirements for employers to recognize trade unions, removed striking workers’ protection against dismissal, introduced secret ballots and brought about the end of the closed shop. By the end of the decade, the bargaining power of the British trade union movement was significantly weakened. As a result, the activity of the British trade union movement during the 1980s was shaped by its search for survival strategies. One of the key aims of these survival strategies was to increase women’s union participation and improve union democracy (Kirton, 2006:  xiii). Feminist industrial relations scholar Gill Kirton (2006: 24) identified reserved seats, electoral reform, women’s conferences and women’s committees among the radical reforms introduced by trade unions following the 1979 TUC Charter, ‘Equality for Women within Trade Unions’. The TUC’s follow-​up report in 1983 found that the ACTT was one of the few unions to have made structural changes in its commitment to equal opportunities (Boston, 2015: 331). The formalization of women’s representation during the 1980s positioned the ACTT as a progressive union within the wider labour movement. Thatcher’s policies towards the film and television industries aimed to remove state financing and deregulate the industries, in line with her ideological commitment to reduce state intervention and impose free market practices. These policies significantly weakened the bargaining power of the ACTT. Thatcher sought to alleviate the British film industry of ‘the paraphernalia of Government intervention’ (Department of Trade quoted in Hill, 2005: 33). To do so, Thatcher’s government targeted three policies which had supported and financed British film production: the quota, the Eady levy, and the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC) (Hill, 2005). The quota, introduced by the Cinematograph Films Act 1927 to bolster the exhibition of British films, was suspended in 1983; the Film Act 1985 abolished the Eady levy, which had subsidized film production with a tax on box-​ office returns; and the NFFC was privatized. British film production declined in the 1980s, with investment in film production falling from £270.1 million in 1986 to £49.6 million in 1989 (Hill, 2005: 37).

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Thatcher’s film policies resulted in an increasingly casualized workforce as film production was ‘largely carried on by independent production companies who typically put together projects on irregular or one-​ off basis’ (Hill, 2005: 49). Furthermore, the British film industry was increasingly reliant on the television industry, particularly Channel 4, to finance film production (Hill, 2005; Street, 2009). The Conservative government similarly sought to implement free market practices in the television industry through the deregulation and commercialization of broadcasting. Government reports, including the 1986 Peacock Report and the 1988 White Paper, Broadcasting in the 90s:  Competition, Choice and Quality, adhered to fundamentally free market principles, breaking from the ethos of previous reports, ‘all of which had stressed public service as their central organising principle’ (Goodwin, 1998: 78). From 1979, the BBC encountered a ‘strongly held, coherent attack’ on both its practice and its values, as Thatcher targeted the Corporation’s spending, programming and commitment to impartial news reporting (Seaton, 2015: 5–​6), while Thatcher increasingly targeted commercial television from the start of her second term in 1983. The Broadcasting Act 1980 awarded the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) the responsibility of setting up a fourth television channel, which resulted in the establishment of Channel 4 in 1982. As discussed in Chapter 3, the establishment of a fourth channel was greeted with optimism by women activists in broadcasting because it was perceived as an opportunity to challenge institutional structures which had traditionally excluded women workers. Indeed, in an interview with In Camera, sound recordist Moya Burns reflected that the financial contribution of organizations such as Channel 4 to film production during the 1980s resulted in progressive content which ‘filter[ed] right down to the type of crew they want to employ’ (Anon, Spring 1992: 4). However, the 1980 Act also specified that a significant proportion of Channel 4’s programming had to be produced by independent production companies, which increased the power of independent producers and offered an alternative to in-​house production (Bonner and Aston, 1998:  150). The expansion of the independent production sector deregulated the television industry and undermined the ACTT’s power, as it extended market competition and bypassed restrictive union practices (Long, Baig-​Clifford and Shannon, 2013: 380). Sarah Boston recalled the initial optimism for and subsequent disappointment with the emergence of independent production companies:

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‘Funnily enough we thought the independents were going to be, the creation of independent companies for Channel Four was going to be the great sort of, sort of left-​wing liberation to make films in the way you want. In a way in the early days of Channel Four it was, but what it ended up as being was the creation of these big capitalist companies exploiting their workers, so it didn’t turn out quite in the long term the way we, we hoped.’ (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016) The ACTT sought to counteract the casualization of the television industry with the 1982 Grant-​Aided Workshop Production Declaration, which provided ‘ongoing financial support for organizations in the independent film and television sector that worked on a non-​ commercial, non-​profit basis’ (Long, Baig-​Clifford and Shannon, 2013:  379). Workshops including Amber Films, Sheffield Film Co-​operative and the Birmingham Film Workshop were franchised through the declaration. Furthermore, the declaration facilitated the production of ‘politically and socially engaged’ content by introducing a model of ‘integrative practice’ whereby distribution, educational work, and the provision of film and video equipment were performed by the Workshop (Roberts, 2005; Long, Baig-​Clifford and Shannon, 2013: 381). The deregulation of broadcasting continued throughout the decade with the 1981 and 1987 Broadcasting Acts and was solidified by the Broadcasting Act 1990. At a Downing Street seminar on broadcasting in 1987, Thatcher described ITV as ‘the last bastion of restrictive practice’, because she believed that broadcasting unions advanced excessive wage demands and enforced restrictive practices which inhibited new developments and was detrimental to consumers (Bonner and Aston, 1998:  356). Thus, the Conservative government sought to further increase competition in the television industry. The government plans outlined in the 1988 White Paper, which focused its attention on the advertising-​funded channels, ITV and Channel 4, included the establishment of the Independent Television Commission to replace the Independent Broadcasting Authority, plans to auction off ITV licences, and calls for Channel 4 to sell its own advertising (Goodwin, 1998: 93). The White Paper also proposed a production quota for BBC and ITV which required 25% of each channel’s programming to be produced by independent companies (Goodwin, 1998: 99). The White Paper’s recommendations were formalized through legislation in the

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Broadcasting Act 1990. The impact of deregulation was indicated by the BBC’s evidence to the Monopolies and Mergers Inquiry, which reported that 2,000 posts had disappeared from the Corporation between 1985 and 1989 (Monopolies and Mergers Commission quoted in O’Malley, 1994: 162). Furthermore, the development of new technologies, specifically the microchip and video technology, made it easier and cheaper to produce television programming, and so undermined union power in the industry. For instance, at Thames Television a ‘hastily trained skeleton staff recruited from the finance, personnel and other non-​broadcast departments’ quickly restarted the station in a day and a half when it was blacked out during a union dispute in 1984 (Crisell, 2002: 220). The ACTT’s increasingly restricted bargaining power subsequently affected its organizing practices. In 1986, the ACTT recognized the severity of its circumstances and commissioned a ‘four month inquiry into ACTT’s management structure and system of representation’, which was conducted by former Labour MP Reg Race and resulted in the 1986 Race report (Anon, December 1986–​January 1987: 3). As communicated to ACTT members through the journal, the report aimed ‘to analyse the Union’s structure, processes, organisation and policies, with a view to making recommendations on how the Union could meet the challenges of the future’, in light of the ‘different organisational context of the ACTT’ created by the ‘technological, economic and organisational developments’ in the film and television industries in the 1980s (Anon, November 1986: 8). To do so, Race surveyed shop stewards, section officers and rank-​and-​file members. The Race report found that the ACTT was ‘perceived as suffering from a lack of long-​term planning, poor quality Union officials, ineffective communications with members, a bureaucratic structure that produced delays and a leaden-​footed response to new situations’ (Anon, November 1986: 8). The Race report concluded that: ‘ACTT is in no shape to meet the challenges of the present and the future; and that radical action is required to turn the situation around’ (Anon, November 1986: 8–​9). The ACTT’s union leadership came under attack following the Race report, as the ACTT’s Executive Committee called for the General Council to ‘declare no confidence in General Secretary Alan Sapper to implement the Race Report’ (Anon, December 1986–​January 1987: 3). This proposal was narrowly rejected by 69 to 68 votes, with 15 abstentions (Anon, December 1986–​January 1987:  3). Within the socio-​economic context of the 1980s, the ACTT’s rank-​and-​ file membership was increasingly hostile to its left-​wing leadership, which continued to pursue external political campaigns and equality

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policies while union officials called for the ACTT to economize its campaigning scope. For instance, the Race report revealed that ‘political and equalities policies were not prominent in the eyes of the stewards and members as strengths’ (Anon, November 1986: 9). This was further evidenced by the 1988 election of Tudor Gates as ACTT president, as he believed that ‘the Union’s function is that it should relate solely to industrial issues’ (Anon, May 1988b: 12). In the letters section Gates’ election was welcomed because he would ‘make the Union concentrate on the important issues that really affect this industry’, rather than ‘David Alton’s Abortion Bill, feminist causes, Ireland, Nicaragua, South Africa and goodness knows how many other campaigns’ (Knott, July–​August 1988: 4). When faced with the reality of a governmental assault on trade unionism and the casualization of the film and television industries, the ACTT reined in its activism and redirected its attention to the immediate threat. ACTT women’s campaigns for equal opportunities in the film and television industries were derailed by the internal shift to economistic policies and the external socio-​politico-​economic context, conforming to the pattern observed by Loretta Loach (1987: 67): ‘Historically the labour movement has always allowed the specific needs of women to become eclipsed in times of economic crisis’. As the 1980s progressed, women workers were forced to adopt a defensive position, as Loach concluded: But it seems that the political and economic constraints of the mid 1980s are threatening to undermine the influence of feminism and reduce the possibilities of emerging new strategies. The issue of improving, rather than defending, public service broadcasting has unwittingly become a campaigning luxury. (Loach, 1987: 67) The oral testimonies of Sarah Boston, COE activist, and Sandra Horne, the ACTT’s first Equality Officer, reveal how women’s needs were ‘eclipsed’ in the ACTT as women’s activism was absorbed by the battle to protect jobs in the film and television industries. Boston reflected that the social, economic and political changes which characterized the 1980s “profoundly affected the union and affect women in the union and the relationship between members in the union” (interview with the author, 7 July 2016). She explained that: ‘the policies on women went out the window, I  mean didn’t go out the window completely, but the union … 147

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was fighting for survival and it then had to merge to make BECTU to survive … so women were somewhat and other issues … became a bit of a luxury’. (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016) Boston’s language mirrors Loach’s commentary through her description of equality campaigns as “a bit of a luxury”. It is unsurprising that the ACTT retreated from such campaigns during the 1980s. Women’s demands had been contentious throughout the union’s history, as illustrated in Chapters 1–​3, and women’s interests were excluded by a trade union agenda which prioritized men’s interests. However, ACTT women activists justified the departure from equality campaigns in light of the threat posed by Thatcherism. For instance, Boston emphasized that the ACTT was “fighting for survival”. Similarly, Horne (2015) argued that “there were genuinely other issues to fight and we had to stand together fighting those”. Within this context, women made a number of structural gains in the ACTT during the 1980s but made few material gains in the film and television industries.

Women’s structural gains in the ACTT The formalization of women’s representation in the ACTT over the course of the 1980s established a network of women activists which coordinated women’s activity, facilitated the formulation of policy and advanced women’s demands at all levels of the union’s structure, from the ACTT’s Head Office to the shop floor. This had a significant impact on women’s political participation, as demonstrated by contemporary conference reports, pre-​existing oral history interviews conducted in the 1980s and new interviews with ACTT women activists. Firstly, Abbott’s (1985) report to the 1985 Annual Women’s Conference emphasized women’s ‘remarkable political gains inside the union’. For instance, the report highlighted a significant increase in the number of women on the union’s policy-​making bodies, including: a woman vice-​president, 14 women on the Executive Committee, 1 woman on the Standing Orders Committee, and 4 women on the Finance and General Purposes Committee, as well as 6 women employed as full-​time union officials (Abbott, 1985). In comparison, there were no women on the Executive Committee in 1982 (Abbott, 1985). Abbott (1985) concluded that the number of women involved in the union hierarchy ‘represent a continuing dramatic improvement in the representation of women in the union structure’. Secondly, Bessie Bond dismissed her initial misgivings about the appointment of an Equality Officer in

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the ACTT’s Head Office and acknowledged the tangible effect of the officer on women’s participation: ‘but now in retrospect, because I go to the annual meetings, you know, and now there are lots of women who get up and talk, they are involved, on committees and so on. So I think, you know, there has been some good accrued from it, you know.’ (Bond, 1987) Thirdly, the ACTT’s first Equality Officer, Sandra Horne (2015), appraised the achievements of the Equality Officer role as follows: “I think that by creating the job and having the issue much more firmly on the agenda, that employers were prepared to think about it a bit more, were prepared to consider the issues a bit more.” While Horne’s assessment may be informed by a personal desire to protect her legacy, it is consistent with other sources, demonstrating a trend in women’s increased participation during the 1980s as a result of formalization. Finally, Sarah Boston retrospectively observed that the ACTT’s greatest advancements around women’s demands occurred within the union structure: “I think the union probably did more internally to kind of enable women to take part in the union you know with having meetings, easier time frames, em, explaining the union and the structures” (Boston, interview with the author, 7 July 2016). The four methods of formalization –​a full-​time Equality Officer, equality representatives at shop level, annual women’s conferences and visibility in publications –​will be examined in turn to consider their sphere of activity within the union structure and impact on women’s activity.

A full-​time Equality Officer in the ACTT’s Head Office In 1982, Sandra Horne was appointed as the ACTT’s first full-​time Equality Officer. The establishment of the Equality Officer role was a significant achievement for ACTT women activists, as it provided women with an official representative among the union leadership to ensure that their gender-​specific interests were advanced at the highest level of the union structure. The role was the result of women’s activism during the late 1970s and early 1980s; for instance, Sarah Boston, chairperson of the ACTT’s second Women’s Conference in 1982, described the role as ‘the tangible result of our last conference –​we now have to put flesh on our Equality Officer’ (Horne, April 1982: 8). Conference delegates declared their determination to avoid the inertia which had followed the 1975 Patterns report and to ensure that the

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Equality Officer role was more than a ‘token gesture’ (Horne, April 1982: 9). To guarantee that the recommendations were ‘vigorously pressed at all levels’, the Women’s Conference concluded that ‘more women will have to become active in the Union’ (Horne, April 1982:  9). The significance of women full-​time union officials to women’s representation has been well-​established, as women officials have been found to be more likely to prioritize women’s issues than their male counterparts and to encourage women’s participation (Heery and Kelly, 1988; Kirton and Heely, 1999; Kirton, 2006; Boston, 2015). Between 1982 and 1989, three women served in the Equality Officer role: Sandra Horne (1982–​87), Diane Abbott (1985), and Sadie Robarts (1987–​89). Horne had a background in industrial relations from both the employers’ and trade unions’ perspective. She had previously worked in the industrial relations departments of manufacturing companies and employers’ federations, including Rolls Royce and the Engineering Employers’ Shipbuilding and Ship Repairers Federation, and was a branch organizer for the National and Local Government Officers’ Association Gloucestershire County Council branch. In 1985, Abbott, former Shadow Home Secretary (2016–20) and Labour MP at the time of writing, temporarily replaced Horne during her secondment to the role of national organizer of the ITV Division. Abbott was a race relations officer for the advocacy group, the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), between 1978 and 1980, before entering the television industry as a researcher at Thames Television (1980–​83) and TV-​am (1983–​85). In 1985, Abbott was appointed as the Press Officer for the Greater London Council. Horne returned to the Equality Officer role in January 1986 before being permanently appointed as an ITV national organizer. In 1987, Robarts entered the Equality Officer role and left the position in 1989 due to ill health. Robarts was a barrister who published a book on positive action programmes for women workers for the NCCL (Robarts with Coote and Ball, 1981), conducted the Thames TV Positive Action Project from 1980 to 1981 and acted as an Equal Opportunities Advisor to Greater London Council between 1983 and 1985. All three women had experience of organizing campaigns and negotiating policies for equal opportunities prior to their appointment as Equality Officer. Over the course of the 1980s, the Equality Officer role expanded to include race, disability and sexuality, and in 1986, the COE was divided into four separate committees: Women Members’ Committee, Black Members’ Committee, Committee on Disability, and Sexuality Committee. The Women Members’ Committee was ‘larger than the others … because women members form a large part of the Union’ 150

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(Horne, 1986). While the Equality Officer remained responsible for all four committees, their creation recognized the individual requirements of each oppressed group, indicating a shift in the union’s approach to equality issues in the mid-​1980s. The Equality Officer coordinated activity around women’s demands throughout the union, as indicated by Robarts’ description of her central duties: involvement in drafting and presenting the equality and maternity/​paternity clauses in our national agreements; convening and servicing four Equality Committees; visiting shops throughout the country and negotiating through them with local management; producing Equality News regularly; writing articles for newspapers and magazines and dealing with many individual enquiries on membership, parental rights, sexual harassment and pension inequality. (Robarts, May 1988: 15) The Equality Officer was also responsible for information campaigns, which included circulating material produced by the ACTT, TUC, other trade unions and wider campaigning organizations on a broad range of equality issues, such as sexual harassment, cancer screenings and childcare provision. The Equality Officer regularly attended the meetings of all the ACTT’s major decision-​making committees, including the Executive Council, General Council, and Policy and Performance Council, as well as facilitating the activity of women on the shop floor through a network of equality representatives. Robarts emphasized the value of the local equality representatives to the activity of the Equality Officer and the pursuit of equality initiatives: Much of my time is spent in dealing with enquiries and queries from equality reps and providing them with information on a wide range of equality issues … This is time well spent, as the equality rep locally can deal with many enquiries which would otherwise be directed to Head Office and tackle management directly on equality issues. (Robarts, May 1988: 15) Through her work in the ACTT’s Head Office, the Equality Officer pushed for women’s issues to be recognized by the union leadership and included within national agreements, while women activists tackled issues at local level. The remit of the Equality Officer’s duties increased the visibility of women’s issues, maintained pressure through

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the union structure for the implementation of women’s demands, such as maternity leave and childcare provision, and facilitated women’s activity at shop floor level. Horne’s oral history testimony fleshes out Robarts’ list of day-​to-​day duties of the Equality Officer and provides an invaluable insight into her lived experiences of performing these duties. For instance, Horne (2015) described the tenacity required by the role: ‘Well, you just keep turning up. I mean you don’t go away. People get used to you being there running the same arguments in the same way or in new ways and while you’re doing that at the full-​time official level, you know, the women, em, on the shop floor, wherever that shop floor happened to be, are increasing in terms of their organising and their campaigning. So you gradually shift the dynamic.’ Horne’s testimony reveals the practicalities of the Equality Officer role, which required Horne to be ever-​present at union meetings to maintain the visibility of women’s demands. Furthermore, Horne presents the campaign for equal opportunities as a slow process which required a wider change in attitudes that would be facilitated by women’s continued participation in the union, as indicated by her choice of wording: “you gradually shift the dynamic”. As with Robarts’ article, Horne emphasizes the importance of a network of women activists throughout the union to her performance of the Equality Officer role. During the interview, Horne (2015) further depicts the Equality Officer role as a job which is both challenging and rewarding, describing it as “really hard going” but also stating: “what makes it a good job is you actually believe in what you’re doing”. Such insights into women’s activism are often absent in the archival material, pointing to the value of oral history in illuminating women’s personal investment in their activism.

Equality representatives on the shop floor The equality representative role was established in 1982. In her report from the third Women’s Conference, Horne (October 1982:  5) emphasized the centrality of local equality representatives to the implementation of the union’s long-​held equality policies, stating that ‘local meetings and local equality representatives were a necessity to ensure real discussion on equality’. The appointment of an equality representative in all shops became mandatory at the 1982 Rules

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Revision Conference, while the 1986 Rules Revision Conference legislated that an equality representative should be elected to each Division and participate on their negotiating committees (ACTT, 1987). These rules facilitated the formation of a local network of equality representatives during the 1980s. Besides the shop steward, the equality representative was the only compulsory shop officer to be elected (Robarts, May 1988: 15), indicating the ACTT’s official commitment to women’s representation throughout the union. However, equality representatives frequently complained that their role and its remit was vague. This is visible in the Equality Officer’s report to the 1985 Women’s Conference, in which Abbott describes the union’s 98 equality representatives as ‘enthusiastic and willing but many are not clear about their role. In particular whether it is supposed to be a reactive role or a pro-​active role’ (Abbott, 1985). The complaint was repeated at the 1986 Women’s Conference, with equality representatives expressing continued ‘uncertainty about the role’ (Horne, 1986). The role ambiguity of the equality representatives indicates that there was no coordinated approach to women’s local activity, just as there had been no coordinated approach to the dissemination and implementation of the Patterns report’s recommendations in the 1970s, discussed in Chapter 3. In an attempt to resolve this role ambiguity, the ACTT’s Equality Officer produced an ‘Equality Pack’, including a booklet which outlined the role of equality representatives, detailed the ACTT’s equality policies, provided a job description of the Equality Officer and included a draft copy of the union’s Equal Opportunities Clause. The booklet was accompanied by a folder containing publications from the ACTT, TUC, and Equal Opportunities Commission, including the ACTT rulebook, Patterns report, ACTT’s Codes of Practice and the TUC’s guidelines on sexual harassment. The remit of the role, as defined in the ‘Equality Pack’, included providing advice on and advancing the union’s equality policies; liaising with internal committees and management in the film and television industries to challenge discriminatory practices; communicating with local unions and external campaigning organizations; providing a local point of contact with the Equality Officer at Head Office; participating in activity at all levels of the union structure; and ensuring that members receive equal treatment (ACTT, 1987). The ‘Equality Pack’ also provided equality representatives with guidance on how to negotiate around equality issues, both locally and nationally. For instance, it advised equality representatives to liaise with their local shop or section committee to ensure that equality issues were addressed in their negotiations. However, ephemera held in the Women’s Film,

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Television and Video Network Collection suggests that such activity relied on the initiatives of individual equality representatives. For instance, correspondence from October 1987 mentions an informal meeting of equality representatives from the Northern, Yorks and Humberside regions which agreed to hold regular meetings of representatives focusing on a wide range of equality issues, establish a network to provide resources and support locally, and offer training to equality representatives (Readman, 1987). In addition, some workplaces obstructed the activity of local equality representatives; for instance, in the laboratories managers refused to recognize their Shop Officer status, and so prevented these women from advancing policies such as de-​sexing the language of agreements and maternity leave provision (Robarts, 1987). Furthermore, there were divisions among equality representatives over demands and strategies. In an interview with the British Entertainment History Project, Jenny Hooley (2012), Equality Representative in Rank Laboratories, explained that she became “very disillusioned” with the direction of the ACTT’s equality policies after Sandra Horne vacated the Equality Officer role in 1987. She described the emergence of a “different atmosphere” among women activists in which “women em were the best and they didn’t like men at all” (Hooley, 2012). Hooley frames her disillusionment in terms of class, as a conflict between the demands of feminist activists in the ACTT and the working-​class character of the film laboratories. In particular, Hooley (2012) recalls a demand for parental rights for lesbian partners at the national women’s conference which she argued was misplaced in her local laboratory shop, a “factory” environment where paternity leave had not been achieved and where her laboratory colleagues were “working-​class people and em they wouldn’t understand that”. Hooley’s reluctance to pursue a policy on parental rights for lesbian partners in the laboratories during the 1980s can be usefully contextualized by the response to the Patterns report’s demands for maternity leave and childcare provision within the laboratories in 1975, discussed in Chapter 3. This experience prompted Hooley to separate her activity in the laboratories from the wider network of women activists in the ACTT, as she explained: ‘I stayed in the union but I left the women’s struggle inside the union because I actually didn’t like the way where their struggle was going actually … I stayed on as Equality Officer but I didn’t attend any equality conf-​women’s conference at national level … I was still Equality Officer, but just for

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the laboratories and helping out the women there if, when they had any problems.’ (Hooley, 2012) Hooley’s testimony indicates that she believed she could best perform the equality representative role for women workers in the laboratories when her activity was detached from the feminist politics of the Equality Officer and annual women’s conferences. Thus, the activity of local equality representatives was not uniform throughout the union, producing uneven experiences regionally and hampering the effectiveness of the network of equality representatives.

Annual women’s conferences The value of women’s separate self-​organization has been well-​ established in feminist industrial relations scholarship and women’s labour history, as discussed in the Introduction, and its significance to women’s activism in the ACTT has been exemplified in Chapters 1–​ 3. From 1981, the ACTT’s annual women’s conference provided women activists with a space to discuss their experiences of gender discrimination in the workplace and articulate their gender-​specific concerns, to acknowledge and address women’s health issues, and to establish strategies to encourage women’s union participation. The ACTT’s annual women’s conference facilitated discussion of gender-​specific concerns and organizational strategies among women activists, providing an insight into women’s activity in the 1980s. The women’s conference continued to discuss long-​running workplace demands which had occupied women activists from the early 1970s, including the provision of adequate childcare facilities and access to training schemes. For instance, surviving conference reports from 1986 to 1989 reveal that three of the four conferences included a workshop dedicated to childcare. The 1986 conference report records women’s growing frustration with the union’s lack of progress on maternity leave and childcare provision, despite policies on such demands emerging from the 1975 Patterns report and reiterated in a 1983 conference resolution, which had itself emphasized the union’s failure to act (Horne, 1986). The 1989 conference report again bemoaned the union’s inactivity on childcare with a resolution calling for the union to ‘declare its renewed commitment’ to childcare provision ‘in its negotiated agreements, policies and practices’ (Anon, 1989a). Boston’s longitudinal study of women in the British trade union movement indicates that the women’s frustrations were to continue, as she argued

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that there were no improvements in childcare provision between 1987 and 1997 (Boston, 2015:  388). The ACTT’s continued inactivity around childcare provision reveals that, despite women’s political gains inside the union, there was considerable continuity in their material circumstances in the film and television industries. However, the annual women’s conferences were also concerned with new demands which expanded the traditional remit of union activity, such as sexual harassment and pornography, placing sexual politics onto the union agenda. In 1984, the COE surveyed women workers on their experiences of sexual harassment in the film and television industries, which resulted in The Sexual Harassment Report (Benn, 1985). The report found that only 4 of the 154 women surveyed had reported their harassment to the ACTT because of a widely held belief that their experiences were not ‘ “serious” enough’ (Benn, 1985: 4). The report’s central recommendations called for the ACTT to ‘give more publicity to sexual harassment as a trade union issue’, encourage women’s involvement in its general activity, and to appoint an official with responsibility for women’s rights issues (Benn, 1985:  5). In 1987, sexual harassment was included among the disciplinary offences in the ACTT’s rulebook, which could result in expulsion from the union. The ACTT’s activity around sexual harassment mirrored wider trends in the British labour movement, as the movement recognized, and campaigned on, sexual harassment during the 1980s and 1990s (Boston, 2015: 391). The ACTT’s recognition of sexual harassment as a trade union issue in the mid-​1980s marked a significant departure from previous attitudes which had dismissed the seriousness of women’s workplace experiences of sexual harassment. For instance, women working in the film and television industries rarely reported sexual harassment in the 1960s and 1970s, as they simply accepted harassment as part of their job, as illustrated by Adele Winston’s testimony: “It would never have occurred to us, and I was a feisty trade unionist, that it wasn’t just part of the job, it was something you had to put up with” (interview with the author, 15 July 2016). Furthermore, Joy Cuff encountered repercussions which negatively impacted her own work when she experienced sexual harassment on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Director Stanley Kubrick, 1968) in the 1960s. A NATKE shop steward manoeuvred to exclude Cuff from the workplace through official union channels after she responded to his unsolicited advances by “smack[ing] him round the face” because “he went and touched me up my bum” (Cuff, 2010). Cuff was first “ blacked”, which compelled NATKE members to refuse to work with her, and then, once her union

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membership was acknowledged, was prevented from working with plaster through the strict enforcement of grade demarcation, which significantly limited her ability to perform her job. The ACTT was complicit in restricting Cuff’s autonomy through grade demarcation, which led to the appointment of a labourer and plasterer to perform aspects of her work, a situation she described as “a bit of a struggle” (Cuff, 2010). Despite the union’s official departure from these attitudes, the 1987 Women’s Conference report revealed that ‘no case had ever been pursued’ partly because of ‘the lack of support from Shop Officers when women members complained’ (Robarts, 1987). While sexual harassment was formally acknowledged as a trade union issue by the ACTT’s rulebook, the belief system that it was not a trade union issue persisted at shop floor level and inhibited action on reported cases. Women union activists also pressured the ACTT to take a stance on pornography and onscreen depictions of violence against women in the 1980s. Pornography first emerged as a campaigning issue within the union in 1983 in the context of the Video Recordings Bill, which proposed an age-​related classification system on the distribution of videos. The Bill emerged in response to the moral panic of the early 1980s surrounding ‘video nasties’ and the perceived threats of the new medium (Petley, 2012). Women activists called for ACTT members to campaign against pornographic films at the 1983 Annual Conference, arguing that these depictions of women contradicted the union’s commitment to gender equality: ‘Conference voted unanimously to campaign against the production and distribution of pornographic films and videos portraying gratuitous violence against women’ (Anon, May 1983: 10). Women activists further called for ACTT members to refuse to work on such films, as advanced by Lucinda Broadbent in the union journal: ‘porn is just one example where it is up to ACTT members to take a stand on the content of material we work on. If we don’t, the only other choice is legal control and police censorship’ (Broadbent, July 1983: 5; original emphasis). Broadbent’s article positions women activists against censorship legislation, in line with ACTT policy as a key lobbying force against the Video Recordings Bill (Petley, 2011: 34), and argues instead that pressure to alter the depiction of women should come from the workforce. Pornography re-​e merged as a campaigning issue from 1987 onwards, as the topic again entered public discourse in the wake of Clare Short’s Indecent Displays (Newspapers) Bill, presented in 1986, alongside a growing body of feminist writings and campaigns concerning pornography. The 1987 Women’s Conference included a workshop dedicated to pornography and censorship and was addressed

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by American radical feminist and anti-​pornography activist Andrea Dworkin. However, the focus on pornography was contentious. Firstly, the minutes of a Women Members’ Committee meeting recorded a telephone conversation between Robarts and Kathy Darby, a member of the London TV Division, in which Darby relayed that: women of London TV Division felt that the pornography issue had commanded too high a profile at last year’s conference. Also it was suggested there should be workshops on major issues facing the industry. Kathy also suggested that a woman from Miners’ Support Group should be invited to speak. (ACTT Women Members’ Committee, 11 July 1988) Darby’s comments indicate that there was no consensus between women activists over the direction of their activism and points to three competing priorities: anti-​pornography campaigns, workplace demands and solidarity activity within the British labour movement. Secondly, anti-​pornography campaigns met with considerable hostility from the union leadership. Handwritten minutes from a Women Members’ Committee meeting concerning a scheduled pornography debate on the General Council in 1989 reveal the union’s antagonistic response to the perceived threat of incorporating sexual politics into the union agenda. The minute’s brief summation of Robarts’ remarks record that she was ‘shocked at GC reactions + personal hostility levelled at Sadie afterwards. Taking on everything when take on this issue. So much hassle’ (Anon, 1989b; original emphasis). Sexual politics, including anti-​pornography campaigns, challenged the gendered union structure as they required the male-​dominated institution to consider issues beyond its traditional remit. The annual women’s conferences facilitated women’s activity by providing opportunities to network with other ACTT women members and external campaigning organizations. Surviving reports from women’s conferences between 1986 and 1989 reveal that 194 women attended in 1986, 173 in 1987, 123 in 1988, and 170 in 1989 (Horne, 1986; Robarts, 1987, 1989; Anon, 1989a). Figure 4.1 shows an audience of women union activists at the ACTT’s 1987 Women’s Conference; it appeared in the journal alongside a report on the conference and the 1987 Trades Union Congress (Hooley, October 1987:  8–​9). Divisional workshops at the annual Women’s Conference provided women with the space to coordinate activity around the issues encountered in their divisions. For instance, women

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Figure 4.1: An audience of women union activists at the ACTT’s 1987 Women’s Conference.

Photographer: Maxine Walker. Courtesy of BECTU –​Sector of Prospect. This image featured alongside a report on the conference and the 1987 Trades Union Congress (Hooley, October 1987: 8–​9). This conference was attended by 173 women and addressed topics such as the deregulation of the British film and television industries and pornography and censorship.

from the ITV Division expressed ‘extreme concern’ at the 1987 annual Women’s Conference in regard to the ‘threat to employment patterns and practices in our industry in the light of the deregulation of broadcasting and the imposed non-​negotiated independent access to ITV and BBC’ (Robarts, 1987). They argued that deregulation would disproportionately affect women, ethnic minorities and disabled people, and called for the ACTT to ‘ensure the implementation of all our existing policies relating to Equality and Equality Clauses contained in existing agreements’ (Robarts, 1987). However, the conference reports also indicate class divisions among women in the ACTT, as they regularly noted the absence of women members from the laboratories. In 1987, the laboratory workshop was poorly attended, while in 1988, women from the laboratories did not meet separately at all. Their absence indicates that the interests of women workers in the laboratories were marginalized in the ACTT’s equality campaign, which had been dominated by women in film and television production from the early 1970s. Furthermore, while the annual women’s conferences hosted workshops which discussed the intersections of discrimination, including the Black Women’s Workshop, Lesbian Members’ Workshop, and Disability Workshop, the Black Women’s Workshop ‘expressed concern that issues of racism were not also dealt with more fully in other workshops’ during the 1987 conference (Robarts, 1987). The inclusion of these workshops, as well as the criticisms advanced by them, reflect wider discussions in the women’s movement. In the 1980s, the

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women’s liberation movement was criticized for its false universalism by Black and Third World feminists, who argued that the movement presented the experiences of First World, white, middle-​class women as the shared experiences of all women (Gill, 2007: 26–​8). This opened up discussions about the interaction of gender with other forms of oppression, including race, class, sexuality and disability. Thus, the annual women’s conferences did not adequately represent the interests of all women involved in the ACTT. The women’s conferences were addressed by representatives from external campaigning groups, which served to establish links between activists in the labour movement and the wider women’s movement. Among these visiting speakers were: Workplace Nurseries Campaign, Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, women from Greenham Common, Women against Sexual Harassment, National Abortion Campaign and WFTVN, as well as representatives from other unions, including the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance, National Union of Journalists and Equity. Some of these external campaigning groups, including Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, NCCL and WFTVN, would also provide bookstalls at the conferences. The presence of these campaigning groups points to the wider issues of concern during the 1980s. Beyond providing a space for women to discuss their gender-​specific concerns, network and coordinate activity, the annual women’s conferences also provided the physical space and mechanisms to address women’s health issues, specifically through the provision of a cancer screening unit at the conference venue. Following the introduction of universal breast and cervical cancer screening through the NHS in 1988, the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union (GMB) stationed a cancer screening unit outside its Annual Conference (Boston, 2015:  390). The ACTT followed suit, providing a cancer screening unit to delegates in 1988, which offered women ‘cervical smear tests, breast examination and general advice’ (Robarts, 1989). The unit was used by 31 women at the 1988 conference, and 21 women in 1989 (Robarts, 1989; Anon, 1989a). The cancer screening units prioritized gender-​specific health concerns which were detached from employment issues in the film and television industries, revealing a commitment to the health issues encountered by women. Finally, the annual women’s conferences fostered women’s union participation by providing educational workshops on the structure and procedures of the ACTT. Among the delivered workshops were: Structure of the Union, Making a Speech, Equal Opportunities

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Policies in ACTT, NUJ, Equity and BETA, Meeting Procedures, and Getting to know the Union. The ephemera from some of these workshops has been preserved in the WFTVN collection held by FAN, including a Guide to Making a Speech, which provided advice on preparation, structure and techniques for presenting a speech, and a photocopy of a comical guide to ‘meetingspeak’. These workshops served to encourage women’s participation by familiarizing women with union jargon and negotiation procedures, as well as building women’s confidence in addressing meetings. For instance, the introduction to the 1989 Women’s Conference report to the General Council observed that: ‘many women [are] feeling more able to speak their minds freely, and ask questions on matters ranging from Union procedure to political direction, than is often the case in mixed settings’ (Anon, 1989a). Delegates at the annual women’s conferences also developed strategies for increasing women’s representation among the union’s elected officials, as Horne explained: ‘We decided to focus on organisation, so we did workshops on public speaking, negotiating skills. We decided to concentrate on organisation and that we were only going to make any progress in the union and the industry if we were better organized. And we worked within the rules, perfectly properly, but we got better organized. So the women’s conference helped with that because more women stood for office, more women felt confident about standing up at meetings and arguing stuff. And then one year, I would be hard pushed to say when, maybe ’84, we organized ourselves, or the women agreed to organize themselves, into standing for election, and we moved from having either none or hardly any women on the Executive Committee to nearly a majority of women on the Executive Committee.’ (Horne, 2015) At the conferences, experienced women activists provided strategies to women members to facilitate their participation in the male-​dominated union structures which had traditionally excluded women and their gender-​specific concerns, as women members were encouraged to stand for election in an orchestrated campaign to improve representation. The annual women’s conferences provided the equality officers, equality representatives and rank-​and-​file women activists with an essential space to coordinate their activity.

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Publications From 1981 to 1985, an equal opportunities page was a regular feature in the ACTT’s union journal, Film and Television Technician. The page, often titled ‘Equal Opportunities’ or ‘Equality’, extended the visibility of women’s activity, advertised their campaigns, and encouraged the journal’s readership to engage with women’s demands. The section contained a collection of articles and announcements concerning women’s issues within the ACTT, wider labour movement, and film and television industries. These sections varied in size from a small paragraph to a full page. Among the topics addressed in the section were protests against the depiction of violence against women in films and pornography, reports from the Women’s TUC conferences and other external conferences, demonstrations on women’s issues, publications, festivals and exhibitions, successful sex discrimination cases, advice on sex discrimination legislation, and news on women-​ led productions. The ‘Equal Opportunities’ page occasionally included a segment, ‘pigtales’, which shared comically sexist quotes from the mainstream media. The section also served to inform members about women’s activity within the union, detailing the appointment and actions of the Equality Officer, announcing upcoming women’s conferences, and covering the discussion of women’s issues on the union’s key decision-​making bodies, such as the General Council and Executive Committee. Between 1981 and 1985, the journal also engaged with feminist academic literature in its book review column, including: Beatrix Campbell and Anna Coote’s Sweet Freedom: Struggle for Women’s Liberation (Wright, November 1982:  11), Campbell’s Wigan Pier Revisited:  Poverty and Politics in the 80s (Weymont, July 1984: 12–​13), Annette Kuhn’s Women’s Pictures: Feminism and Cinema (Stevenson, October 1982: 13), and Shut Up And Listen! Woman and Local Radio: A View from the Inside by Helen Baehr and Michelle Ryan (Ross Muir, February 1985:  9). The ‘Equality Opportunities’ page provided publicity for the activity of the network of women activists created by formalization in the 1980s. However, the regularity with which the ‘Equal Opportunities’ section, and women’s issues more broadly, appeared in the union journal declined from 1985, coinciding with growing hostility to women’s activism from the mid-​1980s. From 1986 a second publication, Equality News (ACTT Equality Officer, 1986-​89), was circulated to equality representatives and other interested parties, indicating that the discussion of women’s issues was increasingly separated out from the union’s main publication in the late 1980s. Equality News

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was a regular newsletter compiled by the ACTT’s Equality Officer, surviving copies of which are held in the WFTVN Collection at FAN. These newsletters contained news on the pursuit of equality issues within the labour movement and wider society, legal cases on sex and racial discrimination, and discussion of emerging health and safety concerns, such as smoking, AIDS and the side effects of working with visual display units (VDUs). It also acted as a vehicle to circulate publications, from the ACTT, external campaign groups and government institutions, to equality representatives. Equality News notified the ACTT’s network of equality representatives of union conferences and meetings, especially the women’s conferences, and explained union procedure, such as nominating members for election to the General Council or as conference delegates, and the timeline for motions and amendments to Annual and Rules Revision conferences. This provided women members with the necessary information on union procedures, which were traditionally obscure and exclusive, to enable their participation in the union’s decision-​making bodies. Thus, the newsletter facilitated regular communication between the Equality Officer and the network of equality representatives; however, this communication took place outside of the union journal.

Continuity in the relationship between women and the ACTT While the formalization of women’s representation in the ACTT had established a network of women union activists and resulted in ‘remarkable political gains inside the union’ (Abbott, 1985), there was little change in women’s material circumstances in the British film and television industries and considerable continuity in the relationship between women and the ACTT. During the 1980s, women activists continued to encounter hostility and apathy from the ACTT’s male officials and rank-​and-​file membership which had characterized their relationship with the union between 1975 and 1981. For instance, Sandra Horne (2015) described the implementation of equality policies as “an awfully, awfully slow process”; while Equality Representative Jenny Hooley (2012) explained: “You can only do a little bit at a time because obviously people are just interested in, em, pay rise and holidays obviously … It was just clawing a bit at a time.” Anne Munro’s central argument that a trade union agenda operated to exclude women’s gender-​specific concerns and sought to ‘retain the status quo’ in the face of ‘pressure for change’ remained pertinent to the ACTT during the 1980s (Munro, 1999: 1, 177). The impetus to maintain the status

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quo was bolstered by the socio-​politico-​economic climate of the 1980s, in which the threat of Thatcherism encouraged the ACTT to prioritize traditional union demands, such as wages and conditions, which had historically favoured male interests. The establishment and remit of the Equality Officer encountered the most overt and sustained hostility within the ACTT during the 1980s. Horne’s oral history testimony frequently returns to the hostility she encountered as the ACTT’s first Equality Officer, providing an insight into her lived experience of the role. Horne’s description of her working environment in the ACTT reveals that hostility was pervasive: “I mean it is absolutely fair to say that the appointment was not welcomed by the mass of the union who were men” (Horne, 2015). This hostility was directly communicated to Horne from across both the union and industry, as “People kept telling me”, including “Members, fellow officials and employers” (Horne, 2015). She explained that the male-​dominated membership: ‘didn’t agree with it [the appointment of an Equality Officer] or didn’t see the point, because, as I’m sure you’ve been told, there was absolutely no discrimination against women in either film or television and therefore there wasn’t really any need for this job, and there was absolutely no discrimination against black people in the film and television industry and therefore there was no need for this job, and therefore what was the point of the job and therefore what was there for anybody to do, was a general thrust.’ (Horne, 2015) Horne’s retrospective testimony reflects her contemporary remarks on the membership’s reaction to the role, recorded in the union journal. For instance, in an article recounting her first six weeks in the role, Horne outlined the three responses she encountered: ‘ “There is discrimination”. “There is no discrimination.” “There is discrimination –​but it’s in the other ACTT branches” ’ (Horne, March 1982: 4). Moreover, in her address to the 1982 Annual Conference, she acknowledged that ‘there was not universal sympathy for all aspects of her job’ (Anon, May 1982: 11). Horne’s description of hostility in the 1980s reveals continuity with women’s experiences between 1975 and 1981, as she explains: “given that the power of the union was white and male nobody was particularly saying come on in and how can we change the way we do everything” (Horne, 2015). Horne’s explanation chimes with Sarah Benton’s depiction of the ACTT as a

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“brotherhood” (interview with the author, 18 July 2016), discussed in Chapter 3, which refused to interrupt its organizational practices to negotiate women’s demands. While the union journal frequently referred to the ACTT’s progressive status as being among the first unions to appoint an Equality Officer, suggesting that the union leadership took pride in the appointment (Anon, February 1982: 1; Horne, April 1982: 8), the union membership also vocalized its opposition through the journal’s letters section (Butcher, March 1986: 4; Hall, April 1986: 5; Granby, February 1987:  5). The letters advanced two arguments against the Equality Officer and campaigns for equal opportunities. Firstly, the letters argued that these campaigns were sectional and divisive because they prioritized the interests of a small section of the union’s membership at the expense of the membership as a whole. For instance, in ‘Our Need for a Unified Union’, John Butcher (March 1986: 4) complained that the union appeared to be ‘controlled by minority groups of radical activists for their own benefit’, and that ‘ACTT officials and staff should equally be constantly aware that they exist to serve the membership as a whole and not merely an articulate activist minority’. Similarly, J.H. Hall bemoaned the politicization of the workshops, describing workshop-​produced programmes as ‘political diatribes’, and expressed his concern for the parallel politicization of the union, because he believed the ACTT was ‘in danger of becoming known as pro-​feminist, pro-​ homosexual, pro any minority you can think of, rather than being known as a Union which represents all its members equally’ (Hall, April 1986: 5). Secondly, the legitimacy of the Equality Officer was challenged on financial grounds. In ‘Don’t Waste Your Money on Equality Policies’, N.C. Granby (February 1987:  5) addresses the content of a job advertisement for the ACTT’s Equality Officer in which the salary is quoted as £18,195. Granby questions ‘just what this person will do for this fairly generous sum’, and argues that the expenditure is disproportionate to the number of people who would benefit from the role: If there are any members who feel so unjustly treated, do their numbers justify the expense of another full time employee enjoying the benefits of hard-​earned subscriptions? … Personally, I  would prefer to see the £18,000+ spent on the NSPCC or other charitable organisations that actually do some good in society. (Granby, February 1987: 5; original emphasis)

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As discussed in Chapter 3, Linda Briskin (1993: 101) has argued that women’s separate self-​organization ‘simultaneously contests gender power and organizational structures’, and so male trade unionists respond with hostility towards women’s demands, as evidenced by their response to the recommendations of the Patterns report in 1975–​81 and to the appointment of an Equality Officer in the 1980s. These letters emerged within a wider backlash against the ACTT’s financial commitment to external political campaigns which called for the union to economize its campaigning scope. This was the result of a pre-​existing conflict between the left and right wing of the ACTT, which was intensified by the socio-​politico-​economic context of the 1980s. Horne summarized the ‘dichotomy’ between the union leadership and rank-​and-​file membership as follows: ‘Well the union leadership, Alan Sapper, was, you know, was quite a left-​wing union leader whereas the membership was quite right wing in political terms but quite militant in terms of looking after their own rights in the industry.’ (Horne, 2015) During the 1970s, this conflict had resulted in criticism of the ACTT’s support for abortion rights campaigns, as discussed in Chapter 3. In the 1980s, a number of letters condemned the union’s expenditure on external political campaigns, including:  the financial support provided to the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) during the 1984–​85 miners’ strike (Gates, December 1984:  5); union-​funded trips to Nicaragua and the Soviet Union (Granby, May 1985: 7); and international solidarity campaigns, for which, it was argued, union subscription fees were ‘being frittered away on global “jollies” for the few and donations to obscure and often distant organisations and projects’ (Butcher, February 1986: 5). Importantly, the letters which criticized both the appointment of an Equality Officer and the ACTT’s financial support for external political campaigns were authored by the same members –​Tudor Gates, N.C. Granby and John Butcher –​ pointing to a small group of members in vocal opposition to the ACTT’s political activity and equality policies. Despite this opposition, the union leadership continued to support women’s activity through its financial support of the annual women’s conference. For instance, Horne (2015) recalled that the ACTT was “quite generous” with its financial and organizational assistance, which ensured that “if any woman wanted to come, pretty well they could come”. Furthermore, Horne (2015) identified the moment women

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activists “got the authority to start the ACTT’s Women’s Conference” as a significant achievement which advanced women’s position within the union. In 1988, the union demonstrated its continued commitment by voting to maintain the annual Women’s Conference despite the decision to replace the ACTT’s Annual Conference with a biennial conference at a special Rules Revision Conference in April 1988 (Anon, February 1988: 1; Anon, May 1988b: 10). The biennial conference was estimated to ‘save £100,000 in alternate years’ (Anon, February 1988: 1). The significance of the union’s decision to maintain the annual women’s conference was outlined in the union journal:  ‘The clout that the Equality cause now carries within ACTT was demonstrated recently when the General Council turned down a proposal to make the Union’s annual Women’s Conference two-​yearly’ (Anon, March 1988:  16). While the ACTT’s annual conferences were curtailed in the late 1980s, the General Council’s vote to continue the annual women’s conference indicates that the left-​wing union leadership remained dedicated to facilitating women’s participation. However, women activists struggled to gain support from the General Council for demands emerging from the women’s conferences in the early 1980s, revealing that their demands were also contentious among the union leadership. At a General Council meeting in January 1983, COE member Judith Weymouth called for the General Council to adopt the third women’s conference report, which included demands for the production of an equality handbook for union members and for the ACTT to oppose the emerging pornographic film and video industry. At this meeting, the COE also advanced proposals for the ACTT to fund annual women’s conferences and to restructure the COE so that it included representatives from each branch and had reserved seats for black members. The COE’s recommendations, as well as the committee itself, were criticized as sectional and divisive, reflecting the mixed response women received from the ACTT’s General Council when the women’s conferences were first proposed in 1980, discussed in Chapter 3. Four men voiced their hostility to the conference report. Firstly, laboratory branch member Tony Cummins ‘argued that it was not equality to segregate women and black people from the rest of the community’ (Anon, February 1983: 5). Cummins had opposed the Emergency Motion for the appointment of an Equality Officer at the ACTT’s 1981 Annual Conference with a similar argument, stating: ‘Don’t separate yourselves from us by having special women’s conferences or having that sort of committee’ (Anon, May 1981: 10). Secondly, Fred Varley, from the television branch, expressed his

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concern that the ‘bias might be going “in the wrong direction” and that perhaps men now needed to react to bias against them’ (Anon, February 1983:  5). Thirdly, Sounds Section member Chris Pereira concluded that ‘the Committee on Equality is becoming introverted –​a self-​perpetuating matriarchy’ (Anon, February 1983: 5). Finally, Ernie Cousin, vice-​president and member of the film production branch, opposed the women’s conference’s report, claiming it was ‘ “a report on women’s superiority” calling for more intricate arrangements for women than for other members of the Union’ (Anon, February 1983: 5). The report was adopted by the General Council with 26 votes to 19, and 6 abstentions (Anon, February 1983: 5). The men’s fear of a ‘self-​perpetuating matriarchy’ mirrors the anxiety that the union was becoming ‘pro-​feminist, pro-​homosexual, pro any minority you can think of ’ as a result of the ACTT’s Equality Officer (Hall, April 1986:  5). The demands which emerged from the annual women’s conferences during the 1980s threatened the gendered union structure which had historically operated in men’s interests. The apathy of the ACTT’s rank-​and-​file membership was evident in their hostility towards FTT’s ‘Equal Opportunities’ page, which was recorded in two surveys of members’ attitudes towards the union journal in 1982 and 1986. ‘What some readers think about FTT’ reported that the ‘Equal Opportunities’ page was ranked second to last in a popularity poll of regular features completed by 76 Annual Conference delegates (Anon, October 1982: 8). Some respondents expressed their dislike of ‘constant references to crèches’ and described the ‘Equal Opportunities’ page as ‘middle-​class bunkum’ (Anon, October 1982: 8). The 1986 survey, a questionnaire included in the journal and completed by 184 respondents, produced similar results. The top three topics which those surveyed desired the journal to prioritize were: the film and television industry, technical developments, and news on the ACTT and new agreements; while ‘politics often coupled with its evil twin “feminism” ’ was ranked as the least liked topic by more than 70 respondents (Avis, September 1986:  7). Respondents further complained of ‘women’s libbers and political harangue’, ‘politics and women’s lib ranting’, and ‘endless whinging about feminist rights’ (Avis, September 1986: 7). However, the article does identify a ‘small but voluble counter lobby demanding more information and campaigning on equality issues’ (Avis, September 1986: 7). The ‘Equal Opportunities’ page was unable to gain traction beyond those members who were already engaged with equality campaigns, which may have contributed to the demise of the page from the mid-​1980s. The survey responses starkly reveal the continued strength of the belief system that women’s issues were

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not trade union issues, which had limited engagement with the Patterns report’s recommendations between 1975 and 1981, despite women’s political gains within the structure of the union.

Conclusion At the ACTT’s 1988 Annual Conference a resolution to amalgamate with BETA –​itself the result of an amalgamation of the Association of Broadcasting Staff and the National Association of Theatrical Television and Kine Employees in 1984 –​passed with 225 votes to 93 (Anon, May 1988a: 1). This amalgamation resulted in the formation of the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Technicians Union in 1991. Amalgamation was a key component of union survival strategies in the 1980s and 1990s, as trade unions sought to counteract financial difficulties by merging to join resources. From 1988 to 1991, women activists voiced their anxiety about the potential impact amalgamation would have on the structural gains achieved in the ACTT as a result of the formalization of women’s representation during the 1980s. In the ACTT, women activists had developed structures which facilitated their activity and integrated their gender-​specific concerns into the union agenda; however, the absence of similar structures in BETA threatened the achievements of formalization. Shortly after the amalgamation resolution passed, a meeting of the ACTT’s Equality Liaison Group expressed apprehension ‘about the implications for Equality work in the planned amalgamation with BETA, as –​unless further resources and person power were allocated  –​the Equality Office would be coping with 65,000 members instead of 27,000’ (ACTT Equality Liaison Group, 4 May 1988). The Women Members’ Committee similarly explained their concerns: BETA officials and lay members are [not]1 used to women being an equal part in the Union. Their attitudes need changing as we could be overrun in equality terms. If we do amalgamate, women will have to maintain their levels and bring BETA members to where we are before we amalgamate. (ACTT Women Members’ Committee, 28 June 1988; original emphasis)

1

This correction was made in the minutes of a subsequent meeting (ACTT Women Members’ Committee, 11 July 1988).

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Lynn Lloyd’s report to the Women Members’ Committee on the progress of amalgamation the following year reveals that these concerns persisted, as Lloyd states: ‘one of the problems is the ACTT commitment of keeping an Equality Officer and Training Officer. This was of great concern to the Committee’ (ACTT Women Members’ Committee, 17 August 1989). Susan Sayce, Anne-​Marie Greene and Peter Ackers (2006) argue that the size, structure and culture of a union is important to the representation of women’s interests in their analysis of the impact of amalgamation on women in the National Union of the Lock and Metal Workers (NULMW). For instance, they argued that smaller unions could offer better support to marginalized groups, including women. As such, the amalgamation with BETA threatened to derail the ACTT’s activity around equality because it would more than double the union’s membership. Class differences between the ACTT and the Association of Broadcasting Staff, which may have been translated into the relationship between ACTT and BETA, also defined the culture of the two unions and their approach to trade union activity. This is illustrated by Adele Winston’s testimony, in which she discussed both unions’ hostility towards earlier demands for amalgamation: ‘the ABS people thought of themselves as, as genteel white collar workers they weren’t sure they wanted to get involved with all these em communist em rebel rousers in the ACT [sic], and the ACT [sic] thought we are a proper union and we do not want all these eh these people who really aren’t em trade unionists at all’. (Winston, interview with the author, 15 July 2016) Amalgamation not only threatened the existence of the Equality Officer role, but even if the role survived in the amalgamated union, its powers would be significantly inhibited by the increased workload presented by the enlarged membership and the cultural differences between the two unions. Reflecting on the challenges facing women’s union activism in the 1990s, the ACTT’s Equality Officer, Sadie Robarts, argued: Unless, with the help and support of members, ACTT’s equality work continues to develop in the 1990s, the Thatcherite attack on the broadcasting industry will have achieved the knock-​on effect of destroying the Union’s

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work on equality issues which has continued for almost 20 years. (Robarts, May 1988: 15) To defend the hard-​won structural gains women activists had achieved through the formalization of women’s representation during the 1980s, Robarts proclaimed that women needed to maintain their pressure on the union and continue to advance the position of women workers in the British film and television industries. During the 1980s, women’s demands had become a ‘campaigning luxury’ in light of the deregulation of the film and television industries and anti-​trade union legislation (Loach, 1987: 67). Upon the establishment of BECTU in 1991, women’s demands remained contentious and the structural gains of the 1980s had no guaranteed longevity into the 1990s.

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5

Women and BECTU, 1991–​2017 In 1988, the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians voted to amalgamate with the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance, resulting in the formation of the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Technicians Union in 1991. Between 1988 and 1991, ACTT women activists voiced their anxiety about the impact of amalgamation on the structural gains they had achieved over the course of the 1980s as a result of the formalization of women’s representation, which included a Women Members’ Committee, annual women’s conferences and a full-​time Equality Officer in the ACTT’s Head Office. These activists argued that the increased membership of the new union and the absence of similar structures for women members in BETA would undermine the ACTT’s achievements and threaten the role of the Equality Officer, as discussed in the previous chapter. Women’s fears were quickly realized, as the financial crisis that had driven amalgamation resulted in the swift abandonment of annual women’s conferences. Over the course of the 1990s, the Women Members’ Committee was submerged into the General Equality Committee and the Equality Officer role was diluted until it ceased to exist altogether in 1999. On the other hand, black and minority ethnic members made considerable progress on racial equality between 1991 and 2017 as the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee was formalized into the new union’s structure in BECTU’s first rulebook in 1991, securing its place on the union agenda and shaping the union’s equality campaigning priorities for the next 25 years. Annual women’s conferences were reintroduced in 2003, in the context of greater financial stability within the union and a more favourable political climate under a ‘(relatively) union friendly and pro-​equality Labour government’ (Kirton, 2019: 351). This signalled a renewed commitment to women’s representation and their gender-​ specific concerns in BECTU. Women’s separate self-​organization again

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raised the profile of women’s demands within the union and facilitated women’s activity; for instance, the General Equality Committee pursued a campaign on domestic violence as a workplace issue between 2004 and 2007. In 2010, BECTU elected its first woman president, Christine Bond (2010–​14), and women have continued to hold the role since  –​Jane Perry (2014–​16) and Ann Jones (2016–​present). However, the 2008 financial crash, the elections of the Conservative/​ Liberal Democrat Coalition government in 2010 and the Conservative government in 2015, the subsequent programme of austerity and the intensification of casualization in the British film and television industries resulted in renewed financial pressure on the union. In 2017 BECTU merged with Prospect to form the BECTU Sector of Prospect. Reflecting on the British labour movement between 1987 and 2012, Gill Kirton (2015: 485) has described this 25-​year period as ‘one of instability and uncertainty for the union movement’, in which trade unions were in a constant struggle for their continued survival. Bookended by financial crises and mergers, BECTU’s history was similarly characterized by instability and uncertainty. This chapter examines the relationship between women and BECTU to consider how women’s activism on gender equality survived and evolved between 1991 and 2017.

1990s: a kind of quiet time The relationship between women and BECTU during the 1990s was shaped by financial crisis within the union which dramatically restricted the union’s activity and fundamentally changed its organizational practices. The General Secretary page of the union journal provides an invaluable insight into BECTU’s financial struggles during the decade and its actions to manage the situation. One of the most illuminating articles featured in the September 1993 issue of Stage Screen and Radio, in which General Secretary Tony Hearn takes stock of the union’s financial difficulties since amalgamation in 1991 and forecasts future challenges. Hearn identifies three key reasons for BECTU’s financial crisis: the impact of Thatcherism, debt inherited from BECTU’s predecessors, the ACTT and BETA, and the decline in full-​time employment in the British film and television industries. Over the course of the 1990s the composition of BECTU’s membership changed from predominantly full-​time, permanent, in-​house staff to those on ‘freelance, short-​term, casual, non-​standard contracts’ (Hearn, September 1993: 6). This was the result of both casualization, which extended from the film industry to include independent television and the BBC, and a slump in film and

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television production in Britain (Hearn, September 1993: 6). The loss of permanently employed members had a significant impact on BECTU’s finances, as ‘three or four freelance members [were required] to replace the income from one permanently employed member lost’ (Hearn, September 1993: 6). BECTU’s financial struggles were reflected in the wider labour movement during the 1990s, with trade unions in ‘dire financial straits’ due to a sharp decline in union membership (Boston, 2015: 351). Hearn points to the additional challenges presented by the introduction of new anti-​union legislation in the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993, which targeted deduction at source arrangements whereby union subscriptions were paid directly from members’ salaries. Hearn (September 1993: 6–​7) argues that this legislation attacked the ‘financial heart of unions such as BECTU’ where deduction at source made up 90% of BECTU’s income. Under the 1993 Act, unions were required to seek new authorization from members to continue these arrangements, forcing BECTU to re-​recruit 20,000 existing members (Anon, February 1994: 10–​11). A campaign to re-​recruit these members dominated union activity in 1994. In his article, Hearn emphasized BECTU’s need to balance income and expenditure to satisfy the requirements of the bank before money could be spent on normal union activity. To achieve this balance, the union reduced its staff in rounds of redundancies, merged the ACTT and BETA pension schemes, sold union buildings and reined in its activity (SE and JT, September 1991: 6; Hearn, September 1993: 6–​7; Bolton, June 1996: 6–​7; June 1998: 7). The resulting shift in focus from campaigning activity to providing services is evidenced by the union journal throughout the 1990s. A pull-​out guide to BECTU’s legal services demonstrates this shift, as the head of BECTU’s legal department, Andy Egan, explains: ‘The message to members is that you can turn to BECTU not only for representation and collective bargaining, but also for a range of additional professional services that could help you solve the most important problems you face’ (Anon, May 1994:  15). Among the legal and professional services detailed in this guide were free legal advice, accidents at work, monies owed, discrimination and equal pay, road accident support and fixed-​fee conveyancing. Other services advertised in the journal include a BECTU Holiday Club, which provided discounted holidays and flights (Anon, November 1996a: 18–​19), discounts on energy bills for union members (Anon, May 1998: 8), and low-​interest loans (Anon, November 1996b; Anon, November 1997). In some senses, this shift in focus was a necessary response to the union’s changing circumstances. For instance, in an oral history interview ACTT/​BECTU activist and

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BECTU President (2010–​14) Christine Bond argued that the provision of training courses was necessary in an industry where employers such as the BBC and ITV no longer provided in-​house training, stating: “I don’t think our union would exist without the training; I don’t think any union going into the future will exist if it doesn’t offer training” (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). She particularly emphasized the value of training courses which addressed the “practical realities” of the industry, such as how to “set up your books”, which she felt was often overlooked by university and vocational courses (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). However, this shift also limited the campaigning remit of the union, and correspondingly resulted in a move away from collective campaigns on gender equality. At the end of the decade the union was still in a precarious financial position and its membership numbers remained at the same level as the beginning of 1994 (Bolton, June 1999: 12). The financial crisis of the 1990s resulted in the abandonment of the structural gains women had achieved in the union during the 1980s. At the first Women’s Conference of the amalgamated union, women expressed their continued fear of ‘ “sliding back” into the old pattern of male domination in the amalgamation period with all male delegations, parliamentary panels, interviewing boards or decision-​making bodies’ (Paul, July–​August 1991:  6). Attended by 120 women from across the ACTT and BETA, this conference passed a motion demanding that the provision of annual women’s conferences be included within the new union’s rulebook (Paul, July–​August 1991: 6), which would institutionalize women’s representation into the amalgamated union’s structure. This motion was taken forward to the Rules Revision Conference in October 1991, where the shape of BECTU was established through the creation of its first rulebook. At this conference, women argued for the value of women’s conferences to women’s union participation, emphasizing the importance of women-​only spaces to the formulation of women’s demands; for instance, Melanie Schiller, from Channel 4, reasoned: ‘We must have a women’s conference –​ unlike other forums it allows women to come together to debate issues among women’ (Turner, November 1991: 15). This mirrored the arguments advanced by ACTT women activists in the 1970s and 1980s and had been evidenced by the success of the ACTT women’s conferences during the 1980s. However, the motion for an annual women’s conference was defeated on financial grounds. A motion calling for an annual black members’ conference to be included within BECTU’s rulebook was similarly defeated on financial grounds. However, the Rules Revision Conference did

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vote to institutionalize black members’ representation in BECTU by introducing a Black Members’ Sub-​Committee of the union’s leading body, the National Executive Committee. This demand had emerged from the Black Members’ Conference, Black to the Future, in July 1991, which looked to the Rules Revision Conference to demonstrate BECTU’s commitment to race equality and called for ‘black equality to cease to be hidden by issues of women and disability’ (Elliott, September 1991: 13–​14). The Black Members’ Sub-​Committee would include black representatives from each division of BECTU and would nominate at least one representative to every national committee (Turner, November 1991: 15). No equivalent demand was made for the Women Members’ Committee. In an oral history interview, Christine Bond confirmed that “it wasn’t asked for” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). While Bond qualifies that she was not part of discussions in the early 1990s, she speculates that a demand for the institutionalization of the Women Members’ Committee through the union’s rulebook was deemed unnecessary because there were “some pretty consistent and powerful female activists, so they had defined a turf that it was possible to build up with” (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). This decision had significant ramifications for women’s activism, as Bond recalled: ‘The structure was that the black members were actually under the NEC so they were written in the rule, where the equality committees were a, a decision by the NEC to, to do it … they were not written in the rule, they could be changed … So the black members’ subcommittee had that, em, kind of solid backing behind them.’ (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019) During the 1990s, the Women Members’ Committee was submerged into the General Equality Committee (GEC), which meant that there was no dedicated space to discuss women’s issues within the union structure. The remit of the GEC was to coordinate equality activity and GEC meetings were attended by representatives from BECTU’s equality committees, including the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee and the Disability Members’ Network. The result was, according to Bond, that “the women’s committee did get marginalized for a while, em, not totally rejected, not totally gone but you know the, em, the structures and the, em, the supports were decreased” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). Following amalgamation, black

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members’ representation was codified into BECTU’s rulebook through the establishment of the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee, whereas women’s representation depended on women maintaining their activity and continued support from the union, both of which were dependent on favourable circumstances. This laid the groundwork for future campaigns and shaped BECTU’s equality agenda. Amalgamation disproportionately impacted women officials in BECTU, with higher numbers of women leaving their jobs in the union during the amalgamation period. In 1991, staff numbers were reduced by between one quarter and one third (Hearn, December 1991–​January 1992:  6), with anticipated job losses as a result of amalgamation exacerbated by BECTU’s ‘worsening financial situation’ (SE and JT, September 1991: 6). The article ‘Farewell to Staff: Goodbye and Good Luck’ (SE and JT, September 1991: 6) reported on the departure of 31 members of staff at the end of August 1991, either through early retirement or voluntary redundancy. Of these 31 members of staff, 21 were women. These women primarily performed administrative and secretarial roles, for instance, as receptionists, secretaries, filing and record assistants, and clerks. Three of these women were union officials and organizers, including Laurie Wallace, an ITV official who was the first female official in NATTKE, commercials organizer Jacki McCarten and regional organizer Jenny Woodley. Women performing jobs traditionally associated with ‘women’s work’ appear to have borne the brunt of job losses as a result of amalgamation, which is indicative of the gendered values associated with union work. In her interview, Bond remembered the decline in women officials as one of the most significant consequences of amalgamation: ‘I think we [ACTT] had 40–​45 per cent of our officials as women, which was pretty rare … now we lost a number of those in the amalgamation because the, there were redundancies … it seemed to become harder for the women officials … to find a role and to get the support from the, em, General Secretary in partic-​and the em supervisory officials … it just did seem like for a number of years the women workers were falling … I do know that the women were more vulnerable in the amalgamation.’ (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019) Bond points to the conflicting cultures of the ACTT and BETA by way of explanation –​while the ACTT was, in Bond’s words, “an old lefty ultrademocratic organisation”, BETA members were alternatively

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“very proud of themselves having worked in a fairly, em, obvious … government-​supported climate” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). Bond argues that women in particular struggled to cope with the “attrition” produced by amalgamation (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). As women officials are more likely to prioritize women’s issues and to encourage women’s participation than their male counterparts (Heery and Kelly, 1988; Kirton and Heely, 1999; Kirton, 2006; Boston, 2015), as discussed in Chapter 4, the loss of women officials during the amalgamation period had wider ramifications for women’s representation in BECTU. Over the course of the 1990s, the role of the Equality Officer was increasingly diluted until it no longer existed by 1999. As demonstrated in Chapter 4, the appointment of the Equality Officer in the ACTT’s Head Office was a significant achievement for women activists. Throughout the 1980s, the Equality Officer played an integral role in coordinating women’s activity and provided a representative among the union leadership to ensure that women’s demands were advanced at the highest level of the union’s structure. Jane Paul was appointed as the ACTT’s Equality Officer in 1989, succeeding Sadie Robarts, and continued in the role following amalgamation until 1999. The first indication that the continued existence of the Equality Officer was under threat appeared in the letters section of the union journal, FTT & BETA News (1991–​92), during the amalgamation period. In a letter protesting the BBC’s decision to axe its Disability Officer post, Al Garthwaite, chair of the BECTU ACTT section Women Members’ Committee, stated: ‘So hopefully we will hear no more of the suggestion that BECTU, with 60,000 members, is considering merging its specialist Equality and Training offices with their specialist officers and support staff’ (Garthwaite, November 1991:  17). The Equality Officer survived the amalgamation period and remained in place as a stand-​alone role until 1996, when it was merged with BECTU’s Health and Safety Officer. The reasoning behind this merger is not discussed in the union journal, Stage Screen and Radio, and BECTU’s NEC reports are unavailable before 1998. Instead, the merger is evidenced by a change in title for Paul, from Equality Officer to Equality/​Health and Safety Officer. This first appears in an article reporting on Paul’s keynote speech at an international congress on women’s occupational health (Anon, May 1996b: 22) and is later confirmed in the list of officials featured on the first page of the journal. According to Bond (interview with the author, 19 November 2019), the merger was met with “resentment” as Paul was now expected to dedicate half of her time to health and safety issues.

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The role of the Equality Officer was further diluted by a change in the function it performed during the 1990s. In her testimony, Bond claimed that Jane Paul increasingly focused on individual cases of workplace gender discrimination, which had continued to be dismissed and neglected by shop stewards at local level. This claim is supported by increased reporting on successful discrimination cases within the union journal (Anon, October 1992: 16; Beevers, December 1993–​ January 1994: 18; Anon, May 1994: 15), with one article stating: ‘with the help from local reps and our Equality Officer Jane Paul, BECTU has had a good record of supporting members in discrimination cases, and had notable successes in some areas such as maternity rights and equal pay’ (Beevers, December 1993–​January 1994: 18). During the 1990s, the union was increasingly seen as a route to pursue gender discrimination and sexual harassment cases, which had not been the case during the 1980s, as demonstrated in Chapter 4. However, Paul’s prioritization of individual cases meant that she was “doing the work of … an organizer” rather than coordinating wider equality activity within the union (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). This shift in focus was retrospectively criticized by Bond: ‘but I think looking back a lot of us feel that Jane Paul did a lot of her equality work as one-​on-​one support for women … I mean it’s a hard thing not to do, but in some ways what meant that the bigger picture didn’t always get taken up because … the social care role got really dominating and I think that was in some senses a problem’. (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019) While Bond attributes Paul’s focus on “one-​on-​one support for women” to her personal commitment –​“it was an important role for her” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019) –​it was also the result of BECTU’s financial crisis during the 1990s, which limited the union’s campaigning scope in general. For instance, there was a greater emphasis on the implementation of legislation, such as the Working Time Directive. The reinterpretation of the Equality Officer role, from facilitating women’s activity to aiding individual discrimination cases, undermined its function in coordinating ‘big picture’ campaigns on gender equality. In 1998, BECTU began the process of restructuring as a result of renewed financial difficulties, which saw a predicted deficit of £162,000 for 1998 combined with an existing deficit of approximately £100,000 from 1997 (Bolton, June 1998:  7). To make savings of

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£265,000, the union sought to reduce its staff expenditure, with the 1999 NEC Report to Annual Conference confirming the redundancies of ‘one specialist officer, three National Official posts and four secretarial staff posts’ (BECTU, 1999: para 27). In the June 1998 issue of Stage Screen and Radio, General Secretary Roger Bolton reported the NEC’s intention to ‘examine the functions of the three posts of journal Editor, research officer and equality/​health & safety officer and to make a decision as to which [to] close’ (Bolton, June 1998: 7), and Equality/​Health and Safety Officer Jane Paul’s redundancy was subsequently announced in the 1999 NEC Report (BECTU, 1999). This demonstrates the priorities of the union, with the Equality/​Health and Safety Officer deemed to be the most expendable; however, the work of this specialist officer was continued more informally. During 1999, Paul was hired by the union via a ‘consultancy agreement’ to continue aspects of her work, including ‘health and safety training for safety representatives, and advising the officials responsible for equality’ (BECTU, 1999:  para 29). In August 1999, the NEC decided not to renew this agreement (BECTU, 2000: para 97). The work of the Equality Officer was subsequently allocated to BECTU National Officials. Freda Chapman and Irene Fick were the first to share the Equality Officer workload in 1999 (BECTU, 1999:  para 28), with Amelia Gifford replacing Fick in 2000 (BECTU, 2000: para 128). These officials performed their equality duties alongside their wider representation of BECTU divisions; for instance, Chapman was also responsible for the Regional Production Division (RPD), London Production Division (LPD) and Laboratories, while Gifford represented the Broadcasting and Arts and Entertainment sections (BECTU, 2000: para 128). The uncertainty caused by this was evident in the 2001 NEC Report to Annual Conference, which reported that BECTU’s Equality Committee had continued to meet and to send delegates to external conferences despite ‘unavoidable official shortages’ which resulted in a ‘lack of continuity’ (BECTU, 2001: para 191). In 2001 a ‘single named official’ was given responsibility for BECTU’s equality work –​Training Officer Trish Lavelle (BECTU, 2001: para 192). For national officials, their equality remit was a small proportion of their wider duties, and so the time and attention they could dedicate to equality issues was inevitably shaped by the working patterns of their primary role, as Bond observed: ‘they’re really shoehorning it in … I think Janice [Turner] for the Black Members’ Subcommittee, because she is basically a journal editor one of the cycles of that means

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that there are times within that job description that things get a little less hectic and I think she does a lot of her Black Members’ Subcommittee work in that space … training and all the stuff like that … there is no cycle that allows that quiet, em, and I think that that’s a pity and I think we could have done with more time … any officer who’s done it has, em, for the most part, I think, really tried hard to find the time to do it, I just wish … there were ways you could allot them more time to do this.’ (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019) The removal of a specialist Equality Officer and the allocation of equality work to national officials severely restricted the resources available within the union structure for campaigning on gender equality. During the 1990s, union activity on gender discrimination continued in the form of monitoring gender inequality in the British film and television industries and negotiating equal opportunity policies with employers. Firstly, in 1994 the Women’s Broadcasting Committee published Her Point of View, which analysed ‘screen credits in key grades in a week’s broadcasting of all four national terrestrial television channels’ (Anon, March 1994: 4). The Women’s Broadcasting Committee had emerged from conversations at BECTU’s 1991 Women’s Conference and Her Point of View was part of their wider campaign ‘for equality in broadcasting, for increased training for women in technical areas and for 24 hours of women’s television every International Women’s Day’ (Anon, March 1994: 4). Among the report’s findings were that women’s screen credits were highest at the BBC and lowest at ITV, with 24% and 17% respectively (Anon, March 1994: 4). This reflected wider initiatives in the film and television industries, as industry-​based reports such as the British Film Institute Tracking Studies (BFI, 1995, 1997, 1999) provided empirical data on workforce composition. Secondly, in 1996, BECTU entered into negotiations on equal opportunities in the freelance sector with the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT) (Anon, May 1996a: 4). In 1997, the outcome of these negotiations was published in Equality Matters, which provided ‘a practical guide to equality policies and how to implement them in independent production’ (Anon, July–​August 1997: 18). Equality Matters addressed eight areas informed by the European Union Charter for equal opportunities, including fair and equal treatment at work, harassment, working time arrangements, equal pay, and pregnancy and maternity rights (Anon, May 1996a: 4; Anon, July–​August 1997: 18). According to one of the union’s negotiators, Roy Lockett, Equality

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Matters was a ‘real win’ which went ‘beyond a bland paragraph in our agreement to a realistic framework around which we can campaign in partnership with PACT’ (Anon, July–​August 1997:  18). In this sense, formal negotiations that solely addressed equal opportunities represented an advancement in the union’s position on gender equality. However, the loss of women’s structural gains –​the annual women’s conferences, Women Members’ Committee and Equality Officer –​over the course of the 1990s resulted in the decline of women’s participation in BECTU. Reflecting on the decade in her oral history testimony, Bond describes the impact of amalgamation and the subsequent loss of women’s structural gains as follows: “it made a serious difference through the 90s, a kind of quiet time” (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). During the 1980s, these structural gains were praised for increasing women’s representation on the union’s policy-​making bodies, their involvement on union committees, and their attendance at annual conferences, as discussed in Chapter  4. Alternatively, during the 1990s repeated concern about women’s union involvement was expressed in the union journal and NEC reports. In 1994, a letter titled ‘All-​Male Officers’ (Hewitson, November 1994: 15) criticized the election of three men to BECTU’s executive positions –​ president, vice-​president and treasurer  –​despite an increase in the number of women elected to the NEC, with six women elected to a committee of 17. In this letter, Edna Hewitson (November 1994: 15) called for ‘a policy that ensures at least one woman is elected to serve as an executive officer of  BECTU’. This call was repeated in 1998, when the North West Freelance branch submitted a motion to BECTU’s Annual Conference which demanded that: at least one of the General Officers (President/​Vice President/​Treasurer) to be elected by the incoming NEC is a woman; and that women are appropriately represented on all sub-​committees and representative groups formed and appointed by the NEC. (BECTU, 1998a: Proposition  1/​98) The outcome of this motion is not recorded; however, the motion itself is indicative of women’s continued absence from union leadership. The 1998 NEC Report lamented low attendance among women members at the 1996 Annual Conference and stated that it had ‘given active consideration as to how to improve attendance by women delegates’ at the upcoming 1998 conference, which included branch circulars and journal articles from the General Secretary (BECTU, 1998b: para 6). In one such article, titled ‘The Union’s for Women

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Too’, Roger Bolton (December 1996–​January 1997: 7) reflected on the barriers to women’s participation, including the double burden of work and domestic responsibilities and the union’s continued reluctance to recognize women’s right to skilled work in the areas it organized. Bolton claimed that the NEC had accepted recommendations from the GEC to improve women’s participation, although they are not detailed in the article or NEC report. The union attempted to address women’s low rate of participation, however, without the structures to facilitate women’s activity little change was evident in the 1990s.

2000s: recruitment and retention During the 2000s, the financial crisis which had dictated BECTU’s agenda throughout the 1990s was no longer such a dominating factor. In the British labour movement, union membership had stabilized at approximately 7.8  million from 1997 (Boston, 2015:  436), and while the Labour government (1997–​2010) maintained Thatcher’s anti-​union legislation, the political climate for trade unions was improved (Kirton, 2019: 353). Recruitment and retention strategies continued to be essential to union survival throughout the 2000s (Boston, 2015:  436). In BECTU the Employment Relations Act 1999 –​which stipulated a statutory right to trade union recognition in workplaces with more than 20 employees (Boston, 2015: 437) –​ was mobilized to unionize workplaces and recruit new members. For instance, the union journal reported on recognition campaigns in the early 2000s at MTV (Turner, February 2002: 8–​9), on The Bill (ITV, 1984–​2010) (Anon, June 2005: 12), and for freelance workers at BBC Scotland (Anon, November 2005:  8–​9). Women were particularly important to recruitment and retention strategies in the British labour movement, as women’s share of union membership increased; for instance, women made up 42% of union membership in 2004 compared to 36% in 1994 (Kirton, 2015: 495). By 2003, a third of BECTU’s members were women (Elliott, December 2003–​January 2004: 15). In the 2000s, women’s union participation remained central to union survival strategies. In BECTU the reintroduction of annual women’s conferences in 2003 was part of a recruitment and retention strategy identified within BECTU’s NEC reports and union journals. A one-​day conference in November 1999, titled ‘Equality + Diversity’, was attended by branch and divisional equality activists, union staff and NEC members with the aim to ‘begin mapping out an industrial strategy for the union in this area’ (BECTU, 2000: para 129). One of the key outcomes of this

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conference was that: ‘BECTU recognises that the areas represented through the Equality committees are areas of potential growth for the union and commits sufficient resources to developing that potential’ (BECTU, 2000: para 130). Following this conference, union events and policies targeted women’s participation and representation. For instance, in 2001 BECTU’s GEC produced Equality and Diversity –​ A Programme of Work for 2001 and Beyond, which recommended three strategies to address the union’s lack of diversity: (i) equality monitoring; (ii) a programme of training designed to build grassroots organization among women, black and disabled members; and (iii) collaboration between the GEC and industrial divisions to develop equal opportunity policies and practices in the workplace (BECTU, 2002: para 247–​50). In January 2002, BECTU held its first training course for women activists on the pilot programme ‘Women Organising for Growth’. This two-​day course was aimed at new and emerging activists and sought to increase women’s participation by raising awareness of organizing issues particular to women, reviewing BECTU’s organizing and recruitment practices in relation to women, and building a base of women lay representatives (BECTU, 2002:  para 252–​3). Policy proposed at BECTU’s 2002 Annual Conference further called for the union to ‘endeavour to employ substantially more women staff in senior positions’, to ‘monitor the gender balance of BECTU’s staff’ and to publish the results on an annual basis (BECTU, 2002: Proposition 8/​02). At this conference, delegates criticized the absence of women on BECTU’s NEC and voiced concerns over the loss of women officials –​‘of eight officials who had left the union in the last two years for reasons other than retirement, six were women’ (Turner, June 2002: 10). Delegates also discussed strategies to encourage more women into official posts, such as job-​sharing and childcare provision. This provided the backdrop for new demands for a women’s conference at BECTU’s 2003 Annual Conference, and the proposal (submitted by the North West freelance branch) framed the demand in a similar language: ‘That the annual conference calls for a women’s conference to encourage women members to become activists’ (BECTU, 2003:  Proposition 27/​03). The proposal further called for dialogue on the feasibility of a women’s working committee, to be discussed later. Christine Bond situates the demand for a women’s conference within a narrative of women’s struggle against marginalization in her oral history testimony, describing the thought process of women activists as follows: “you’re marginalising us again, em, [the women’s conference] really worked, we really want to do it again … we’re getting marginalized, we need to get back on the stage” 185

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(Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). While Bond reveals that women activists did not expect this motion to pass, the first Women’s Conference was held in November 2003. The journal’s report from the Women’s Conference concluded that:  ‘Discussions identified a fundamental need to build on the current strategic approach to organisation and recruitment so that the union increases its attractiveness to women in the industry’ (Elliott, December 2003–​ January 2004: 15). In response, BECTU’s NEC ‘agreed that women’s organisation should become a central theme of the union’s recruitment and organisation strategy for 2004’ and aimed to demonstrate ‘real evidence of growth in women’s participation’ by the 2005 Annual Conference (Anon, March 2004: 15). Therefore, the reintroduction of the Women’s Conference was situated within a wider recruitment and retention strategy to increase women’s membership and participation within BECTU. The renewed women’s conferences quickly demonstrated a similar function to the 1980s conferences, discussed in Chapter 4, as women’s separate self-​organization raised the profile of women’s demands within the union and facilitated women’s activity on issues which were traditionally excluded from the union agenda. During the 2000s, the conference agenda included workshops on trade union practices (such as ‘Getting Active in BECTU’ and negotiation skills) and campaigns on domestic violence and sexual harassment, alongside classes on a range of topics including self-​defence, public speaking and establishing a work/​life balance. In 2007 the conference was also scheduled to coincide with ‘Reclaim the Night’ to enable delegates to attend the demonstration (Anon, October 2007: 7). As with women’s separate self-​organization in the 1970s and 1980s, discussed in Chapters 2–​4, the women’s conferences were praised for their impact on women’s participation. For instance, Kate Elliott  –​ the National Officer responsible for the GEC from 2005 –​proclaimed that the conference improved women’s representation within the union structure: ‘Year on year we bring more women into union activity, increasing the number of female reps and putting women’s issues at the heart of the agenda’ (Anon, December 2007–​January 2008: 14–​15). Elliott further described the conferences as a ‘safe environment’ for women to share their experiences, while Al Garthwaite reflected:  ‘Getting together highlighted how many of our issues are the same, across divisions and grades of the industry’ (Anon, December 2008–​January 2009: 6). The language of Elliott and Garthwaite’s statements mirror comments on women-​only meetings during the Patterns investigation, discussed in Chapter  2, and oral history testimonies on the impact of women’s

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conferences during the 1980s from Bessie Bond, Sandra Horne and Sarah Boston, discussed in Chapter 4. However, the hostility women encountered was also reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s, as Christine Bond recalled: “There would be some snide comments. There was no, that I can remember, there was no concerted nasty going on … but for the most part it was benign neglect or ignoring, but you know the funding was there” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). This reflects Sarah Boston and Sarah Benton’s testimonies, in which they evoked an atmosphere of unspoken hostility from male union officials following the publication of the Patterns report, discussed in Chapter 3. Therefore, women’s separate self-​organization continued to hold an uneasy position within the union. While the renewed women’s conferences performed a similar function to the women’s conferences of the 1980s, the momentum of these conferences was not translated. Christine Bond, who was actively involved in both iterations of the women’s conferences, remarked that: ‘they worked better in the early years I think because I think there was a lot more need of it … I think the format was excellent for its time in the early years but to try to find a new format became, em, kind of tough’. (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019) She explained that it was difficult to maintain women’s interest in the conference because “similar workshops” were repeated each year, and the GEC did not have the resources, particularly financial resources, to develop a new format to “excite” women members. Bond’s observations are supported by attendance fi ­ gures –​at its height, the women’s conference was attended by 194 delegates in 1986 (Horne, 1986) compared to 60 women in 2006 (Anon, February 2007: 15), based on available data. The context of the two conferences informed women members’ response, with the women’s conferences of the 1980s emerging from women’s wider militancy within both the labour movement and British film and television industries, whereas women’s conferences in the 2000s did not have roots in a wider movement and were instead part of a recruitment and retention strategy. One of the most significant campaigns organized by the GEC and women’s conferences was a campaign on domestic violence between 2004 and 2007. Women activists argued for the need to recognize domestic violence as a workplace issue, citing the impact of domestic violence on women both at work and at home, as well as the function of the workplace as a ‘safe environment’ (Bond, March 2004: 15; BECTU,

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2004: para 344). The GEC outlined three stages to the campaign –​ research, raising awareness and negotiating policies (BECTU, 2004: para 345). Evidence of these stages is provided by NEC reports and the union journal. For instance, at the 2005 Annual Conference the GEC conducted a survey on experiences of domestic violence and how it was handled in the workplace, which received 61 responses and informed draft policy (BECTU, 2006: para 153). In November 2005, a national women’s event focused on domestic violence. This event considered draft policies and included a workshop on recognizing and addressing domestic violence as a union representative (Anon, September 2005a: 5; BECTU, 2006: para 155). A workplace policy on domestic violence was subsequently passed by the NEC and Divisions and was officially introduced at the 2007 Annual Conference (BECTU, 2007: para 153); however, there is little information on the content of this policy. In her oral history testimony, Bond expressed her admiration for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees’ (IATSE) policy (BECTU’s equivalent in the United States and Canada) which included paid leave for workers’ experiencing domestic violence (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). This may be taken to indicate that such a clause was not included in BECTU’s policy. The 2007 NEC report does, however, reveal that BECTU produced cards providing advice and information to those experiencing domestic violence (BECTU, 2007: para 153). BECTU’s campaign mirrored wider activism on domestic violence within the British labour movement (see Wibberley et al, 2018). Christine Bond, chair of the GEC at the time, emphasized that she was “really proud” of the domestic violence campaign (interview with the author, 19 November 2019); however, her testimony highlights some of the limitations of the campaign and challenges facing women activists. Firstly, Bond comments that while officials could provide emotional support and direct members to relevant services, union representatives could not perform a counselling role because “that was a skilled job” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). This supports Gemma Wibberley and colleagues’ (2018: 72) analysis of trade union activity on domestic violence, which identifies the absence of necessary skills or knowledge among representatives as one of the barriers to trade union intervention. Secondly, the campaign encountered considerable hostility from the union leadership. While Bond observed that the “snide comments”, discussed earlier, “were more likely to happen at a local level than a national level”, the domestic violence campaign faced “some serious questioning” about whether it was a “trade union issue”, with members “at a high level” arguing

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that BECTU should not be involved in the campaign; however, these members “did absolutely nothing to stop it” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). Finally, Bond argues that while such campaigns were successful in the short term, their longevity was limited by the absence of sustained energy: ‘I mean in some senses a problem with a lot of those campaigns is that we do a lot of work for a couple of years and there’s energy and balance and then you know it kind of glides into the sunset and then with those issues really you need to almost revisit them yet again every five years to try and push it.’ (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019) In a climate of hostility towards their demands, women activists had to maintain constant pressure to keep their issues on the agenda. Alongside the demand for a women’s conference, a proposal to the 2003 Annual Conference called for a discussion on ‘the feasibility of asking the NEC to form a women’s working committee in line with the disability and black members’ committees’ (BECTU, 2003: Proposition 27/​03). This was debated and dismissed at the first Women’s Conference for two reasons: firstly, it was felt that the function of such a committee was unclear, and secondly, the GEC ‘while holding a brief to receive reports from the black members’ subcommittee and the disabled members’ network, is largely focused on discussing women’s issues’ (Elliott, December 2003–​January 2004: 15; BECTU, 2004: para 337). However, Bond claimed that this placed the GEC in an “awkward” position; while the GEC dedicated “90 per cent” of its time to women’s issues, the committee’s wider remit meant that members were “always thinking ‘ok what role am I doing, are we going to do an initiative like this and this’, rather than just concentrating and going forward and saying ‘ok this’ ” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). Here, Bond suggests that the committee’s attention and resources were divided between campaigns. This reflected wider trends within the British labour movement, as Sarah Boston (2015: 444) observed that the creation of equality committees for all under-​represented groups in the 2000s prompted fears that women’s ‘specific voices’ would be lost in the ‘melée [sic] of “equalities” ’. Drawing on evidence from the TUC Equality Audits, Boston further revealed that women were ‘less likely to have a national committee to themselves’ than black, disabled or LGBT members in the 2000s (TUC quoted in Boston, 2015: 444). Furthermore, BECTU’s GEC found it difficult to achieve

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the intersectional activism it was designed for: “the General Equality Committee was supposed to be a feeding point and unfortunately, I mean it just never really worked … there wasn’t enough consistency of representation and the cross-​fertilisation just didn’t seem to easily take place” (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). Bond recalled that the committee struggled to get members of the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee to attend GEC meetings because they “had a fairly strong, active group within themselves”, while the impact of changing employment patterns meant that there was often no representative from the Disabled Members’ Network on the GEC (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). These factors contributed to the creation of the Women’s Equality Committee –​first referred to by this name in the archival material in the December 2010–​January 2011 issue of Stage Screen and Radio (Anon, December 2010–​January 2011:  19). Discussing this change, Bond emphasized that the GEC was already informally performing the role of a women’s committee and that there were “still real issues that need to be, em, sorted and talked about” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). She further stressed the central role of the National Officer, Kate Elliott, in making the argument for a women’s committee to the NEC. Reflecting on the function of the Women’s Equality Committee, Bond stated that it had a “soft role” in terms of industrial relations, whereby the committee was responsible for providing material to officials to inform their negotiations and women had to “push their issues to the fore” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). Bond draws on the domestic violence campaign to demonstrate these limitations. The committee was, however, “very active in … recruitment and retention” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019), situating its activity alongside the women’s conferences in the union’s strategy to increase women’s membership and participation.

2000s: the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee In 1991, the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee was codified into BECTU’s rulebook, as discussed earlier, which laid the groundwork for future campaigns and shaped BECTU’s equality agenda. In the context of BECTU’s financial crisis, activity on racial discrimination was largely invisible within the union journal during the 1990s. However, from 1998 there were calls for the introduction of monitoring and employment targets for black and minority ethnic workers in British broadcasting in light of the Macpherson report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence (Turner, October 1998:  6–​9; April 2000:  11; November

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2000: 6–​7; Anon, March 1999: 4). In 2003, BECTU launched the Move On Up campaign in partnership with the film and television industries, which subsequently dominated BECTU’s equality agenda during the 2000s. Move On Up was a networking event for black and minority ethnic film and television workers to establish contacts with leading figures in the British film and television industries, such as commissioning editors and department heads, through 20-​minute one-​ on-​one discussions and workshops (Anon, July–​August 2003: 12–​13; Anon, September 2003: 13–​15). The event expanded to include other sectors, such as Move On Up in Radio (Anon, September 2005b: 6–​8) and Move On Up in News (Anon, July–​August 2007: 12–​16), as well as regions, such as Move On Up North (Anon, September 2005b: 6–​ 8). These events ran regularly between 2003 and 2012, with the last recorded event taking place in 2015. Move On Up was a successful campaign for BECTU that increased membership among black and minority ethnic workers and improved their representation within the union structure. For instance, following the launch of the first Move On Up event ‘there was a 37% increase in new joiners from ethnic minorities’ within eight months, and two members of the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee won seats on the NEC, resulting in ‘an NEC with 12.5% ethnic minority representation’ (Anon, October 2004: 14–​15). The Black Members’ Sub-​Committee also campaigned for greater diversity at all levels of BECTU’s structure, launching the Black Leadership Initiative in 2004 (Anon, October 2004: 14–​15). As a result of the Move On Up campaign, BECTU won the TUC Equality Award twice, in 2004 (Anon, October 2004: 14–​ 15) and 2006 (Anon, October 2006: 7). The coverage of Move On Up events in the union journal is further indicative of its significance to BECTU, with reports regularly occupying two to three pages. However, hostility towards the Move On Up campaign is also evident in the letters section of the union journal; for instance, in a letter titled ‘Discrimination’ Phil Rhodes argued that ‘ “positive discrimination” is an oxymoron’ and events such as Move On Up ‘make it downright disadvantageous to be white’ (Rhodes, December 2003–​January 2004: 6). This hostility reflects responses to women-​only events and initiatives to increase women’s representation during the 1970s and 1980s, discussed in Chapters 2–​4. In 2005, BECTU obtained funding of £211,000 to expand the Move On Up campaign, part of which covered the appointment of an assistant editor for Journal Editor Janice Turner to allow her to focus on organizing the Move On Up events (Anon, September 2005b: 6–​8). In 2006, Turner was listed as Journal Editor/​Diversity Officer under

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BECTU contacts in the union journal. BECTU’s activity on racial discrimination from 2003 reflected wider trends in the British labour movement, as Gill Kirton (2015: 502) identified: ‘by 2004 the thrust of the union democracy project was changing; there was increased activity on other equality strands, but action on women seemed to be standing still’. This was the result of both ‘constrained resources’ and ‘increased socio-​political attention to other marginalised groups’ (Kirton, 2015: 502). In BECTU, campaigns on racial discrimination were prioritized on the union’s equality agenda during the 2000s. This was, in part, the result of the institutionalization of the Black Members’ Committee in 1991, which ensured the committee’s place within the union structure.

2010: the first woman president From 2010, there was a renewed financial crisis within BECTU following the financial crash of 2008 and retrenchment in the British film and television industries, which was worsened by the austerity measures and anti-​union stance of the Conservative–​Liberal Democrat Coalition (2010–​15) and Conservative (2015–​present) governments. Retrenchment disproportionately impacted on women workers, as the 2010 Skillset survey reported that 5,000 women had left the film and television industries between 2006 and 2009 compared to 750 men (Anon, October 2010: 5). Correspondingly, women’s share of BECTU’s membership had declined from 40% to 30% (Turner, June–​ July 2010: 10–​14). Journal articles again traced BECTU’s declining membership and growing deficit (Turner, June–​July 2011:  12–​15; Morrissey, February–​March 2014:  8–​9; December 2014–​January 2015: 16–​17), as well as their search for solutions, which resulted in a vote to merge with Prospect in 2016. In this context, Christine Bond was the first woman to be elected as president in 2010 and served her two terms (2010–​14) alongside Jane Perry as vice-​president. When announcing the election, the journal observed: ‘So for the next two years both the most senior elected lay-​officials of the union are women’ (Turner, June–​July 2010: 10–​14). The president was a lay official (and so not employed by the union) who acted as chair of the NEC and annual conference (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). Women have continued to hold the role since 2010  –​Jane Perry (2014–​16) and Ann Jones (2016–​present) –​marking a significant watershed in the union’s history. In the ‘President’ column of the union journal and through her oral history testimony, Bond provides an invaluable insight into the factors

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which facilitated her involvement and the impact of her role as the first women president. Bond entered the film and television industries as a stills photographer with a film and video workshop in Dublin in 1983. She initially joined both unions representing the film and television industries in Ireland during the 1980s –​the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) and the ACTT –​later letting her ITGWU membership lapse. Her first role in the ACTT was as branch secretary and her description of the appointment reflects the gendered nature of the role: “It got to the point where the secretary was, em, retiring and stepping down and I was the only other woman in the room so they just kind of looked at me and said ‘will you do it?’ ” (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019). However, in the article ‘The Joy of Joining’ Bond identifies the encouragement to take this role and ‘the mentoring and friendships made on my branch committee’ as one of the two key factors which ‘made [her] an activist’ (Bond, February–​March 2011: 7). In her interview, Bond further reflected on the encouragement she received from leading women activists Lynn Lloyd and Margaret Watts to take a position on the NEC: “it was their retirement out of the, em, the NEC that they suggested I go for NEC membership and I kind of took over as one of the RPD members” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). In her first column as president, Ann Jones similarly paid tribute to the influence of Lloyd and Watts on her own and other women’s activism: ‘It was they, in the 1980s, who inspired, encouraged, cajoled and empowered a generation of women members to become activists, and provided them with the knowledge and experience to navigate the structures and politics involved in trade unionism’ (Jones, December 2016–​January 2017: 7). In her interview, Bond further praised the support she received from the union leadership, particularly General Secretary Gerry Morrissey, to perform the role. Bond is a single parent with a disabled daughter and the union provided childcare support to enable her to attend meetings in London. These accounts demonstrate the importance of active encouragement, particularly from other women activists, for women’s union participation. The second factor identified by Bond in ‘The Joy of Joining’ was ‘participating and learning about the union at the Women’s Conference’ (February–​March 2011: 7). Reflecting on her election in her interview, Bond stated: ‘I mean it almost goes back to the women’s conference, it just, I think there are women who have built up their skill level and experience and ties in with other areas and stuff

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like that to the point where they can kind of go for these jobs.’ (Bond, interview with the author, 19 November 2019) This narrative was shared by other women activists; for instance, in her report to the 2011 TUC Women’s Conference, Al Garthwaite expressed her pride over BECTU’s election of its first women president and emphasized ‘the role the BECTU Women’s Committee and Women’s Conference have played in making this happen’ (Elliott, April–​May 2011:  11). This supports the argument, advanced throughout this book, that women’s separate self-​organization plays a central role in facilitating women’s trade union activism. In her interview, Bond highlighted the value of her role as the first woman president, both personally and for the union. In relation to the former, Bond stated that she was “really proud of doing it”, describing the role as “excellent”, “great” and “magic” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). For Bond, it performed an important function in her personal life as it “allowed me in some fairly stressful situations to have an adult role, em, and a really, you know, exciting and interesting adult role, and, em, I appreciate it immensely” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). However, Bond also reflected on factors which limited her role, specifically her caring responsibilities and the challenges of working from Dublin, and expressed regret that she was unable to stand for re-​election for a third term: “I would have loved another term actually” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). In relation to the latter, Bond expressed her surprise at the significance that was attached to her appointment as a union president in 2010, both nationally and internationally. Bond assessed this significance as “a visual thing” which demonstrated that “another barrier just fell” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). The union journal provides some insight into Bond’s impact for women workers, as her ‘President’ column regularly highlighted women’s issues, for instance, by advertising the women’s conference (Bond, November 2010: 9) and discussing the challenges of combining work and family (Bond, October–​November 2011: 7). As president, Bond raised the profile of women’s issues within the union; however, beyond this the potential impact of a woman president was limited by retrenchment in the British film and television industries and financial crisis within BECTU.

Conclusion Bookended by financial crisis and merger, BECTU’s history was characterized by instability and uncertainty. The decline in full-​time

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employment in the British film and television industries and the impact of anti-​union legislation precipitated a sharp decline in union membership during the 1980s and 1990s. The subsequent financial crisis dramatically restricted the union’s activity and fundamentally changed its organizational practices, as BECTU reined in its campaigning activity and prioritized services. In this context, the structural gains women had achieved over the course of the 1980s –​ annual women’s conferences, a Women Members’ Committee and an Equality Officer –​were eroded. The women’s conference was swiftly abandoned on financial grounds in 1991 and the women’s committee was submerged into the GEC. The loss of these structures meant that there was no dedicated space to discuss women’s issues within the union structure. Over the course of the 1990s the role of the Equality Officer was diluted, firstly by merging the role with that of the Health and Safety Officer, and secondly by moving the focus of the role away from collective campaigns to individual discrimination cases. In 1999 the role ceased to exist altogether, and equality work was performed by national officers alongside their wider duties, significantly limiting the time and resources dedicated to women’s issues. This had a detrimental impact on women’s representation, as women’s issues were increasingly marginalized, and women’s participation declined. Bond described the decade as “a kind of quiet time” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). In the 2000s, the financial crisis no longer dominated the union agenda, as union membership stabilized and the political climate improved. During this decade, black and minority ethnic members made considerable progress on racial equality, particularly through the Move On Up campaign. This was a result of the institutionalization of the Black Members’ Sub-​Committee in BECTU’s first rulebook in 1991, which secured a place for racial equality on the union agenda. In 2003, the women’s conference was reintroduced as part of a wider recruitment and retention strategy to increase women’s membership and participation. As with the women’s conferences in the 1980s, these events were praised for improving women’s participation and representation on union bodies. During the decade, a women’s committee was also resurrected in the form of the Women’s Equality Committee, and in 2010 Christine Bond was elected as the first woman president of BECTU, marking a significant watershed in the union’s history. Women’s activism was revived in the 2000s; however, it lacked the militancy of the 1970s and 1980s in the absence of wider activism in the British labour movement and film and television industries.

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Conclusion This book has analysed the relationship between women and trade unions in the British film and television industries between 1933 and 2017. In doing so, it has contributed a longitudinal case study of an individual union to the British historiography on women’s trade union participation. As the Introduction illustrated, existing scholarship has primarily focused on the relationship between women workers and trade unions in unique periods of women’s union activism: during the formative years of the British labour movement from the 1870s to 1914, and during women-​led industrial disputes in the 1960s to 1980s. By developing a longitudinal case study –​the framework of which was informed by Nancy Gabin’s examination of women and the United Auto Workers (1990) –​this book has addressed its two central objectives. Firstly, it has identified discrepancies between the union’s official policies on gender equality and the experiences of women working in the British film and television industries. Secondly, it has explored the nature and experiential dimensions of women’s participation and identified the factors which enabled and inhibited their participation between 1933 and 2017. This analysis was underpinned by three central themes: the operation of the ACT(T)/​ BECTU’s gendered union structure, women’s activism within such structures, and the relationship between class and gender. This chapter summarizes the main conclusions in relation to these three themes and provides an overview of the arguments advanced in each chapter. Firstly, this book has argued that a gendered union structure was institutionalized from ACT’s establishment and maintained through a belief system that women’s issues were not trade union issues. This belief system manifested in hostility towards women’s demands from male union officials and apathy from the rank-​and-​file membership, as evidenced by their response to the recommendations of the Patterns report. Secondly, this book has advanced that separate self-​organization

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was integral to women’s activity within the gendered union structure. The impact of the Committee on Equality, established in 1973, and the formalization of women’s representation during the 1980s has illustrated that separate self-​organization provided women activists with an essential space and voice to discuss their gender-​specific concerns, develop consciousness and skills and formulate policy. This is consistent with the conclusions of feminist industrial relations scholars who have examined the function of separate self-​organization within British trade unions, including UNISON and the Transport and General Workers’ Union, from the 1980s onwards. The erosion of women’s structural gains during the 1990s consequently had a detrimental impact on women’s union participation. Furthermore, this book has emphasized the importance of external feminist allies to women’s activity within the ACTT, as illustrated by the London Women’s Film Group’s role in the establishment of the COE, and the influence of feminist debates on the future of television in the late 1970s on women’s demands for formalization. Thirdly, this book has revealed that class differences between middle-​class women in film and television production and working-​class women in the laboratories informed the direction of women’s activity at its height during the 1970s and 1980s. This chapter proceeds to review the central arguments advanced in Chapters 1–​5 to illustrate these core conclusions. Between 1933 and 1959, the ‘organizing energy’ of the ACT institutionalized a profoundly gendered union structure which informed the ACTT’s relationship with women workers throughout its history. The ‘organizing energy’, a term borrowed from Gabin’s analysis of the UAW (1990), concentrated on male-​dominated sections of the British film industry, prioritized men’s interests in its formative agreements, and mobilized a gendered definition of skill to demarcate which grades should be represented by the ACT. Alternatively, female-​ dominated grades, such as clerical workers, continuity supervisors and production secretaries, were not systematically organized by the ACT until the 1950s. While the ACT prided itself on its achievement of equal pay during the 1930s, in practice its narrow definition of skilled work in relation to male technicians effectively excluded women workers from its equal pay policy. Forty years later, the Patterns report revealed that only 25% of women workers were covered by equal pay agreements ‘in any real sense’ by the mid-​1970s (ACTT, 1975:  4). The ACT’s gendered union structure was consolidated during the Second World War, firstly, by the union’s role as the ‘official vetting body for war-​time film technicians’ (ACTT, 1983: 21), and secondly by its response to the influx of women workers through agreements

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and organizational practices which functioned to segregate men’s and women’s work, and thus safeguard men’s wages and conditions. For instance, an ultimately short-​lived Women’s Committee was established during the war as a strategy to safeguard men’s jobs, through which women were encouraged to participate in the ACT because of their ‘particular duty’ to preserve trade union organization and protect the employment rights of male technicians (Mander, August–​September 1940: 72). For the most part, the ACT’s gendered union structure was not challenged by women union activists between 1933 and 1959, beyond two isolated critiques of, firstly, women’s under-​representation in the ACT (Selby-​Lowndes, July–​August 1938:  58) and, secondly, wage differentials between men and women performing jobs with comparable responsibility (Recorder, August 1953: 97), which were featured in the union journal. The women involved in the wartime Women’s Committee believed there was little value in women-​only organization; for instance, Kay Mander (1988) commented that the committee members “weren’t the sort of women who wanted crèches” and so their meetings were “rather vague”. A feminist consciousness was not evident among ACT women activists between 1933 and 1959, which this book has attributed to the absence of external feminist allies between the first-​and second-​wave feminist movements. From 1968 onwards, women activists were encouraged to critically assess the gendered union structure of the ACTT by the favourable political climate created by an upsurge in rank-​and-​file industrial militancy and the development of the women’s liberation movement. The LWFG, a feminist film collective formed in 1972, was an important ally to ACTT women activists, as argued in Chapter 2, and provided external impetus for the establishment of the COE and the demand for an investigation into gender discrimination in 1973. For instance, the group organized a ‘Women’s Caucus, independently of the Union Committee’ to formulate three motions which were presented by women activists at the ACTT’s 1973 Annual Conference (London Women’s Film Group, 1999: 122). Women’s activity within the ACTT was informed by the interests of middle-​class women working in broadcasting. As ITV’s programming became more complex and the number of companies increased from the late 1960s, the availability of women’s jobs expanded, particularly production assistant roles, and so there was an influx of women workers into commercial television (ACTT, 1975:  30). These women sought to advance their careers beyond secretarial work into roles such as producer, director, production assistant, researcher, camera operator and editor (Women in West London

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Film Laboratories, 2016). Alternatively, gender segregation became more rigid in the laboratories during the 1960s, as the introduction of new technologies and associated job losses disproportionately impacted on women workers (Women in West London Film Laboratories , 2016). The COE was thus dominated by women from ITV and reflected their interests at the expense of working-​class women in the laboratories. The 1973 Annual Conference was a significant turning point in the relationship between women and the ACTT, because it was the first time women’s demands challenged the gendered union structure. The first motion committed the ACTT, in principle, to a number of demands which reflected those advanced within the women’s liberation movement, while the second and third motions called for an investigation into gender discrimination in the British film and television industries and the appointment of a researcher to conduct this investigation. Between 1973 and 1975, the COE concentrated on the investigation into gender discrimination. Women-​only meetings, held at shop level over the course of the investigation, enabled women members to discuss their experiences of discrimination openly and to formulate policy around their gender-​specific demands. However, women’s separate self-​organization was a serious challenge to the gendered union structure, and the union leadership and rank-​and-​file membership often acted accordingly. For instance, women’s conduct at the 1973 Annual Conference was called into question within the union journal (Teitelbaum, June 1973: 18–​19), and women’s protests against the proposed appointment of a man as the investigation’s researcher were condemned for bypassing the ACTT’s ‘democratic practices’ (Sapper, 3 December 1973). The criticism of women’s conduct within the ACTT supports Anne Munro’s observation, drawn from her analysis of female ancillary workers’ experiences of trade unionism in the mid-​ 1980s, that women’s behaviour became the focal point of discussion to dismiss their challenge to the formal meeting discourse of trade unions (Munro, 1999: 154). With the eventual appointment of Sarah Benton, a “young feminist who didn’t know anything about television or film”, over Andrew McNeil, “the person the chaps wanted”, the COE had won the argument for a feminist report (Benton, interview with the author, 18 July 2016). The Patterns report, published in 1975, illuminated widespread gender inequality within the film and television industries, quantified women’s experiences of discrimination, analysed the structures which facilitated this discrimination, and provided an extensive list of recommendations for collective bargaining. ACTT women activists anticipated that the findings of the Patterns report and its recommendations would achieve

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radical change in the union’s policies towards women workers. For instance, the report’s researcher, Sarah Benton, declared that the report would mark the ‘beginning of the practical fight for women’s rights’ at the ACTT’s 1975 Annual Conference (Anon, May 1975: 8). Furthermore, feminist film scholar and activist Claire Johnston (1975: 124–​5) described the report as ‘by far the most comprehensive and informed to have been produced within the trade union movement so far’. However, the relationship between women and the ACTT was characterized by inertia between 1975 and 1981, and the report remained ‘regrettably up-​to-​date’ six years later (Skirrow, 1981: 94). This book has identified two reasons for the ACTT’s slow progress in its implementation of the report’s recommendations, outlined in Chapter  3. Firstly, there was limited engagement with the Patterns report within the union’s rank and file, as union branches responded apathetically to the COE’s request for meetings and the membership did not read the report. This apathy was informed by a belief system that women’s issues were not trade union issues. For instance, Brian Hibbert, the shop steward at Thames TV Teddington, claimed that members did not read the report because they were instead ‘concerned with tackling immediate issues; they react to actual problems’ (Anon, September 1975:  5; emphasis added). Thus, Hibbert identified discrimination against women as a marginal issue beyond the traditional remit of a trade union. Secondly, male union officials responded to the report with hostility, as they refused to disrupt their negotiations with management by including the report’s recommendations. While there was no organized opposition to the report, male union officials implicitly communicated their reluctance to pursue women’s demands through their behaviour towards women activists. The Patterns report threatened the gendered union structure which operated in men’s interests, and so the ACTT acted to maintain the status quo through inactivity around women’s demands. Women union activists did, however, receive some support from individuals within the union leadership, specifically Alan Sapper, ACTT’s General Secretary, and Roy Lockett, Research Officer and Journal Editor. Sapper and Lockett were committed to external political movements and campaigns, and so backed women’s demands and awarded them a degree of visibility in the journal. Inertia was also perpetuated by the COE’s detachment from the formal union structure. The committee had no remit to propose motions, and so had no real power to independently pursue the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report. Instead, the COE relied on those women elected to other committees to advance their demands

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and put forward motions within a gendered union structure which continued to exclude women’s interests. Between 1975 and 1980, women activists alternatively pursued individual recommendations, including training facilities and childcare provision, through single-​issue campaigns which were local, sporadic, reliant on external resources and often initiated outside the ACTT. The lived experiences of women’s activism in a hostile union environment included struggles to accrue adequate resources and balance conflicting interests, as well as challenges to the legitimacy of their campaigns. In 1980 there was a rapid change in the direction of women’s activism. Women challenged inertia with two motions at the ACTT’s 1980 Annual Conference, which called for a renewed investigation into gender discrimination and the implementation of the recommendations of the Patterns report. The impetus for women’s activity was provided by: (i) external feminist campaigns in the television industry prompted by the introduction of a new fourth channel, the advent of breakfast television, and the reallocation of ITV franchises; and (ii) the changing structure of the industry and union which offered women activists space to pursue their demands. When the ACTT failed to make progress within the six-​month timeframe established by the two motions, ACTT women activists demanded greater separate self-​organization through a women-​only conference. The 1981 Women’s Conference was the ‘catalyst the women in the Union needed’ (Skirrow, 1981: 99), as it brought together women from the union’s leadership and rank and file, who had been campaigning in isolation. The conference provided an essential space for women to express their demands and formulate policies. The central demand to emerge from the Women’s Conference was for the formalization of women’s representation in the ACTT through the appointment of an Equality Officer, the establishment of a network of local equality representatives, an annual women’s conference, and the introduction of an equal opportunities page in the union journal. These four methods of formalization were adopted by the ACTT during the 1980s and established a network of women activists which coordinated women’s activity, facilitated the formulation of policy, and advanced women’s demands at all levels of the union’s structure, from the ACTT’s Head Office to the shop floor. The formalization of women’s representation had a significant impact on women’s political participation within the ACTT as the number of women on the union’s policy-​making bodies increased and women’s issues attained greater visibility. For example, the annual women’s conferences facilitated discussion of gender-​specific concerns and organizational strategies

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among ACTT women activists, including long-​running workplace demands, such as childcare provision, and new demands which expanded the traditional remit of the union agenda to include sexual politics, such as sexual harassment and pornography. The conferences also provided women with the opportunity to network with other ACTT women members and external campaigning organizations, and fostered women’s union participation by providing educational workshops on the structure and procedures of the ACTT. However, the impact of formalization on women’s participation was not uniform throughout the ACTT. For instance, the annual women’s conference did not adequately represent the interests of all women involved in the ACTT, as attendance was poor among working-​class women from the film laboratories and black women voiced their concern that racism was marginalized within the wider conference agenda during the Black Women’s Workshop at the 1987 Women’s Conference (Robarts, 1987). During the 1980s, women activists continued to encounter hostility and apathy from the ACTT’s male officials and rank-​and-​file membership, which had characterized their relationship with the union between 1975 and 1981. The impetus to maintain the status quo was bolstered by the socio-​politico-​economic climate of the 1980s, as the ACTT’s bargaining power was weakened by Margaret Thatcher’s orchestrated attack on organized labour and deregulation of the film and television industries. The threat of Thatcherism encouraged the ACTT to prioritize traditional union demands, such as wages and conditions, which had historically favoured male interests. As such, ACTT women’s campaigns for equal opportunities in the film and television industries were derailed as women’s activism was absorbed into the wider battle to protect jobs. Loretta Loach (1987: 67) succinctly explained the wider context as follows: ‘The issue of improving, rather than defending, public service broadcasting has unwittingly become a campaigning luxury.’ Despite the structural gains women had made within the ACTT, their material gains within the film and television industries were limited during the 1980s. In its search for survival strategies in the face of a declining membership and growing financial crisis, the ACTT voted to amalgamate with the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance, resulting in the establishment of BECTU in 1991. ACTT women activists voiced their anxiety about the impact of amalgamation on their structural gains, and these concerns were quickly proven to be justified. The relationship between women and BECTU during the 1990s was shaped by financial crisis within the union, which dramatically restricted the union’s activity and fundamentally changed

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its organizational practices. The Women’s Conference was swiftly abandoned on financial grounds in 1991, and the Women’s Committee was submerged into the GEC. The loss of these structures meant that there was no dedicated space to discuss women’s issues within the union structure. Over the course of the 1990s the role of the Equality Officer was diluted, firstly by merging the role with that of the Health and Safety Officer, and secondly by moving the focus of the role away from collective campaigns to individual discrimination cases. In 1999 the role ceased to exist altogether, and equality work was integrated into the wider duties of national officers, significantly limiting the time and resources dedicated to women’s issues. This had a detrimental impact on women’s representation, as women’s issues were increasingly marginalized, and women’s participation declined. Bond described the decade as “a kind of quiet time” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019). In the 2000s, the financial crisis no longer dominated the union agenda, as union membership stabilized and the political climate improved. During the decade, BECTU demonstrated a renewed commitment to women’s representation, signalled by the reintroduction of the Women’s Conference and the resurrection of the Women’s Equality Committee. These policies were part of a wider recruitment and retention strategy to increase women’s membership and participation; however, in the absence of wider feminist activity within the British labour movement and film and television industries, these structures lacked the energy of their 1970s and 1980s counterparts. In 2010 Christine Bond was elected as the first woman president of BECTU, marking a significant watershed in the union’s history. Reflecting on her election in her interview, Bond emphasized the central role of the women’s conference: “I mean it almost goes back to the women’s conference” (interview with the author, 19 November 2019), again demonstrating the value of women’s separate self-​organization to women’s union participation. Following Bond’s presidency (2010–​ 14) women have continued to hold the role –​Jane Perry (2014–​16) and Ann Jones (2016–​present). Their terms have coincided with a renewed financial crisis within BECTU following the financial crash of 2008 and retrenchment in the British film and television industries, which disproportionately impacted women and precipitated a decline in women’s BECTU membership. In 2017, BECTU merged with Prospect to form the BECTU Sector of Prospect. As emphasized in the introduction, women’s history emerged as an academic field of enquiry during the 1970s to inform women’s activism in the women’s liberation movement (Holloway, 2005).

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Today, the gender pay gap, sexual harassment and gender inequality in the workplace, particularly in the film and television industries, dominate mainstream conversation. From the 2014 Sony email leak to the BBC gender pay gap controversy to the 2017 allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Harvey Weinstein, women have illuminated and challenged wage inequality, gender discrimination and the endemic nature of sexual harassment in the film and television industries. In light of women’s renewed activism, this book offers a body of evidence which could support current stakeholders, such as BECTU and its Women’s Equality Committee, to effect change. This book has illustrated the main barrier to women’s trade union participation, namely a gendered structure which prioritizes men’s interests and excludes women’s interests, and highlighted the strategies which have historically facilitated women’s participation, specifically the introduction of women’s separate organizations with power to advance policy within the union structure. As such, this book offers potential ammunition for women union activists to demand further union policies on gender equality.

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Warner, H. (2018) ‘Below-​the-​(hem)line:  storytelling as collective resistance in costume design’, Feminist Media Histories 4:1, pp 37–​57. Waxman, H. and Elvin, G. (March–​April 1946) ‘Correspondence: should clerks join A.C.T.’, The Cine-​Technician, pp 41, 55. Weymont, J. (July 1984) ‘Books:  outside Orwell’s orbit’, Film and Television Technician, pp 12–​13. Wheeler, C. (September–​O ctober 1946) ‘Cinema log’, The Cine-​Technician, p 114. Wibberley, G., Bennett, T., Jones, C. and Hollinrake, A. (2018) ‘The role of trade unions in supporting victims of domestic violence in the workplace’, International Relations Journal 49:1, pp 69–​85. Williams, M. (2013) ‘The continuity girl: ice in the middle of fire’, Journal of British Cinema and Television 10:3, pp 603–​17. Williams, R. (June 1963) ‘Film pin-​ups (the bare facts about what sells pictures)’, Film and Television Technician, pp 166–​8. Wilson, E. (1980) Only Halfway to Paradise: Women in Postwar Britain, 1945–​1968, London: Tavistock. Women in Media (November 1972) ‘Women in television: questions by women in media’, Film and Television Technician, p 8. Women in Media (24 June 1974) Notes of the Meeting of Women in Media –​24th June 1974 [document] Women’s Library: Women in Media Collection, Women in Media Minutes 1974, 6WIM/​A/​01/​03. Women in Media (29 July 1974) Minutes of Meeting held on July 29 1974 at ICA [document], Women’s Library: Women in Media Collection, Women in Media Minutes 1974, 6WIM/​A/​01/​03. Women in West London Film Laboratories, 1960–​2 000 (2016) [Documentary]. Directed by Andrew Dawson and Sean P. Holmes. UK: University of Grenwich and Brunel University. Women of the Rhondda (1973) [Documentary]. Directed by Mary Capps, Mary Kelly, Margaret Dickinson, Esther Ronay, Brigid Segrave and Humphrey Trevelyan. UK: London Women’s Film Group. Wright, L. (November 1982) ‘Books: loopholes in liberation’, Film and Television Technician, p 11. Yow, V.R. (2005) Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Second Edition, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [Film]. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. USA: Metro-​Goldwyn-​Mayer  (MGM).

230

Index #MeToo  1

A Abbott, Diane  141, 148, 150, 153, 163 abortion rights  73, 112, 125–​7 ABS (Association of Broadcasting Staff)  16, 58, 122, 123, 129 Ackers, Peter  170 ACT (Association of Cine-​ Technicians)  2, 13, 16, 27–​62, 198–​9 Action! 50 Years in the Life of a Union  14, 39, 56 ACTT (Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians)  1960-​1975  63–​102 1975-​81  103–​39 1980s  141–​71 amalgamation into BECTU  178–​9 archival research sources  18–​19 and feminism  58, 71–​9, 199–​200 industrial relations scholarship  14 Patterns of Discrimination Against Women in the Film and Television Industries (ACCT, 1975)  87–​100, 103–​39 reason for focus on  2, 16 women’s structural gains  148–​63, 202–​3 advertisements  31–​2, 108, 133 Ahmed, Samira  1 AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council)  11, 12, 13 Allan, Bill  29 Amazing Equal Pay Show, The  78 Ancell, Daphne  23, 51, 61, 67, 82, 89, 94–​5, 134 see also Le Brun, Daphne Anderson, K.  20, 55 Annan Committee  129 Annual Conferences  1941  40, 47 1973  63, 77, 80–​7, 98, 101, 199 1974  98 1975  93, 104–​10, 201 1976  125

1977  108, 128 1980s  128–​32, 164, 167 1990s/​2000s  181, 183, 185, 188 Antcliff, Valerie  14, 114, 129, 130 Anti-​Discrimination Committee  79 anti-​unionism  30, 72, 143, 175, 184, 192 application processes  104 apprenticeships  37 archiving practices  15–​16, 17–​19, 60 Asquith, Anthony  38 assistant editor roles  97 Association of Film Laboratory Employers  50 Aston, L.  144, 145 ASW (Association of Studio Workers)  29

B Baehr, Helen  14, 118–​19, 129, 131, 162 Baker, Maxine  80, 82, 83 Balcon, Michael  30 Ball, Vicky  10, 11, 12, 16, 22, 39, 50, 51, 55, 60, 65, 150 bargaining powers  72, 106, 126, 143, 146, 203 Baron, Ava  4 BBC  1980s  144 ACT  58 ACTT  66, 67, 88 casualization  174 childcare  123–​4 clerical workers  52 deregulation  146 gender pay gap  1, 205 National Abortion Campaign (NAC)  125 right to union recognition  184 training provision  122 women working in  81 women’s screen credits  182 BBC Staff Association  58 Beaverbrook, Lord  38

231

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

BECTU (Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union)  1991-​2017  173–​95, 203–​4 archival research sources  17–​18 Membership Database  49, 51, 60 oral history sources  20 reason for focus on  2, 16 Beevers, D.  180 Bell, Melanie  10, 11, 12, 16, 22, 23, 39, 50, 51, 55 below-​the-​line roles  11, 22 Benton, Sarah  20, 84, 87–​100, 103, 107, 109, 113, 114–​17, 164–​5, 187, 200, 201 BETA (Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance)  2, 16, 160, 169, 173, 178–​9 BFI (British Film Institute)  17, 182 Birmingham Feminist History Group  68, 70 Birmingham Film Workshop  145 black and ethnic minority members  16, 167, 173, 176–​7, 191, 203 Black Members’ Committee  18, 150, 173, 177, 178, 190–​2, 195 black outs  146 Black Women’s Workshop  159, 203 “blacking”  156–​7 Bolland, Teresa  52, 53–​4, 55, 60, 61 Bolton, Roger  176, 181, 184 Bond, Bessie  14, 23, 53, 55–​6, 57, 58, 59, 148–​9, 187 Bond, Christine  20, 174, 176, 177, 178–​80, 181–​2, 183, 185–​6, 187, 188–​9, 190, 192–​3, 195, 204 Bonner, P.  144, 145 Bornat, Joanna  4, 5, 126 Boston, Sarah  3–​4, 5, 20, 21, 28, 40, 44, 46, 48, 49, 52, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 72, 73–​4, 79, 81–​2, 83–​4, 85, 86–​7, 90, 95, 99, 103, 107, 108, 114–​17, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124–​5, 127, 135, 136, 141, 144–​5, 147–​8, 149, 150, 155–​6, 179, 184, 187, 189 Boswell, Joan  29 Bradley, Sue  22 breakfast television  129, 202 Briskin, Linda  10, 47, 86, 96, 114, 166 British Acoustic  40 British Entertainment History Project  23, 37, 45, 59, 154 British Film Production Association  39 British labour movement  1990s  175 2000s  184 and abortion rights  125–​6 Chile solidarity  126 defensive position in 1970s  121

equal pay campaigns 1960s  69 militancy  6 Second World War  52 sexual harassment  156 solidarity with women’s movements  158 and Thatcherism  142–​3 trade union scholarship  13 up to 2012  174 women’s labour history  3–​4, 3–​9, 20, 43, 96, 116, 116–​17 women’s liberation movement  120 women’s militancy  64 Broadbent, Linda  157 Broadcasting Acts 1980/​1981/​1987/​ 1990  144, 145–​6 Broadcasting in the 90s: Competition, Choice and Quality White Paper  144, 145–​6 ‘brotherhoods’  115–​16, 165 Bruley, Sue  48, 49, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 96 Bryant and May strike  4 BUFVC (British Universities Film and Video Council)  13, 17, 22 Burns, Moya  144 Butcher, John  165, 166

C camera operators  29, 38, 82, 99–​100, 199 Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom  160 Campbell, Beatrix  107, 126, 162 cancer screenings  151, 160 Capps, Mary  78 career progression  52, 66, 99, 104, 113 Carstairs, John Paddy  69 Castle, Barbara  7 casualization  66, 124–​5, 142, 144–​5, 147, 174 censorship laws  70, 157–​8 Chanan, Michael  13, 14, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34 Channel 4  76, 129, 144–​5, 202 Chapman, Freda  181 child-​bearing  64, 100, 109 childcare  ACT  43, 46 ACTT  67, 73, 80, 97, 98 Equality Officers  151 informal activism  128 opposition to  113 and the Patterns report  104, 123–​5, 130 as threat to wages  113–​14 for union officials  185, 193 Women’s Conference  155–​6 see also crèches; nursery facilities Cinematograph Acts 1927/​1938  28–​9, 38 cine-​psychoanalysis  10

232

Index

Cine-​Technician (1935–​56)  17, 28, 31, 33, 34, 39, 41–​2, 43–​4, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 57, 58–​9, 60 Clark, Andy  6, 7 class (social)  and the ACT as a craft union  33 ACTT  170, 199 in the British film and television industries  15 career progression  113 and the COE  134, 136–​7 laboratory workers  33, 50, 98, 113, 134, 154, 159, 200 and the Patterns report  94–​5 synonymous with men’s interests  111 Women’s Conference  159 women’s labour history  7 clerical workers  12, 49–​52, 54, 82, 198 closed shops  2, 27, 38, 61, 115, 143 Cobb, Shelley  13 Code on Sexism in the Media  18 Cohen, Sheila  6, 7, 72, 114 Cole, Sid  30, 69 commercial television  58–​9, 65, 66, 67, 94–​5, 144, 199 see also specific TV companies Committee on Disability  18, 150 Committee on Equality (COE)  1980s  131 archival research sources  17, 18 burying motions  108 bypassed in individual discrimination cases  119–​20 catalysts for  63 detatchment from formal union structure  118–​21, 132, 201–​2 formalization of position  104–​5 gender discrimination investigations  80–​1, 87–​100 lack of working-​clas representation  200 and the LWFG  78, 79, 198 and male interests  168 and the Patterns report  111–​12, 115 remit  118 Research Officers  84 single-​issues campaigns  121–​8 training provision  121–​3 and women’s self-​organization  10, 85–​7, 132–​7 communication networks  112–​13 communism  55, 86 competition  59, 145 conditioning  106 Conference of Unions Catering for Women  53 conference proceeding reports  67, 80, 84, 155, 167

conflict resolution skills  68 conscription  38–​9 Conservative governments  142–​8, 174, 192 consultants  181 Continuity and Production Secretaries’ Section (ACT)  36, 54–​5, 56, 60 continuity supervisors  31, 36, 52, 54–​5, 104, 198 contraception  64, 66 Cooke, L.  60 Coote, Anna  107, 126, 150, 162 Cope, Captain Mathew  29, 30, 33 cost-​of-​living bonuses  39, 40–​1 Costume Designer’s Guild  53–​4 Cousin, Ernie  168 craft unions  30, 32–​3, 37, 39, 42, 50, 106 Craik, Bert  39, 41, 42, 43, 55, 56, 59 Cranston, Helga  53 crèches  46, 123–​4, 128, 133 Crisell, A.  146 cross-​class campaigns  38 Crum Ewing, Winifred  67–​8, 76, 77, 133 CTBF (Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund)  108, 126–​7 Cuff, Joy  156 Cummins, Terry  109–​10 Cummins, Tony  137, 167 Cunliffe, George  99 Cunnison, S.  92

D Dagenham  see Ford sewing machinists’ strike Darby, Kathy  158 Davin, Anna  3 Davis, M.  4, 5, 35 Dawson, Andrew  14–​15, 65–​6, 113 deduction at source  175 Demarcation Agreement 1947  49, 61 democratic processes  71–​2, 89–​90, 122, 178–​9 Denham laboratories  14, 41, 49, 55, 56–​7, 67 Dennington, May  46, 47 deregulation  142, 143, 144, 145–​6, 159 despatch workers  49 DeVault, Ileen A.  32–​3, 34 Devault, Marjorie  21 difference feminism  68 dilution agreements  40, 41, 44, 48 director roles  68, 82, 199 Disability Members’ Network  177, 190 Disability Workshop  159 disabled members  16, 150 Disputes Tribunal  119

233

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

Doing Women’s Film and Television History conference  11, 13 domestic responsibilities  43, 48, 53, 92, 184, 194 domestic violence  174, 186, 187–​9 Dove, Linda  78, 88, 100 drivers  41 Dworkin, Andrea  158

E Eady levy  143 education, women’s  66, 73 Egan, Andy  175 electricians  29 Elliott, Kate  177, 184, 186, 190, 194 Elliott, S.  189 Elvin, George  33, 34, 38, 44, 49–​50, 51, 56, 59 emotional labour  12, 56 Employment Act 1980/​1982/​1990  143 Employment Relations Act 1999  184 ephemera  15–​16, 17, 18, 118, 124, 127, 160 Equal Opportunities Clause  153 equal pay  ACT  28, 34, 52–​3, 60, 61–​2 ACTT  68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 83–​4, 104, 114 in the British labour movement  48, 52, 69, 117 as current issue  1–​2 documentaries  78 equal pay agreements  104, 198 equal pay for equal work  40–​1, 52–​3, 54 gender pay gap  1–​2, 141, 199, 205 Labour Party  69 TUC (Trades Unions Congress)  68 Equal Pay Act 1970  4, 71, 73, 79, 84, 119 Equal Rights Act 1963 (USA)  71 Equality + Diversity Conference  184–​5 Equality and Diversity –​A Programme of Work for 2001 and Beyond (2001)  185 Equality Clauses  159 Equality Matters  182–​3 Equality News  19, 141–​2, 151, 162–​3 equality of opportunity  1960-​1975  69, 73, 83, 84, 116 1980s  147, 165 BECTU  185 as a ‘perk’/​luxury  114, 148 Equality Officers  ACTT  136–​7, 141, 147–​53, 163–​7, 202 BECTU  173, 179–​82, 204 ‘Equality Packs’  153

equality representatives local equality representatives  141, 151 shop floor equality representatives  152–​5 Equity  160 ‘essential safeguards’  39 ETU (Electrical Trade Union)  29, 38, 49, 61, 132 European Union Charter for equal opportunities  182 Evans, Barbara  78, 79, 88, 120 Executive Committee  148, 161, 162 Extended Employment of Women Agreements  40, 41, 44

F Fabian, R.  106 familiarization day schools  122 family planning  64, 66 female-​dominated workplaces  16, 49, 51, 69 ‘feminine’ skills  31, 42, 51, 53–​4, 68 feminism  1970s  58, 68, 71, 72–​3, 199 1980s  129, 160, 168 academic feminist literature  162 and the ACTT  76, 100, 120 difference feminism  68 feminist film and television scholarship  10–​15, 16, 106, 201 feminist industrial relations scholarship  3, 9–​10, 143, 198 feminist oral history methodology  20 and left-​wing politics  73 London Women’s Film Group  13, 77–​9, 81–​2, 88, 89, 100, 106, 120, 130 and the Patterns report  96, 106–​7 proto-​feminism  35, 54, 60, 61 Second World War  46, 48 sexualization of women  70 in the television industry  129 WBFL (Women’s Broadcasting and Film Lobby)  131 wider context  198, 202 Women’s Conference  136 women’s liberation movement  2, 6, 13, 58, 66, 70, 71–​9, 80, 90, 96, 117, 120, 160, 199 Feminist Archive North (FAN)  17, 18 Feminist Media Histories  13 Fick, Irene  181 Film Act 1985  143 Film and Television Technician (FTT) (1957–​ 91)  17, 67–​9, 74–​5, 80, 83, 84, 86, 108, 109, 134, 162–​3 Film Employers’ Federation  33

234

Index

Finance and General Purposes Committee (ACTT)  88, 148 financial crash 2008  174, 192, 204 financial difficulties (BECTU)  174–​6, 180–​1, 190, 195, 203–​4 Ford sewing machinists’ strike  6, 7, 64, 72–​3, 114, 116 foreign workers, employment of  29 Fox, Jo  48 Franks, Suzanne  66 Franzway, Suzanne  56 freelancers  82, 88, 97, 99, 124–​5, 131, 174, 182, 184 FTT & BETA News (1991–​92)  17, 179

G Gabin, Nancy  8, 28, 34, 36, 51, 53, 61, 71, 197 Gaines, J.  11 Gainsborough  30 Gallagher, M.  14, 129, 130 Galt, Frances  39, 50, 51, 55 Gambles, Lyn  88, 89–​90 Garnham, Nicholas  86 Garthwaite, Al  19, 179, 186, 194 Gates, Tudor  147, 166 Gaumont-​British Studios  29, 30 gender pay gap  1–​2, 141, 199, 205 gendered socialization  80 gendered union structures  ACT  27, 48, 60, 61 ACTT  64, 74, 76, 87, 101, 110, 126, 131, 134, 136, 158, 161, 201–​2 BECTU  9, 176, 178, 197, 198–​9 industrial relations scholarship  9–​10 General Equality Committee (BECTU)  173, 174, 177, 184, 185, 188, 189–​90, 204 Gifford, Amelia  181 Gill, R.  160 Gledhill, Christine  12, 15 GMB (General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union)  2, 160 GMWU (General and Municipal Workers’ Union)  8 Goodwin, P.  144, 145 Gracie, Carrie  1 grading systems  30, 49, 54, 76, 104, 157, 182 Granada  88, 119, 124, 132 Granby, N.C.  165, 166 Grant-​Aided Workshop Production Declaration 1982  145 Greene, Anne-​Marie  170 Grierson, J.  1 Groundswell  124

Grunwick Film Processing Laboratory strike  6, 7, 8 guild organizations  30

H Hall, J.H.  165 Hallam, J.  129 Hancock, Florence  45 Harman, C.  72 Harper, Sue  11, 31 Harvey, David  121, 142, 143 Hearn, Tony  174, 175, 178 Heery, E.  9, 10, 47, 96, 150, 179 Henderson, Margaret  19 Her Point of View  182 Herd, Muriel  55 Hewitson, Edna  183 Hibbert, Brian  111, 201 Hill, Erin  12, 15–​16 Hill, J.  143–​4 Hirsch, Shirin  126 ‘History of Women in Film and Television’  12–​13, 16–​18, 20, 22 Hochscherf, Tobias  14, 28, 29 Holloway, Gerry  2, 4, 5, 48, 64, 66, 67, 81, 204 Holmes, Rachel  1 Holmes, Sean P.  14–​15, 65–​6, 113 Honeyford, S.  14, 129 Hooley, Jenny  23, 154–​5, 163 Horne, Sandra  18, 23, 147–​8, 149–​52, 153, 155, 158, 163, 164, 165, 166–​7, 187 Houghton, Nadine  1, 2 Hunt, C.  4 Hunt, Tracey  18 Huntley, J.  31

I IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees)  188 IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority)  129, 144, 145 In Camera  144 Independent  2 independent production companies  144–​5 Independent Television Commission  145 individual cases of discrimination  119, 180, 204 Industrial Relations Act 1971  72 Inner London Education Authority Educational Television (ILEA ETV)  88 integrative practice models  145 International Marxist Group  72 International Socialists  72

235

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

international solidarity campaigns  126, 166 International Women’s Day  182 intersectionality  160 inter-​union negotiations  27, 132 interview methods  20, 74 ITV  65, 94, 104, 129, 131, 141, 145, 182, 199, 202

J Jack, D.C.  20, 55 job insecurity  104, 114 Johnston, Claire  13, 14, 33, 78, 103, 106, 108, 112, 134, 201 Joint Shops Committee  20, 128 Jones, Ann  174, 192, 193, 204 Jones, Enid  51 Jones, S.G.  13, 14, 28, 29, 33 Journal of British Cinema and Television  12

K Katz, Sherry J.  15 Keenan, B.  76 Kelly, Mary  78 Kirkham, Pat  13 Kirton, Gill  9, 10, 17, 47, 92, 96, 143, 150, 173, 174, 179, 184, 192 Knight, Julia  12, 15 Knott, T.  147 Kodak advertisements  31–​2, 51 Kollontai, Alexandra  86 Kuhn, Annette  162 Kustow, Liz  76, 82, 83, 99

L Laboratory Branch Committee  112–​13 laboratory workers  1990s  181 ACT  32, 40, 56 ACTT  65, 99 class  33, 50, 98, 113, 134, 154, 159, 200 local equality representatives  154–​5 and the Patterns report  94–​5 post-​war  50 women in the Second World War  39, 40–​1 Labour Party  69, 83, 116, 117, 121 Landau, R.  100 Lant, A.  42 Lavelle, Trish  181 Lawrence, Jennifer  1 Lawrence, Stephen  190 Le Brun, Daphne  67 see also Ancell, Daphne Leach, Paddy  122

Lee Jeans factory occupation  6, 7 Leeds clothing workers’ strike  6, 7 left-​wing politics  71–​9, 127, 146–​7, 166 legal and professional services, unions providing  175 Leicester, Liz  6, 7 Lesbian Members’ Workshop  159 Lewenhak, Sheila  3–​4, 28 Lewis, J.  64, 65, 66 LGBT  16, 154 licences  129 Limitations to the Recruitment of Women in the BBC (BBC, 1973)  81 Littleton, Karen  31 Lloyd, Lynn  133, 136, 137, 170, 193 Loach, Loretta  13, 14, 129, 142, 147–​8, 203 lobbying activism  13, 38, 130 local shop women’s sub-​committees  104 Lockett, Roy  63, 84, 89, 92, 97, 111, 117, 133, 182–​3, 201 London Films  30 London TV Division  158 London Workers’ Film Society  55 Long, P.  144, 145 longitudinal studies  3–​4, 8, 11, 197 Low, Rachael  14, 28 low-​paid work  66, 83 low-​status work  66, 83 LWFG (London Women’s Film Group)  13, 77–​9, 81–​2, 88, 89, 100, 106, 120, 130 LWT  124

M Macarthur, Mary  5 MacLeod, Sheila  58 Macpherson Report  190 ‘Make Way for Women’ editorial  42 management roles  76, 77 Mander, Kay  14, 23, 36–​7, 39–​40, 41, 43, 44–​7, 49, 51, 58, 62, 199 Mann-​Francis, Pamela  51, 52 marriage  64, 65 Martin, T.  6, 7, 71 maternity leave  69, 73, 80, 94, 97–​100, 104, 119, 154 Matheson, Hilda  12 Mathew, Jan  130 McCarten, Jacki  178 McCloskey, D.  64, 66, 98 McDonald, John  126 McDowell, L.  6, 7 McHale, Ursula  67 McNeil, Andrew  88–​9, 200

236

Index

men’s jobs/​wages, safeguarding of  27, 36, 38–​9, 44–​5, 48, 62, 113–​14, 199, 203 merit-​based approaches  85 methodology  15–​23 middle-​classes  1980s  160 ACT  33, 39 ACTT  134, 199 and calls for childcare  113 and the Patterns report  95 television workers  66, 130, 134 Middleton, Harry  56, 57 militancy  ACTT (Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians) 64–​70, 101, 187 British labour movement  13, 34, 72, 73, 126–​7 Denham laboratories  56 post-​war  48 women’s labour history  5–​6, 129 Milkman, Ruth  4 Mitchell, Juliet  81 Mitchell-​Banks, Sir Reginald  30 Morgan, Marilyse  128 Morrissey, Gerry  192, 193 Moseley, Rachel  60 Moss, Jonathan  6, 7, 114 motherhood  53–​4, 64, 68, 109, 113 Move On Up campaign  191–​2, 195 Munro, Anne  9–​10, 85, 110, 111, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 126, 127, 134, 200 Murphy, Kate  12 Murray, Gillian  59, 70

New Unionism  5 NFFC (National Film Finance Corporation)  143 NFWW (National Federation of Women Workers)  4, 5, 35 night shifts  98 No Man’s Land  76 Novak, Rick  87 NUJ (National Union of Journalists)  98, 132, 160 NUPE (National Union of Public Employees)  9, 107 nursery facilities  46, 98, 123–​5 see also crèches

O Oakley, Ann  81 O’Brien, Tom  49 official positions in unions, women holding  ACT  45, 55, 56 ACTT  67, 68, 70, 80, 85, 92, 112–​13, 148, 150, 161, 202–​3 BECTU  174, 178–​9, 181, 183, 185, 192–​4 oral history methodology  15, 19–​23 overtime pay  29

P

N NAC (National Abortion Campaign)  125 NATE (National Association of Theatrical Employees)  29 National Conference of Labour Women  53 National Film School  97, 99, 121, 130 NATKE (National Association of Theatrical, Television and Kine Employees)  16, 38, 49, 50, 52, 61, 132, 156, 178 NCCL (National Council for Civil Liberties)  150, 160 NEC (National Executive Committee) BECTU  17, 177, 181, 183, 185, 186, 188 Neill-​Brown, J.  29, 30 neoliberalism  74, 142 networks  127, 128, 142, 148, 153, 163, 202 New Left  70, 71–​9

PACT (Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television)  182–​3 Parliamentary reports  52–​3 participant recruitment  22 paternity leave  104, 154 patriarchy  30, 32, 47–​8 Patterns of Discrimination Against Women in the Film and Television Industries (ACCT, 1975)  103–​39 and the 1975 Annual Conference  104–​10 and the ACT as a craft union  33 appointment of researcher  87–​90, 200 archival research sources  18 dissemination  92, 94, 108–​9, 110–​11, 117 equal pay  34, 198 feminist industrial relations scholarship  14 implementation of recommendations  112–​39, 142, 155, 169, 200–​1, 202 influence of LWFG  79 logistics of investigation  90–​8 male opposition to  109, 111, 112–​13, 114–​17, 132, 166, 187, 197 oral history sources  21 questionnaire  94

237

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

rank-​and-​file apathy  110–​14 television workers  82 Women’s Conference  132–​7 Patterns of Inequality D302: ‘A Woman’s Work …’ (1975)  113 Paul, Jane  176, 179–​80, 181 Peacock Report 1986  144 Pearson, Winifred  44, 56 pensions  99 Pereira, Chris  168 Perry, Jane  174, 192, 204 Petley, J.  157 Phillips, Anne  31 phone lists  127, 128 picketing  88, 143 Pinewood  53 pin-​up girls  69–​70 Pollert, Anna  129 pornography  156, 157–​8, 162, 167, 203 Portelli, A.  21 Porter, Laraine  13 positive discrimination  85, 89, 191 presidents, female  174, 192–​4, 204 Price, Katherine  89 privatization  142, 143 producer roles  68, 82, 199 production assistants  65, 104, 199 production quotas  145 production secretaries  52, 54–​5, 104, 198 professional identity  30 projectionists  49 promotion possibilities  69 ‘proper safeguards’  44, 48 Prospect  26, 174, 192, 204 Prospero  22 protectionist policies  98 proto-​feminism  35, 54, 60, 61 publicity workers  49, 51, 52

Q questionnaire (Patterns report)  94 quota systems  80, 121, 143

R race  7, 150, 159, 173, 177 Race, Reg  146–​7 Rank  51, 52, 154 Raw, L.  4 Readman, Hilary  19, 154 recession (1970s)  106, 112 recruitment and retention  104, 184–​90 redundancy  41, 129 re-​grading demands  114 Reid, Ian  2, 28, 33, 37, 38, 49 relationship skills  68 Repair and Despatch Strike (1946)  49 Research Officers  84, 89

reserved occupations  38, 48 retirement  99 retrenchment  192 Rhodes, Phil  191 Richards, Yvonne  67, 74, 132 right to union recognition  184 right ​wing of the union  127, 166 Ritchie, Claire  82 Robarts, Sadie  150, 151, 153, 154, 157, 158, 159, 160, 170–​1, 179 Roe, T.  31 Rolls Royce equal pay strike  52 Ronay, Esther  78, 82, 88, 92 Rowbotham, Sheila  81 Royal Commission on Equal Pay  52–​3 Ruddick, G.  1 Rules Revision Conferences  152–​3, 163, 167, 176–​7 Ruskin College conference  80 Russell, David O.  1 Ryan, Michelle  162

S Sachs, Gloria  67 Samuels, Jacqui  112–​13 Sapper, Alan  87, 88–​9, 117, 146, 166, 200, 201 Sayce, Susan  170 Scanlon, Hugh  117 scenic artists  49 Schiller, Melanie  176 Screen  106, 134 screen credits  182 Seaton, Jane  66, 76, 144 Second World War  27, 34, 36, 38–​47, 61, 198–​9 secondary picketing  72 Segal, L.  72, 120 Segrave, Bridget  76 segregated working  14–​15, 30, 34–​47, 49, 64–​6, 104, 199, 200 Selby-​Lowndes, Alison  34, 35, 36, 54–​5, 61, 199 self-​organization, women’s  1980s  131, 166 ACT  35 ACTT  10, 22, 82, 85–​6, 97–​8, 100, 101, 114, 132–​7, 166, 200 BECTU  173–​4, 186–​7 and the Committee on Equality  118 integral to women’s activity  197–​8 Second World War  47 see also Women’s Conferences separate-​spheres ideology  68, 113 sex discrimination legislation  98, 119 sexist ideologies  106, 128, 130

238

Index

sexual harassment  151, 156–​7, 180, 186, 203, 205 Sexual Harassment Report (Benn, 1985)  156 sexual politics  156–​7, 158 sexual violence  120 Sexuality Committee  18, 150 Shapiro, Susan  78 Sheffield Film Co-​operative  145 Shemmings, B.  113 shopping leave  43 Short, Clare  157 short-​term contracts  124–​5, 174 sick leave  99 silent films  11 single-​issues campaigns  121–​8, 202 Sippings, Dennis  133 skill definitions  and class  39 ‘feminine’ skills  31, 42, 51, 53–​4, 68 film technicians as skilled professionals  30 gendered  27, 28, 30–​3, 34, 50, 51, 61, 198 studio workers  39 Skillset survey 2010  192 Skinner, Ann  51 Skirrow, Gillian  13, 14, 104, 119, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 201, 202 Smith, Charles  109, 110 social event organization  44 Somerville, Mary  12 Sony email leak  1, 205 sound technicians  38, 49 Spare Rib  100 Stage Screen and Radio (1992–​present)  17, 22, 174, 179, 181, 184, 190 Stageman, J.  92 Standing Joint Committee of Working Women Organizations  46 Standing Orders Committee (SOC)  108, 148 Stephenson, J.D.  20 Stevenson, George  6, 7, 8, 20, 116, 117 strikes  6–​7, 49, 64, 72, 116–​17, 143 student movements  71, 72 Sub-​Committee on Discrimination Against Women (ACTT)  62, 63, 81, 92, 98 Summerfield, Penny  38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 47, 48, 52

T Taylor, Barbara  31 Taylor, Stephanie  31 “technician,” definition of  50 Technicolor Laboratories  51

technological change  29, 60, 65, 114, 131, 146 Teitelbaum, Irving  84–​6, 110, 200 television industry  ACT  58–​60, 65, 68, 77 ACTT  82, 88 feminism  129 financing film production  144 gendered archiving practices  60 shops  119 training  122–​3 temporary employment  40, 41 TGWU (Transport and General Workers’ Union)  9, 45, 198 Thames Television  82, 83, 88, 89, 119, 122, 124, 146, 150, 201 Thatcherism  142–​8, 164, 174, 184, 203 Thom, Deborah  4, 5 Thompson, Paul  19 Thomson, Margaret  14 Thoyts, Liz  125 Thumim, J.  59 Tillion, Germaine  116 Time’s Up  1 Todd, S.  71, 143 token hires  76 Toye, Monica  14, 55, 56–​8, 67 Trade Union Act 1984  143 Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993  175 training  1990s  182 ACT  37 ACTT  80, 98–​100, 121–​3 BECTU  185, 186 cross-​union training  122 equal opportunities  73 gender discrimination investigations  97 laboratory workers  66 and the Patterns report  104 Second World War  48 unions providing  176 in using equipment  97, 99 for women activists  185 women-​only  99–​100 Trico equal pay strike  6–​8, 116 TUC (Trades Unions Congress)  abortion rights  125–​6 Charter 1979  143 childcare  98, 123 conferences  68 equal pay  74, 116, 117 Equality Audits  189 Equality award  191 equality guidelines  153 Weekend Schools for women trade unionists  53

239

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM BEHIND THE SCREENS

‘Winning Equal Pay: The Value of Women’s Work’  116 women trade union membership  65 Women Workers’ Group  5 Women’s Advisory Committee  35 Women’s Conference  52, 53, 194 WTUL (Women’s Trade Union League)  5 Turner, Janice  176, 177, 184, 185, 191–​2 Tyne Tees  88, 89

U UAW (United Auto Workers)  8, 28, 34, 36, 53, 71, 197 unemployment  66, 112, 117, 143 unionization  1930s  28 1990s/​2000s  184 ACT  27 archival research sources  18–​19 of clerical workers  51 film and television industries  14 motivations for  28–​9 Second World War  38, 48 UNISON  9, 117, 198 unpaid work  92–​3 USA  American culture  59 American women’s labour history  8–​9, 28 funding of British film industry  112 licences  129 Reaganism  142 UAW (United Auto Workers)  8, 28, 34, 36, 53, 71, 197 Women and Film  76

V Varley, Fred  167–​8 Varley, Julia  5 vetting bodies  27, 38, 48, 198 Video Recordings Bill  157 violence, onscreen  157, 162 voluntary roles  55, 92–​3

W Walby, Sylvia  30, 32, 39, 65 Wallace, Laurie  178 Warner, H.  54 Watts, Margaret  193 Waxman, Harry  49–​50, 51 WBFL (Women’s Broadcasting and Film Lobby)  13, 130–​1 Weinstein, Harvey  1, 205 welfare state  66, 142 Weymouth, Judith  167

WFTVN (Women’s Film, Television and Video Network)  18–​19, 153–​4, 160, 161, 163 Wheatley, Helen  60 Wheeler, C.  44 Wibberley, Gemma  188 Wilkes, Jenny  78, 82, 83 Williams, Linda Ruth  13 Williams, Melanie  31, 36 Williams, R.  69 Wilson, Elizabeth  53, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70 Wilson, Eve  46, 47 Winston, Adele  20, 21, 127, 128, 156, 170 Women and Film  76 Women in Entertainment  130 Women in Media  13, 18, 76–​8, 100 Women in West London Film Laboratories (2016)  32, 65–​6, 82, 113, 199–​200 Women Members’ Committee  18, 19, 150–​1, 158, 169–​70, 173, 177, 179 ‘Women Organising for Growth’  185 Women Workers and the Trade Unions (2015)  20, 21–​2 women-​only groups  82, 123–​4, 133 women-​only meetings/​spaces  96–​7, 99–​100, 123, 132–​7, 155–​61, 176, 186, 200 Women’s Broadcasting Committee  182 Women’s Caucus  81–​2 Women’s Committee (ACT)  35, 43, 44–​7, 61–​2, 199 Women’s Conferences  1978 national women’s liberation conference  120 2000s  184, 185–​7, 204 ACT  52, 53 ACTT  18, 104, 132–​7, 141, 148, 149–​50, 153, 155–​61, 168, 173–​4, 202 BECTU  176, 182, 189, 193–​4, 204 funding of  166–​7 Women’s Equality Committee  190, 204, 205 women’s film and television history  10–​15 Women’s Film and Television History Network –​UK/​Ireland  11 Women’s Film Pioneers Project  11 Women’s History Review  13 Women’s Introductory Technical Workshop  99, 121, 123 women’s labour history  3–​9, 20, 96, 116–​17 women’s liberation movement  2, 6, 13, 58, 66, 70, 71–​9, 80, 90, 96, 117, 120, 160, 199 Women’s Library  18

240

Index

Women’s Officers  45, 93, 112 women’s working committee  189 Woodley, Jenny  178 workforce share, women’s  64 working hours  29, 98, 130 working mothers  109, 113 Working Time Directive  180 working-​class  women  ACT  33, 47 ACTT  154 attendance at conferences  203 and the COE  134, 137

and the Patterns report  94–​5 protectionist policies  97–​8 studios versus laboratories  50 work-​ins  72 WTUL (Women’s Trade Union League)  4, 5, 35

Y Yorkshire subsection, film production branch (ACTT)  112–​13, 126 Yorkshire Television  119 Yow, Valerie Raleigh  20–​1

241

“A clear call for renewed attention on unions and women union activists’ role in the contemporary fight for gender equality, this book is vital, not only for historians, but for all of us who fight for change now.” Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton

“Exhaustively researched and persuasively argued, Galt’s study offers important new perspectives on patterns of gender discrimination both in the film and television industries and in the organised labour movement.” Sean P. Holmes, Brunel University, London

“Galt’s wonderfully original and thoroughly researched book makes a vital contribution to women’s history, expanding our understanding of women’s experience and gender equality struggles in the film and TV industries.” Arthur McIvor, University of Strathclyde

“The issues addressed in this well-researched and beautifully written book are important and topical: gender inequality in film and TV and how to fight it. The history traced here is both sobering and inspiring.” Penny Summerfield, University of Manchester

Frances C. Galt is a Teaching Associate at Newcastle University.

Frances C. Galt explores the role of trade unions and women’s activism in the British film and television industries in this important contribution to debates around gender inequality. The book traces the influence of the union for technicians and other behindthe-camera workers and examines the relationship between gender and class in the labour movement. Drawing on previously unseen archival material and oral history interviews with activists, it casts new light on women’s experiences of union participation and feminism over nine decades. As concerns about the gender pay gap, women’s rights and harassment continue, it assesses historical progress and points the way to further change in film and TV.

ISBN 978-1-5292-0629-6

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