Recorded Memories

Mr & Mrs Bateman Interviews. October 1998.

A variety of jobs in the hosiery including full time union rep and other memories 1934-1980s:‘Most of the bosses were working me who saved enough money to buy a set of machines…’

‘At one time there was a list got out by the union for all the different jobs and that list was stuck to but later on they introduced work study…’

Ray became a full time union rep for the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers (NUHKW), receiving a cut-glass bowl from a Welsh manufacture upon his retirement.

There were always two sides to the whole thing – ‘a manufacture needed to make a profit providing the workers get some of it’.  While working as a District Secretary down south, ‘my own committee didn’t like me’.  He didn’t meet up with them on a social basis, he didn’t smoke or drink and told them ‘home-truths’.  Workers often felt that the company they were working for were always doing well but this wasn’t always the case and ‘if there’s no profit you can’t share it’.  Once you were in a meeting you stayed until you got a result – one meeting they went in at 2.30 and came out at 8 o’clock while negotiating the annual pay rise - they got more than the men had asked for! 

He covered a huge area which included Leicester to the south coast, all of Wales and London and could travel hundreds of miles between factories and after a meeting would go back to the office.  The Hinckley area always very close-knit with a lot of factories and if there was dispute it would be the ‘general topic’ of conversation. In other areas, however, down south and Wales the factories were isolated – Ray could travel hundreds of miles between factories.

Fully fashioned knitters were the best paid factory floor workers, followed by the countermen – sweepers-up, yarn carriers and so on were on a fair wage in relation to other trades in the town.  The most common disputes included shift work and piece rate particularly as far as the girls were concerned.  At one time the union issued a list that everyone ‘stuck to’ but then a ‘work study’ approach was introduced and this caused many problems and arguments – you had to work out a rate for a job – so much a dozen – ‘do a fair days work for a fair days pay’.  But there was a great variation what a girl could do – some girls were naturally turning out 500-600 dozen while another girl did 2 dozen.  Ray felt he had to be a ‘diplomat’ working with management and factory floor workers.  Some girls got into work 10 minutes early and left five minutes later than everyone else.

The majority of people in the Hinckley area were union members, Ray felt that this had changed in Leicester because of Asian influence.  As an Executive Committee, members were aware of changes – the bulk of production was moving overseas.  They visited Germany, Italy and America.  Courtaulds bought up a lot of firms in the 1960s including Percy Taylor, Beasley’s, Lockley and Garner among others.  Ray felt at the time of the interview that ‘we are losing the battle’. Numbers employed in the industry had decreased, only five or six companies left in the town. Ray has no real feelings towards industry – it was a means of earning a money – got a living to make.