Trade unionism in the Witney blanket industry

Witney has been the site for both textile and blanket manufacture since 1669. Trade Unionism came very late and was not well established until the late 1930s. In those days it required great courage not only to join a union but also to seek negotiating rights with the employer and even more courage to be a shop steward.

During the 20th century four companies produced blankets at Witney. The oldest, Early's of Witney Ltd was formed in 1669, followed by Smith's, Marriott's, and Walkers from Yorkshire. Early's and Marriott's merged in 1960. All companies eventually recognised unions and jointly established good industrial relations. That is not to say there were not periods of hard bargaining and occasional strikes.

The industry was lucky because an organisation called The Workers' Union, which catered for all employees regardless of which industry employed them, skilled or semi-skilled, blue or white collar, arrived at Witney from the West Country and began the process of recruiting blanket workers. The employers may not have realised it at the time but they were to be blessed with single unionism.

These members eventually became the foundation of the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) when the old Workers' Union merged with the TGWU in 1924. The TGWU was the only union to have negotiating rights for both blue and white collar employees right up to 2002 when blanket production ceased.

When Jack Thomas was appointed Oxford District Secretary of the TGWU in 1937 one of his early tasks was to make contact with Witney blanket workers and start the process of building membership and establishing negotiating rights. At its peak membership reached 1,200 consisting mainly of blue collar and some white collar employees.

Wage negotiations were held at Bristol through the West of England Joint industrial Council for the Woollen and Worsted Trades (JIC). When Witney employees complained of low settlements from the JIC in the 1970s, David Buckle, who had succeeded Jack Thomas in 1964, accused the Witney employers of using the JIC as a 'protection society' helping to keep wages low. This became a big issue when blanket workers continually compared their earnings with other firms in Oxfordshire. A demand for local bargaining gathered speed in the belief that this would provide better terms and conditions and higher pay awards. All three companies at first resisted claims for a local rate, but eventually an agreement was reached and local wage negotiations were resolved at Witney thereafter. Negotiating wages and conditions at Bristol had always seemed too far away and unfair for most Witney blanket employees.

The industry faced some important developments after the Second World War, which impacted on union membership. One example was the introduction of new technology in the form of Fiberwoven blankets during the early 1960s when Early's introduced this new method of production to try and meet the challenge of duvets. As the demand for duvets rose, sales of blankets declined. Neither Smith's nor Walker's had an answer to this problem and eventually they went out of business.

Fiberweaving involved bringing in new methods of production and extra shifts, which in turn required difficult negotiations with the TGWU. The company involved the union at a very early stage, thus ensuring the new system was introduced in May 1965 without any serious industrial relations problems.

However Fiberwoven blankets required much less time to produce than the traditional method and that meant a loss of many jobs in the weaving sheds. With the co-operation of the union, the first redundancy payments scheme was agreed.

By the year 2000 union membership was down to about 100, caused by the closure of Smith's and Walker's mills, with only Early's surviving into the late 1990s because they diversified into other products such as carpet tiles. They were then taken over and all production ceased in 2002. In 2002 the last Early's factory on the site of the original mill was demolished and the site turned into a housing estate.

During the 1970s and 1980s many industries both national and local experienced serious industrial relations problems. Witney had some, but no where near as serious as the mining and the car industry. The decline of manufacturing blankets at Witney had more to do with the lack of demand due to sales of duvets rather than to militant trade unionism. It would seem that both employers and employees at Witney had learned from the past and the experience of other industries.

However, there was a time at Witney when resolving disputes could take a nasty turn. According to Plummer and Early in their book 'The Blanket Makers', when some workers wanted a pay rise in 1794 and met resistance from their employers, they issued the following threat:

'This is to inform you, Sirs, that there is an agreement made between some Men that whoever will not give the gurniemen weavers the two pance a nowhor i say take care of Your Selvs or you will die, and wat a thing to die for oppressing the Poor, i tell you in a word you shall die, two or three in pertickler of the masters without a spedi Reformation.' [1]