Alan Weaver
Have you checked the loose change in your pocket or purse today? Got a 50 pence piece? How would you feel if you had to work a fifty-hour week for that one coin?
Well, in 1910 the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath won an industrial dispute which gave them a weekly income of 50p – ten shillings in those days – for working long hours in poor conditions as their means of earning a living. This level of income was only achieved through one of the most important labour disputes of the last century which took place in the Black Country.
