| Description | An interview with Dave OSBORNE, a married man with one son, who is a Trade union official, born in Lower GornaL and now living in Solihull. Dave OSBORNE’s father was a Tool setter, born in England and his mother a Office worker born in England. In the interview, he talks about …
'DAVE OSBORNE MS2255/2/126 Logged by Lorraine Blakemore
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I’m a Senior Regional Industrial Organiser with the Transport & General Worker’s Union….I was born in a little village in the Black Country…on 9th April, 1946. No recollection of his father. Parents divorced soon after his birth. Raised by grandparents and lived with them for 23 years until he married. Mother eventually remarried.
1.22 Sporting activities at school. Explains how his stature enabled him to be a good runner.
2.42 Story about switching from short trousers to long trousers as a child.
3.08 Describes Lower Gornal village where he grew up and how it’s changed.
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Wanted to become a sportsman. Not interested in the usual professions for a boy of his background.
1.08 Grandmother was a religious woman and influenced Dave. Uncle active in local church. Sent to a Methodist chapel. Enjoyed singing.
3.01 Story about recitation at the chapel.
3.48 My family had strong views about the way they should vote….My grandfather was a miner….
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When I tried to persuade my grandmother that we needed to bring about changes in society….She used to say, David, there will always be master and man…establishing the class image…
1.04 Church established a junior training corps. Played football between other churches.
2.51 Story about getting expelled from choir practice.
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Story about childish pranks that resulted in police intervention.
1.24 Feels indebted to the care and love from his grandparents. Elaborates.
3.00 Mother’s role in his upbringng.
4.22 Mother met a man and decided to get married. Dave decided not to go and live with her.
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Suffers from psoriasis.
1.15 Brother also lived with grandparents.
1.56 Grandparents were loving but very strict.
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Attended a secondary modern school in the village. Bright at school, but failed at 11+. Progressed academically between the ages of 15 and 25.
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Excelled at sports. Encouraged to remain at school for an extra year and passed exams. Appointed deputy head boy. Left at 16.
2.09 I began employment at Round Oaks Steelworks….which is the site of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre….Nepotism got me that job….Gives details.
3.30 Story about making mistakes at work.
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1.07 I went on this training course, which meant I went to different departments all round the plant….Gives background to employment in the area.
2.06 It was a 2 year course and I came to an office which was a statistics/ central records office…. Asked by manager to leave the course and work there full-time.
3.02 Worked with someone from the same village who offered transport to and from work.
3.24 Story about meeting his first wife.
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Continued.
44” I was active in the union then….Through a friend, he was an active Labour Party member, I wasn’t at the time….but got involved in the Labour Party through the 1964 General Election and then 1970….We were part of the Staff Branch of the Steelworkers' Union…we had no bargaining power, they only listened to the workers in those days….On of my duties was to collect the union money…This is how he came to meet up with his wife-to-be. Emphasises how shy he was from his teenage years to the age of 30.
3.09 Story about their first date.
4.50 Story about her suffering from a burst appendix.
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54” First met in May, 1966. Got engaged in 1968. Story about revealing their intentions to the family.
1.54 I’m quite happy to say….that me and my wife were both virgins when we got married….
2.51 Story about obtaining their first accommodation.
3.57 There was a car on the forecourt….I hadn’t got 65 pence, but I did a terrible thing. I wrote a cheque out for the deposit….and agreed to pay out the rest on hire purchase…
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Drove his new car illegally before passing his test.
30” Moved back to live with his wife’s family. Nursed uncle who had lung cancer. Stresses how difficult it was during this time.
2.07 Moved into a high-rise council flat in Brierley Hill. Son born.
3.28 Moved to a 3-bedroomed council house in 1978.
4.01 Whilst working in the Statistics Central Records Office, became involved with the work’s football team. Gives details of how he progressed.
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Job became available as Assistant to work’s Accountant. Dave got the job, but after a while moved back upstairs to Cost Section in 1970.
1.11 Even in those days, although it was only 30 years ago….they’d not got a computer system. They decided then to introduce computers into the company for the first time and they looked for a mixture of people….Elaborates on the selection procedure.
4.02 His salary increased by 33%.
4.46 There were some bright people there and there were also some prejudiced people there….there was me, the only person in that department who didn’t go to grammar school…
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And the conversations were along the lines of, anybody who failed the 11+ must be a drop-out…..I felt that they had an advantage over me….One of the other people who got a job was the Labour Party lad who was in the Statistics department….
46” Wife suffered a miscarriage. Both became depressed.
1.25 My attitude towards work seemed to change as a result of it. And then one day there I was programming away…I looked round the office and I could see my coat hanging on the coathanger, and this is a decision I took in a split second that changed my life….Why an I here?….
2.41 In 1972 I actually got elected as a Labour councillor for Dudley….
3.12 Failed to be appointed to a new job after leaving Round -Ooak.
3.20 Story about the possibility of a job at Longbridge car factory.
4.30 I didn’t tell my wife that I’d walked out and for several months I pretended that I was still working. I was going out early in the morning…I was terrified to tell her…
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Describes first day at Longbridge.
They put me on the track and it was fitting the rear harness…within the time-cycle of about 3 minutes….I thought anybody can do that job, what a joke!….I did that job and….when I got up I was about 4 cars away from where I should have been to finish the job and of course, a track is a psychological barrier that you have to break down and the more you rush…the worse it is….It got to the point where I got to dreaming about doing the job on the track….
2.20 Social activities with colleagues during breaks.
2.44 The unions were very high profile in the car industry and I used to engage in debate about the unions and the politics….so much so…The annual elections for Shop Steward took place 12 months later….The thought of that terrified me…We went to the meeting and they nominated me….I was that shy to say I decline in front of 800 people that I got elected! …..
4.31 For the first time I started to see people in struggle, what it’s really like….
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I also had a debate with myself…How best can I play my part in favour of ordinary working people? ….It would have to be through the organised Trade Union Movement. They reorganised the local government in 1974….
1.17 Discusses his involvement with colleagues Jack Adams and Derek Robinson.
3.16 The Communist Party was very well organised within the plant and in 1976 I joined…and retained membership until 1986…
4.04 I was a full-time trade unionist from 1976-1980….When Thatcher came to power there was a concerted attack on the trade unions…She went about that very cleverly, each of the major disputes that happened in the 1980s were all in public industries using taxpayer’s money to do it….
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32” Who was the most unpopular leader?, Derek Robinson…. Details how Thatcher created a split and led to Robinson being sacked.
3.16 Apart from dismissing Derek, they also tightened up on the activities of the shop stewards organisation….The ‘70s was perceived to be the unions running industry….
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Story about giving support to Derek Robinson on that day at the park.
1.42 We went through many crises at Longbridge….I have referred to 1974 when the company went bankrupt….200,000 employees….As the years went on the labour force declined….the regime was run by fear…it was all about tightening the work standards, reducing what they perceived to be the over-manning in the industry and strict financial measures….
3.01 Thatcher wanted everything out of the public sector…..Gives details.
3.41 Two months after I’d been elected the convenor of the plant it was left to me to organise the campaign to stop the Ford takeover….Explains how.
4.38 There were 50 full-time shop stewards.
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Edwards deemed that there would be no full-time facilities anymore, only 2 people: works convenor and Chair of Works Committee….
1.30 Graham Day replaces Edwards.
2.03 Story about being chosen as Convenor in 1986.
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How he had to be much more assertive as convenor.
First contact with the media.
2.16 I was involved politically in the union as well as the workplace. I was invited by the broad Left of the union to seek the position…in Executive Council…There was a political battle going on in the union from 1986-88….Details.
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Dave was the youngest convenor ever elected.
48” In 1988 a job appeared as a full-time officer in Birmingham….Complications ensued over the appointment.
2.36 I left Longbridge on 9th December, 1988….commenced employment with the T&G on 12th December…
3.01 In 1992 there was a retirement in the union and the regional secretary moved me back into manufacturing….
3.20 Domestic life suffered at the time. Story about meeting his second wife. Lived together for some time before getting married.
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In 1992…the unions saw it necessary to make a change….Details.
From that time I took up all Rover membership….
1.10 There was a confidence that in the long term, we’d have a new company, premium product….Elaborates.
3.15 When I heard about this press release in the German newspaper….The members were totally demoralised….We were witnessing the break up of the company…Details the ways in which it could have been saved.
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Alchemy were asset strippers.
1.27 We needed to mount a massive public campaign against BMW….It was left to me….The decision was made to mount the Rover Rally on 1st April…
4.12 Organisational disagreements with certain ‘personalities’.
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How the car industry is vital to the city and economy.
1.35 Help from the city council.
2.53 Paved the way for the Phoenix Consortium to purchase the company. Immediate future of Rover.
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We worked as part of a team….We had these meetings every day….I went to Masshouse Circus….
56” I looked round and there was nobody. I felt in glorious isolation, but within a very short space of time, people started to turn up….I could see the procession lining up….I was the organiser, and when you do these things in conjunction with the local authority, the police and everyone else, the buck stops with you….The feeling I had that day marching with 80,000 people was one that filled me with pride….
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Continued.
ENDS. |