With the many factories in Silvertown and the docks, work was not always difficult to find if you were prepared to work long hours for low wages. The only protection that the working class had were the unions but they could not do much for the workers in hard times.
"My father worked at Tate and Lyle piling sugar. Men would work in teams of four piling 200 Two cwt (approximetly 120 Kilo) weight bags of sugar. Before that he took whatever work he could get as a navvy with string round his trousers."
- BD
"My dad was a Labourer, he would stand outside the Docks and outside Lyles trying to get work. This was in the 1930s there was no work about so he did various jobs, he then got a good steady job working for E.W.Rudd. They used to put big machinery in factories and dad was a Driver's Mate. It was because of that he did not go into the armed forces during the war. My dad worked there till he retired."
- IB
"It was really busy here - there would be the old steam trains always packed solid and they would run on this line. Then you had the docks, ten thousand five hundred worked just as dockers and in the steam port. It was noisy until six when everything closed. Then it was just the pubs that were very busy.
"And you could go on what we called the stumps, and you would wait to pick up a job, if you didn't fancy the job you didn't hand your book in."
- MG
"There was a lot of work locally, the big employers were Tates, Crosse & Blackwells and Phillip Morris, the cigarette firm. There were other small places, but they were the big employers, and of course the docks. Most of the people round here worked in those places and there weren't many people who worked outside of Silvertown.
"So many went into Tates and had apprenticeships there. Mick was an apprentice there at one time and then he went to the docks and worked in the docks most of his working life. Then he worked at Phillip Morris after the docks closed."
- RG
"The London docks was a major source of employment for the surrounding local communities, many generations of East Enders held jobs for life until the docks closed in the 1980s. Many not only lost jobs and livelihood and never worked again, but also most missed the camerardery and solidarity that kept workers united.
"Not every one was working, the poverty was real poverty not like today. My father was a docker he was one of the registered dockers he had a dockers ticket, but that did not always guarantee him work."
- VT
"The population was very high and there was a lot of unemployment. The industry and the various companies that ran the docks had systems and they ran the docks like a belt, they all had their regular workers, it was hard at times to find work. The Stevedores had a ticket to work in the docks they were very hard to get, you needed to be born into a family of stevedores.
"The workers did suffer, if they didn't have a white ticket, they would wait outside the dock gate to see if there was any work. And the fighting that went on when I was a kid, especially outside Tate and Lyles. Men would line up daily hoping to get a days labour.
"They would have their busy periods, when they would have to take on casual workers and when they did it was a scramble, the manager would come down with a handful of cheques for a days work and he would throw the cheques into the air, and there'd be a scramble to get a cheque. If you got a cheque you got a days work. That applied to all the industry along the belt. And so life wasn't easy. It was grim for people - I can remember the time I was sent to the local shop to see if I could get an egg for my father's breakfast on tick, that's all we could afford one egg. Things weren't awfully easy."
- BD
Men would line up daily hoping to get a days labour
"My Dad worked in Hollis's, the timber firm. And there was a dispute there I don't remember the details but he was lucky and the union got him a docker's ticket, and through my father, that is how I got my docker's ticket.
Well, you had perms, what we called perms (permanent men), and they worked for a company, and you had port men. I was a port man, same as all my family, we were all port men."
- MG
"The industrial belt down the river it was a golden mile the docks here was flourishing. The Local Authority never got a penny out of the docks as they held a special charter from the crown which exempted them from paying any rates. The only income from the docks was by the various spin offs such as Ships Chandlers, Paint Factories and other local industries that serviced the docks."
- BD
"I went into the Army in 1946 and came out in 1948 and then went into the docks where all my family had worked for 50 years as stevedores and dockers, that was our family trade. All the male members of the family, that included cousins, brother-in-laws they were all docker stock. That was how you got your dockers ticket through your father. Dockers were always casual work, and it wasn't until 1920 that under the Shaw Award they took part of the casual system out by giving registration to people who applied to be hired for work down there. And from that registration that was the only way you could get work. That was controlled by the Trade Union Branches, so that's how it became that you could only be nominated at your branch by your father."
- MG
All the male members of the family, that included cousins, brother-in-laws they were all docker stock.
"I remember a person saying to me "Look, ships, no one wants to sail a ship all the way up the Thames, ships only make money when at sea, it costs money when they come to port". The people who recognised that in the beginning, also realized with containerisation, the docks were doomed. There was an attempt to stave off the inevitable for a while by using containers in the docks.
"It was the beginning of the end and by this time they were beginning to build 100,00 ton ships. There was no way a ship of that size could come up the Thames, you could only get ships that size into a sea port and there they could be turned around in a day."
- BD
Throughout the 1920s to the present day the stuggle for equal pay for women continues to be a main priority for Women Trade Unionists. In 1968 the 50th anniversary of the first achievement of women's suffrage, the women machinist at Ford's in Dagenham started their strike for equal pay. In 1969 The National Joint Action for Women's Equal Rights was established. Women around the country were united in their demand for equality. The Equal Pay Act introduced in 1970 was the result of a successful campaign, Women Trade Unionists had played an important role. The act improved the working pay and conditions for many women. Iris, a Trade Union delegate for many years, recalls the many changes:
"I needed to go to work my dad said, "factory you have never worked in a factory, you will never like it". But I needed the work. I started in November, I said I will give it till Christmas and then I wont be coming back. After Christmas I thought about it the money came in handy and so I stayed for twenty-three years.
"I started in the icing sugar department that was awful, it was like a smog the icing sugar was everywhere; I used to feel sick walking through those gates. It was terrible when I first went in there. We used to have to ask to go to the toilet you would put your hand up and it was "don't be long", it was a right rigmarole. You would get a fifteen minutes break in the afternoon and in the morning. But on a Thursday you had twenty, you had five minutes to run round to get your pay packet and then get upstairs and there was always a queue for your wages, and then your five minutes is well gone by the time you get to the canteen for your cup of tea. We used to sneak down for our money and I got caught.
"I became a Union delegate and a key girl. The key girls used to relieve the girls on the machines and take the sugar over to the laboratory. I couldn't do the Union work and stay on the machine. That was a nice paying job. Some of the foreladies were awful, if they did not like you or if you had had a day off they would give you the worst job available. But things did slowly change.
"There was a lot that changed in Tates, over the years they had to change with the times. Men used to get paid differently to the women and that changed with the equal pay campaign in 1968, the men used to bank their hours and they would get time in lieu so the union campaigned for the same for women. And we were able to get our days, off in lieu. Other things changed as well, they got more relaxed about the toilet, and you could pick up your wages anytime on a Thursday afternoon instead of only in your break time - things did get better for the workers there - but now it is mostly contractors - very few locals work there now."
- IB
"I tried to get a job, there was work driving taxis in Stepney. I went round all the firms that were round here but there was no work. I could get work but the pay was hopeless, I met a mate who was one of the bus inspectors in the Old Canning Town area and I was on my motorbike and he stopped me and he said "What are you doing". I said "Nothing at the moment" and I told him that I was looking round for a job. With my experience and knowledge of motorcycling, he said, "Oh if you cannot find what you want or the rates you want come and give us a try we are hard up for drivers". So I did, and I worked as a bus driver for thirty three years, Elsie spent over twenty-five years as my clippy.
"The routes I worked on was out of West Ham and on the buses 69 and the 685 which were trolley buses in those early days and then I used to do the cross runs up to the city and so on. Elsie would come with me. Elsie during the war worked in a local factory making parts for bombers and then she went on to London Transport. So it was quite easy for Elsie to get a job on the buses. When I started on the buses I got into playing bowls with the local teams and the manager of the bus garage was a keen bowler and we used to take a bus and go down to the coast. And one day he came along and said to me "I have been looking up Elsie's record with London Transport. She ought to come back to work on the buses, I tell you what we are badly short of conductors, tell her to come back and I will team you up".
"Elsie did and we worked as a team until they done away with the route masters and I had to go on my own for five years, until I retired. So that was the history of my time with London Tansport. I got on the branch work committee and union. I finished up on the Transport and General Workers Union, which I am proud of. They pay a sum when you pack up or when you die. I am proud to have been given life membership."
- BD
At one time you could leave work in the morning and get a higher paid job within an hour, so you could virtually go from one factory to another. But all that changed in the 1980's. The docks closed and everything started closing down, the factories, shops pubs everything seemed to go.
- RG
"It was so fantastic when I first came here, then everything started to close down around the late sixties early seventies. Tates is still there, but we used to have Tate and Lyle's doing three shifts, we used to have Cross and Blackwells doing three shifts. We used to have all the units over there full of factories all doing shift work, we used to have the tomato place and we used to have the tobacco place, there were loads of factories. The street used to be packed we would have a number 40 bus and 58 and 69 and all those are gone. When the docks closed it all closed.
"It took a while, but you felt the loss, you really felt the loss. You found that a lot of men were unemployed and a lot of men turning to drink because, there was no way of getting a job it was so depressing - everything seemed to go away from the area and nothing coming in. Before they built the airport they told us there will be jobs."
- MS
When the docks closed it all closed
"Tate and Lyle was a family firm but now they have ditched everyone local. I do not think it has done them any good. But it was the 1980s management style I think. What actually happened was that the 1980s suddenly caught up with us and those very brutal attitudes - you know management dominance and downsizing."
- JG
"Every new thing that has come in, we have been told will bring in lots of jobs. Excel was going to bring in thousands of jobs but they have hardly brought in any. We are always told to give it a chance and we have but they are all menial jobs, no proper jobs for local people. It is like Silvertown is a forgotten part of Newham.
"It is a very small number who have been employed by Excel and I do not know any of them - and most of the work is part time. I have been to have a look at Excel. It certainly has facilities.
"The University did not bring any jobs. The University mostly brought their own staff with them, the airport does employ a few people but even that is mainly menial in catering or shoe shining. We are told to go and get an education."
- MS
"There's a lot of people who haven't been able to get a job I mean the Managing Director (I won't say from where) he actually stated in a newspaper that the people from North Woolwich and Silvertown were illiterate and he had to apologize. I mean there's quite a few who have jobs now over at the airport, but there should be quite a lot more. And it is only because the council pushes them to employ locals. There are a few youngsters over there, but they don't actually work for the airport they work for the Concessionaires so the money isn't as good. And when the airlines or Concessionaires change contracts, they lose their jobs, so there's a very big turnover. There's only about four or five hundred people who actually work for the airport itself, the rest are all employees of Concessionaires or some sort of other private company that the airport get to do the work, so the figures that they give out aren't true figures.
"They don't do their own interviews now it's all done at the job centre so they can vet who goes through. I have been working there about eighteen months I do I enjoy it. I'm a catering supervisor we do the meals for the planes."
- TS
