Dismissal of strikers and industrial disputes: the 1985-7 strike and mass sackings at Silentnight

The 1985–1987 dispute at Silentnight bed factories in the north of England was an exceptionally long and bitter strike, lasting for 20 months from June 1985 until February 1987. A total of 346 workers were sacked for taking part in the strike, which gained a high profile with remarkable levels of support and solidarity action, largely due to its emblematic status as an extreme example of punitive treatment of workers taking industrial action in the period immediately following the defeat of the miners in 1984/1985. Workers took lawful strike action in 1985 over the non-implementation of agreed pay rises and compulsory redundancies counter to an existing agreement between the firm and the union, with the company responding to the dispute with mass dismissals. Pickets were maintained at the two factories in question for nearly two years, with the strikers gaining wide-ranging support from across the labour movement, but the company stood firm against the dismissed strikers who were ultimately defeated. Based on archival research and interviews with participants in the strike, the article analyses in detail how the dispute was sustained for so long, the legal context and the weakness of legal protections for strikers in the period, and the widespread political mobilisation and networks of support and solidarity that arose around the strike and in opposition to the policies of the Conservative government of the day.