The Shrewsbury 24 were punished at the time as a warning to the working class not to step out of line
In December 1973 I stood in the dock with my friend and comrade Des Warren. We awaited sentence after being found guilty of conspiracy to intimidate, unlawful assembly and affray – it was of course a nonsense. Dessie knew it, I knew it and I think the judge bloody knew it as well.
But what were we really guilty of? In 1972 we took part in the first and only national builders strike. We were campaigning for better wages, for the end of “the lump” – where builders were given a lump sum for work that they had to pay tax out of – and for health and safety to be taken seriously by the building industry bosses. In the 1970s, every day at least one person was killed or seriously injured on the sites – they were not called the “killing fields” for nothing. We won that industrial dispute and the bosses wanted revenge.
