"banner, Transport and General Workers Union" [NBS I/D 385]

Catalogue Number
NBS I/D 385

Object Name
banner

Title
T. & G.W.U. AGRICULTURE

Place
Wiltshire & England & UK

Date
1981

Creator(s)
NBS National Museum of Labour HistoryNBS National Museum of Labour History

Description
T&GWU Agriculture Banner, c. 1981

This unusual banner has been created on a piece of sacking, the front image of the banner shows a tractor above the union logo. It was created in Wiltshire, probably around 1981 when farmworkers entered the Transport and General Workers' Union [TGWU]. TGWU formed in 1922, and merged with Amicus in 2007 to form Unite the Union
.
The Transport and General Workers' Union have been active in campaigning against the system of Gangmasters - people who are responsible for supplying cheap labour, often by employing migrant workers. The gangmaster system has been in operation for over a century, supplying workers to the farming and horticulture industries. It has come to be associated with breaking of employment laws, failure to follow health and safety regulations, and even with illigal immigraion and intimidation of workers.

Following the Morcambe Bay Cockling Disaster in 2004, TGWU campaigned against the Gangmaster system, which helped to lead to the regulation of employment agencies working in gangmaster industiries.

Multimedia