Catalogue Number
NMLH.1991.115.6
Object Name
Poster
Title
'When Wives Get Together. Do you attend your branch meeting regularly. USDAW.'
Place
Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK
People
Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW)
Date
1950
Description
Three women in 1950s dresses have tea. A speech bubble from one says "John is at his Union meeting... says that we enjoy the benefits of membership - so he attends regularly." The poster asks USDAW members to attend their meetings.
'When Wives Get Together' was produced in 1950 as rationing ended and shop assistants were being forced to work longer hours. This poster was aimed at members wives to encourage them to put social pressure on their husbands to participate in union activity. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) encouraged solidarity from its membership and campaigned to limit hours. Shop workers have always worked long hours and are often expected to work on Sundays and public holidays. The union's demands were ignored and the 1950 Shops Act put compulsory closing at 8pm with one late night of 9pm. In the early 1950s around a quarter of USDAW's membership left every year as they moved to non-unionised employers. The Union produced poster campaigns to recruit new members in shops where union activity already existed. This became easier with the growth of large supermarkets, which were simpler to organise than small shops.
The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) is a UK trade union with around 360,000 members who work across a variety of industries including call centres, warehouses and supermarkets. The union was formed in 1947 by the merger of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers and the National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks. Some other unions have since merged in, including the Amalgamated Society of Boot and Shoe Makers and Repairers in 1955, and the Scottish Union of Bakers and Allied Workers in 1978. Union membership can benefit workers as it allows the union to negotiate on their behalf during grievances, to negotiate pay rises and intervene if mass redundancies are threatened. Originally, a trade union would only represent a single profession, but over time it became more practical to have larger unions representing multiple professions, as USDAW does. Over six million people in the UK are union members in 2024, but during the industrial
era where people tended to stay in one profession for most of their working life, membership was much higher.
