Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.25.2
Object Name
badge
Title
'Mike Hicks SOGAT Support Britain's Political Prisoners'
Place
Wapping, London, UK
People
Mike Hicks, Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT), Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), Communist Party of Britain (CPB), Rupert Murdoch, News International
Events
Wapping Dispute
Description
A round black and white badge. At the centre is a picture of Mike Hicks' face above the caption 'Mike Hicks SOGAT'. Hicks is wearing a flat cap. The black rim of the badge has white writing which reads: 'Support Britain's Political Prisoners'.
Mike Hicks was one of the strike leaders for the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT) during the Wapping dispute, a year long strike by print workers in response to mass redundancies of 5,500 print workers at a print works which produced Rupert Murdoch's News International newspapers. The strike lasted a year and was unsuccessful. Hicks was convicted of actual bodily harm against a police officer on the picket line, and sentenced to a year in prison, a sentence which was protested against by trade unions, and by the Labour Party who viewed it as politically motivated.
After his release Hicks, a life-long communist and recently expelled member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) co-founded the rival Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and became their first General Secretary. He died in 2017 aged 80.
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