Title:
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Thousands say, we won't pay! : Merseyside tenants in struggle, 1968-1973
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The aim of this thesis is to examine the political history of the
tenants movement on Merseyside during an active period, in order
to understand the complex multiple characteristics of working class
struggles centred on local housing issues. Through the included
data, much of it formerly outside the domain of public records, a
picture emerges of a multiplicity of possibilities and tensions,
growing primarily from the twin bases of housing struggles in
grassroots labour activism and distinctive local conditions. While
comparable studies of rent strikes have identified different types of
tenants action groups, permanent and single issue, and contrasting
political values, specifically community against class orientations,
the contention drawn from the data here is that community values
may enhance a class perspective as readily as they may inhibit and
that furthermore the germ of radicalisation or inhibition may be
found in grassroots community and labour lead actions equally. In
order to understand a form of struggle that is neglected
academically, compared to industrial labour histories, the
methodology of this research admitted to critical examination the
non-mainstream radical and community sources that are
themselves a part of the identity of housing struggles as well as
data taken from face to face interviews with tenant activists. The
historical details gathered explain the relative militancy of
Merseyside's tenants during the period in terms of both their local
traditions of housing protest and community activism and their local
conditions. SpeCifically it suggests a relationship of the class militant
areas that resisted the national 'Fair Rents' scheme to the housing
pollcles locally that had triggered a number of strikes during the
earlier period. It suggests also that the grassroots origin of many
organised actions was a problematiC factor throughout the period.
SpeCificallythis was because protests that sought connection to
related struggles had only the labour movement as their vehicle
introducing into a spontaneous form of protest conventional
organisational values. At the same time, autonomous action
necessitated connection to radical non-conformists, often outsiders
to the local dynamic. In drawing out the details of these struggles,
this research provides a picture through which the difficulties of
organising political resistance from a condition that is socially and
politically marginal may be understood.
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