In 1984, 37 workers at Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead occupied their workplace to protest redundancies and threats of closure. These men were not vandals, nor were they criminals. They were men defending their jobs, pensions and the future of the communities that depended on them. Their only crime? Standing up for the people they served and the city they loved.
The story of the Cammell Laird 37 is inseparable from the story of Thatcher’s Britain. Liverpool and Merseyside were the frontlines of a political and economic assault on working-class communities, where decline was not inevitable – it was politically engineered.
Between 1978 and 1981, Merseyside lost 34,000 manufacturing jobs. British Shipbuilders went from employing 62,000 in 1982 to just 5,000 five years later. Against this backdrop, the courage of the Cammell Laird 37 becomes even clearer – they resisted Thatcher’s managed decline, and a government determined to dismantle not only their jobs but their communities.
Their act of civic courage took place amid broader union struggles and parallel injustices, from Orgreave to Hillsborough, where ordinary people bore the cost of a government intent on crushing working-class solidarity. Yet the establishment’s response was swift and brutal. After agreeing to end their occupation, the workers were arrested for failing to appear in court for an earlier judicial review, convicted in their absence, and sent to Walton jail – a Category A high-security prison.
The punishment was grossly disproportionate. The High Court upheld these convictions under Lord Lawton, a former member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, with a well-documented hostility to trade unions. Even leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers convicted under similar circumstances were not imprisoned. The incident reeks of an orchestrated attempt to intimidate workers and break union solidarity.
The personal and financial toll on these workers was also devastating. They lost redundancy and pension rights, faced blacklisting and endured years of economic hardship. GMB research suggests some men lost £120,000 or more – a staggering cost for taking a principled stand. Many have passed away without ever seeing their names cleared. Those who remain are aging, and time is running out.
A public inquiry is not merely symbolic – it is essential. It is crucial to understand how and why a government, acting through ministers and courts, imposed such punitive measures on ordinary citizens for exercising their right to industrial action. Evidence suggests the legal claims against the workers may have been flawed, that Cammell Laird may have lacked standing to bring injunctions, and that the occupation may have taken place on land not under the company’s control. A thorough investigation could provide the clarity needed for a successful appeal and, importantly, formal exoneration.
We have precedent. Just as the Hillsborough Independent Panel uncovered vital documents and led to truth and accountability decades after the disaster, a similar approach could shed light on the injustices suffered by the Cammell Laird 37. The government must recognise the part it played in this history and commit to setting the record straight. This is not only about correcting the historical record – it is about a government-sanctioned acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
The campaigners, backed by GMB union and a dedicated legal team, have fought tirelessly. But they need the state to commit fully to transparency, to exhaustively search archives and to cooperate with any inquiry. The broader lesson is stark: the costs of industrial decline are not abstract – they are lived in the poverty, health inequalities and lost opportunities of our communities. Acknowledging the injustice of Cammell Laird is part of acknowledging the scars left by decades of economic and social attacks on working-class Britain.
Justice for the Cammell Laird 37 is not just a local campaign – it is a national imperative. These workers acted with courage and integrity in the face of government hostility. They deserve recognition, redress, and, above all, the chance to clear their names.
To honour their struggle and restore faith in justice, the government must release every relevant document, fully investigate the decisions that led to their imprisonment and offer a formal apology to the families and communities harmed. Jobs, not jail, must remain the guiding principle. Forty years on, the call is simple: justice for the Cammell Laird 37.
Forty years on we are still searching for justice for the Cammell Laird 37
