ABSTRACT
Labour responses towards immigrants in the period 1880-1950 have too often been defined either by the nature of TUC and union resolutions or by a simplistic notion of overt hostility on the part of the British working class. This chapter looks at the nature of and responses to the settlement, temporary and permanent, of East Europeans after the Second World War, a dimension of immigration often overshadowed by the beginnings of large-scale West Indian migration. The hierarchy of the Scottish union appears to have gone to some lengths to inform its members of Polish culture and of the problem of adaptation to life in Britain in order to make the process a smoother and more acceptable one. There was resentment in Cowdenbeath at the expulsion of Scottish industrial workers from an NCB hostel to make way for displaced persons coming into the local pits.
