ABSTRACT
Mill work played a major role in structuring the day to day life of the babas. A central aspect of working life is concerned with the control, management and utilisation of time. The resistance by workers to this appropriation of time by management has been well documented elsewhere. Experiences of unions stretch far into the migratory history of men from Mirpur/(Azad) Kashmir. Contention over a holiday for Eid reflects the wider issue of the control of time that was a major struggle for the Mirpuri/Pakistani workers. The economic recession of the early 1980s in Britain was so widespread that its effects were relatively indiscriminate in terms of who was rendered unemployed. The struggles over welfare and social needs that constructed the working class and union movements in Britain excluded Pakistanis and other Black workers. In Rossendale they had had an outstanding example of co-operation "with coloured workers.
