ABSTRACT
The Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) work-in was the largest and most successful of the 190 work-place occupations between 1971 and 1975, and took place during a key period in the politicization of industrial action in early 1970s. Even at a superficial level the UCS work-in therefore poses some interesting questions. The Conservative government was never soft on its working-class opponents. The Conservative government had taken over many elements of the Labour Party’s industrial relations strategy. The Labour-inclined Record ran its front-page story on 22 September as ‘Speak Up Brother Dan’. On the same day the Conservative Glasgow Herald’s editorial argued that ‘the full-time trade union officials have a duty to take over from the shop stewards and work with management to ensure that the maximum number of jobs is preserved’. The Heath government was trying to hold together quite opposed sections of British capital and of the Conservative Party.
