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when Norton Villiers Triumph (nvt) owner Dennis Poore wanted to shut down Triumph motorcycle manufacture at Meriden in the dark days of 1973 and shift production to the bsa factory in Small Heath, which nvt also owned by then, the Triumph workers locked management out for 18 months. It was one of the last spasms of the industry. Yet most British motorcycle industry workers were much more competent than outsiders understood. In Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, London, and Meriden, sons worked alongside their fathers, and management control over the shop floor often was delegated to experienced craft workers. It was said that many small labour disputes could be resolved in a break room over a packet of Woodbine cigarettes — that is, informally and collegially. A London Times reporter once asked Meriden workers how long they had been there. He said people would tell him "'I'm a newcomer, I’ve only been here eight, nine, ten years.’ Most told me twenty, thirty or even forty.”

The Rise & Fall of the British Motorcycle Industry

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