Deference and Dissent

Deference and Dissent provides a window into the working lives of compositors, letterpress machinists, and bookbinders and their relationships with their employer. It looks at their collective voice, disputes, strikes, workplace culture, mechanisation of typesetting, as well as the impact of other significant factors such as the First World War and the economic slump in the early 1920s.

Mike Richardson’s work contributes to understanding the complexity of the workforce’s shifting response to management prerogative, their involvement in two major print strikes in the early 1920s, and their participation in the 1926 General Strike.

Over a protracted period, as opposed to a snapshot or short-time limited study, Mike’s account, while focusing on employees’ experience at work, also explores aspects of their personal lives within the unsettled and shifting social environment.