Conception
“A combination of old-fashioned management and outmoded trade unions will do very little to achieve the economic expansion so vital to this country. It is necessary to seek to change attitudes on both sides of industry. If we are unable to adapt to new techniques, British industry is doomed to failure.”
“A change in attitudes can only be achieved by co-operation between management and the trade union movement, accompanied by a desire to move out of the present situation into an atmosphere where the individual is alive and self- motivating.”
Jim Conway (1970)
This Conway quote reflected the UK industrial relations climate existing during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
"Get Your Tanks off my Lawn, Hughie"
This 1969 quote was attributed to Prime Minister Harold Wilson and directed at the president of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, Hugh Scanlon.
Peter Jenkins The Battle of Downing Street (1970)
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00011621
There were indications that British industry could not compete in the world market, and this situation had to change; successive governments, the TUC and industry accepted this. It was generally accepted that an incomes policy was becoming increasingly necessary. The trade union movement considered an effective incomes policy could only be successfully implemented by a Labour government.
Jim Conway (1915-1974)
The 1970s were littered with attempts to find a workable incomes policy. The Heath Tory administration of 1970-4, the minority Harold Wilson government of 1974, and the Labour government of 1974-9 (Wilson/Callaghan) failed. Wilson's 1969 comments to Scanlon indicate the difficulties existing within the labour movement.
The conflict at that time did not just relate to trade unions and employers or trade unions and government. It is also noticeable that Conway & Scanlon were, respectively, General Secretary and President of the same organisation, illustrating discord within individual trade unions. This also puts Conway's 1970 quote into perspective.
It was against this background that the JCF emerged.
Harold Wilson
Hugh Scanlon
The Jim Conway Memorial Foundation (JCF)
The Jim Conway Memorial Foundation was better known by its working name the Jim Conway Foundation or JCF. The organisation was established following Jim Conway's death in 1974 as a tribute to his work in the trade union movement. He had been General Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), later Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (1970), from 1964 to 1974.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Conway_(trade_unionist).
Jim Conway was born in Gorton, Manchester, in 1915. During the first half of the 20th century, Gorton was considered one of the city's more deprived areas.
Following several menial jobs after leaving school, he obtained an engineering apprenticeship at the giant Metropolitan Vickers factory on Trafford Park, Manchester in 1931.
It was then that Conway joined the AEU; on the completion of his apprenticeship, he became a shop steward.
He began his journey through the ranks of the union, reaching the position of National Organiser in 1959. He was elected General Secretary in 1964.
On 3 March 1974, Conway was returning to the UK from Paris on board a McDonnell Douglas DC 10, which crashed just outside Paris, killing all 346 people on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_981
Andrew (Andy) Wood, Conway's Assistant from 1966, founded the organisation in September 1974. The JCF became a UK registered educational & research charity in 1976 (Registration no. 272347).
Governing Documenthttps://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/272347/governing-document
The original content of this website was written in 2023. Much detail is taken from the Director's Annual Reports, diaries, reports to Trustees and Minutes of Trustees' meetings. Few earlier records are complete; those for the 1990s are more comprehensive. Consequently, there is more detail available for the later period.
The Conception
Professor Robin Smith
The JCF began by organising weekend seminars for rank-and-file trade unionists. The first was held at the Read’s Hotel in Scarborough during September 1974.
The tutor was the late Professor Robin Smith, a lecturer on industrial relations at Durham University Business School and an arbitrator at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS)
Robin became a good friend to the JCF and a founding trustee. Sadly, Robin passed away in 2018.
Obituarys : Guardian - News & Star
The Read’s Hotel Scarborough
Youth unemployment was considered high in the mid 1970s and a grant was obtained to create work for young people from the Manpower Services Commission's Job Creation Programme (MSC/JCP); that funding was for two years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manpower_Services_Commission
Courtesy of that MSC/JCP grant, the JCF was able to engage its first full-time staff, establish a research facility, and carry out independent research on employment-related issues.
The research officer was Paul Rathkey, a young postgraduate from Newcastle University. Paul remained with the JCF for 12 years and was a key to its success, which did not just apply to research but also to the education and training programme.
The organisation had a director, post-graduate researcher, an 18-year-old secretary and one recent school-leaver, but nowhere for them to work.
A cousin of Andy Wood had a hairdressing salon in Stockton on Tees. The property had one unused room on the first floor (12ft x 10ft) this became the JCF’s first office space. There was a token rent of £1 per month. Both Andy Wood and Paul Rathkey worked from home.
In 1978, the charity moved into 8 Yarm Road, Stockton, which became its permanent base. Initially, the accommodation comprised of just two rooms. Andy Wood occupied the smaller office and two junior researchers and the administrative staff, now totalling five, inhabited the other. Paul continued to work from home.
By this time Paul and his researchers were working on several fully funded research projects. The weekend educational projects were also part grant-funded through educational awards; the rest was made up from individual subscription and affiliate fees.