workingclasshistory:

On this day, 21 July 1972, women shoemakers in Fakenham, England, who had been occupying their factory against redundancy, launched a workers’ cooperative in a new plant. They had taken out a bank loan and received a donation from the Scot Bader Commonwealth and were attempting to keep their jobs after their former employer, Sexton & Everard, made them redundant. However, the new cooperative enterprise, Fakenham Enterprises Ltd, was subject to the same market forces as the previous one, and after struggling to make ends meet it eventually closed down five years later. But as in many other instances of self-management at that time, the women showed that their workplace could be run without bosses.
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