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Voices Of Guinness: An Oral History of the Park Royal Brewery

Strangleman, Tim (2019) Voices Of Guinness: An Oral History of the Park Royal Brewery. The Oxford Oral History Series . Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 209 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-064509-0. E-ISBN 978-0-19-064509-0. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:73973)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided. (Contact us about this Publication)
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Abstract

Imagine a workplace where workers enjoyed a well-paid job for life, one where they could enjoy free meals in silver service canteens and restaurants. In their breaks they could explore acres of parkland planted with hundreds of trees and thousands of shrubs. Imagine after work a place where employees could play over thirty sports, join one of the theatre groups or dozens of other clubs. Imagine a place where at the end of a working life you could enjoy a company pension from a scheme you had never contributed a penny to. Imagine working in buildings designed by an internationally renowned architect whose brief was to create a building that ‘would last a century or two’. This is no fantasy or utopian vision of work but just some aspects of the working conditions enjoyed by employees at the Guinness Brewery established at Park Royal West London in the mid-1930s. Voices of Guinness tells the story the company’s London brewery from pre-cradle to post grave after the site’s closure in 2005, showing how the history of one plant reveals a much wider picture of changing attitudes to work and organisations in contemporary society. Drawing on extensive oral history interviews with staff and management as well as archive and photographic sources Voices of Guinness explores the experience and meaning of work, the ultimate loss of employment and deindustrialisation for Guinness workers. It will be crucial reading for anyone interested in work history, contemporary organisations and industrial loss.

Drawing on extensive oral history interviews with staff and management as well as archive and photographic sources the book shows how progressive ideas of workplace citizenship came into conflict with the pressure to adapt to new expectations about work and its organisation. Strangleman illustrates how these changes were experienced by those on the shop floor from the 1960s through to the final closure of the plant in 2005. This book asks striking and important questions about employment and the attachment workers have for their jobs. It will be crucial reading for anyone interested in contemporary organisations and deindustrialisation.

Item Type: Book
Uncontrolled keywords: Deindustrialisation; economic change; workplace cultures; Sociology of work; Oral History; London; Guinness; brewing history; industrial history; paternalism; industrial architecture; industrial ruins; management and organisation
Subjects: D History General and Old World
D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
H Social Sciences
H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5351 Business
H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5415 Marketing
H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Tim Strangleman
Date Deposited: 29 Jun 2021 11:09 UTC
Last Modified: 01 Jul 2021 15:43 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/73973 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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