The Grunwick dispute erupted at a photo processing plant in Willesden, London in the scorching hot summer of 1976 and lasted two years. A predominately East African South Asian female workforce went on strike over the issue of trade union recognition.

Conditions in the plant were appalling, particularly in the mail order department. The women's toilet breaks were timed, and the workforce endured numerous other indignities. Compulsory overtime was instituted without warning and the predominantly white management indulged in racial harassment and bullying.

Rates of pay were known to be the lowest in the industry at 28 pounds for a 40-hour week compared to a national average of 72 pounds per week. Sackings were very high and, in addition, white workers were paid more than South Asian workers for the same work.

When Mrs Jayaben Desai was told to work overtime she refused and, together with her son, who also worked at the plant, resigned. In her parting speech she accused the management of running a zoo, not a factory. She then picketed the plant, asking the other workers to sign a petition demanding trade union recognition. Other Asian female workers followed Mrs Desai's example and joined the picket lines outside the plant. The strike had begun in earnest.

The industrial dispute went on for two long and difficult years, with participants subjected to police intimidation and violence. Mrs Desai, who had become the strikers' spokesperson, was arrested for assault. The charges were later dropped as a result of lack of evidence.

The strikers requested that the Trade Union Congress (TUC) boycott essential services to the plant, but support was not forthcoming. Mrs Desai and three others went on hunger strike in response, but by then the strike had run out of steam, finally concluding on 14 July 1978.

Although the strikers failed to win their immediate goal of trade union recognition, nevertheless, the Grunwick dispute was an important landmark in the history of British industrial action and the struggle for black workers' rights. The elevation of South Asian women strikers, in particular Mrs Jayaben Desai, into the public eye challenged the British public's prejudices of South Asian women as docile, submissive, difficult to unionise and as exploitable cheap labour.