Hundreds marched from Liverpool to London where more than 100,000 people gathered to demand an end to unemployment in 1981.
The March for Jobs was "one of the biggest rallies in post-war Britain until the anti-Iraq War marches", according to labour historian Greig Campbell. But the "incredible story" has gone largely untold, which Greig hopes to change with £70k in National Lottery Heritage funding awarded to Vauxhall Community Law & Information Centre for 'Giz a Job', a community oral history project on the march.
In 1981, more than 2.5m people were unemployed, prices were soaring, and "every week, the numbers in the dole queue were increasing, not just in Liverpool but across the country", Greig said. People out of work needed help, but the Labour Party and trade unions were "in disarray", plagued by infighting, according to Greig, who said they were "licking their wounds" after the victory of Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives in the 1979 general election.
