Sean initially came over to London from his native Republic of Ireland in the late 60s to take up occasional temporary work, a factory hand role at the Wall’s meat factory in North Acton and a stint as a salesman at Harrod’s being among the varied positions he held. Sean then settled permanently in London in 1970 and trained on a government-sponsored scheme as a carpenter, finishing off his training scheme with his subsequent employer. Sean plied his trade on many building sites for the best part of a decade – Harry Neill being one of the major employers he worked for – before tiring of the uncertain, casual and peripatetic nature of the work and seeking greater security. After initially joining the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s Direct Labour Organisation, where he remained for a year, Sean then spent the next 30 years of his working life with Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s equivalent organisation before taking redundancy in 2008. Sean was an active trade unionist throughout his working life, serving in various union posts for the T&GWU and then UCATT.

In his clip Sean describes partiicpating in a national strike of building workers in 1972.

Click on the pdf icon to read the entire transcript or click on the mp3 icon to hear a clip of the interview.

Title	Cullen, Sean
Maker	--
Production Date	2022
Format	Photograph
Copyright	--
Holding Institution	TUC Library Collections, London Metropolitan University
Related Objects	--