THREE decades before the idea gripped the wider trade union movement, the Daily Worker reported on organising white-collar workers on September 17 1935.

The paper highlighted the “slave driving” carried out by the London County Council, after the brave initiative of Elsie Clarke.

Even though Labour held a majority, clerical workers could be sacked “at a minute’s notice though they have to give their bosses a week’s.”

It would not be until 1963 that a legal requirement to give reasonable notice before dismissal was introduced.

Workers were also hired on a long-term but temporary basis, being systematically “thrown out after two years’ work” on excessively low rates of pay for which they had to “work like hell.” Being “thrown on the scrap heap irrespective of their ability to carry out the tasks allotted them,” even if they were only 35 years old.

Having been recruited from the ranks of the unemployed, the salary could only rise to some two-thirds of the normal permanent basic, and then only in incremental stages. Core staff had the privilege of a workplace pension, then a very rare thing.

• You can read digitised pages from the Daily Worker (1930-45) and Morning Star (2000-present), as they appeared in print, at http://tinyurl.com/DWMSarchive. Ten days’ access costs just £5.99 and a whole year is £72.