Harriet Vyse discussed her work as a shop steward and convenor at Plessey's Sunderland factory to organise women workers to fight for equal pay.

The Plessey Company Plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company that was formed in 1917 by various shareholders including a German born production engineer called William Oscar Heyes whose wife Elizabeth came from the Northumberland locality Plessey from which the company name is partly derived.
Through the 1920s and '30s the company expanded its work into the development in radio and by the outbreak of World War Two was in a good position not only to provide communication equipment for the armed forced as well as diversify into war production. At its peak the Plessey factory in Sunderland employed more than 3000, many of whom were women working in wiring, relay adjust, assembly and support functions. The factory closed in 1977 following cuts to telecommunications budget under Harold Wilson's Labour government the year previous. Trade unions on site didn't go down without a fight arranging a sit-in at the factory as well as sending a delegation to meet government officials in London.

An interview with Harriet Vyse, formerly works convenor at Plessey's Sunderland factory, discussing her work as a shop steward and convenor at Plessey's Sunderland factory, her role as delegate to the national committee of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers; the difficulties of organising women workers; the fight for equal pay; the Women's National Commission; the occupation of Plessey's to try to save the factory; and the effects of the closure of Plessey's on Sunderland.