Jobs for a Change

The Jobs for a Change festivals were two music festivals that took place in London, England, in the mid-1980s, against a background of high unemployment, a year-long miners' strike, and Margaret Thatcher's development plans for the abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC). These events were free and attracted a huge audience. The first, on the South Bank in June 1984, drew about 150,000 people. The second, in Battersea Park the following July, attracted an estimated 250,000. The musicians included The Smiths, Billy Bragg, Hank Wangford, Aswad, The Redskins and The Pogues. There were also theatrical groups, cabaret, films and exhibitions, talks, debates and stalls set up by external organisations.

The Greater London Council, the city's local authority from 1965 to 1986, ran two major popular-music festivals to highlight what it was doing to fight unemployment under Margaret Thatcher's government, boost the London economy and help create and fund new jobs. It also ran several concerts for the unemployed – at various town halls across London, at a big top set up in Finsbury Park for a Christmas Party and at the Royal Albert Hall for an evening of jazz and African music.

The person mainly responsible for setting up and producing the events was Tony Hollingsworth, who later produced two concerts for Nelson Mandela: the first calling for his release from prison in apartheid South Africa, and the second celebrating it.

Jobs for a Change Festival, 10 June 1984

The first Jobs for a Change festival – named after the title of a GLC newspaper – was devised because the GLC's Industry and Employment committee was worried that its initiatives to combat unemployment and help create and fund jobs were not getting across to a wider public.