The ending of “Made in Dagenham” resolves the central conflict of the 1968 Ford sewing machinists strike with a moment of quiet triumph: the women return to the Dagenham factory as victors, having secured a groundbreaking pay agreement that grants them 92% of male worker wages. This is not a conventional celebration scene with champagne and speeches, but rather a deliberate return to the workplace that changed them—a statement that their struggle was never about leaving, but about belonging equally within the same system. The final sequence plays Jimmy Cliff’s “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” a song that perfectly encapsulates the film’s message that persistent, organized resistance can dismantle institutional inequality.
The brilliance of the ending lies in its restraint. Rather than fade to black with a title card explaining the historical outcome, director Nigel Cole chose to show the women walking back through those factory gates as equals, followed by actual historical footage rolling during the credits. This choice grounds the narrative victory in documented reality and reminds viewers that this was not fiction invented for cinema—it was a genuine turning point in labor and women’s rights history.
Table of Contents
- How Did the Strike End in the Film’s Narrative?
- What Does the Symbolic Dress Scene Represent in Context?
- Why Does the Film Use Historical Footage in the Credits?
- How Does the Ending Compare to Other Strike Films?
- What Limitations Should Viewers Understand About the Film’s Resolution?
- The Significance of the Song Choice
- What the Ending Reveals About the Real 1968 Strike
How Did the Strike End in the Film’s Narrative?
The strike concludes when Ford management capitulates to the women’s demands, agreeing to the 92% pay parity figure that had been negotiated throughout the film. This agreement represents the practical resolution of the dispute, but the film’s emotional resolution comes in that final walk. The women haven’t won a battle and left the factory; they’ve transformed it by their refusal to accept second-class status within it. Unlike many strike narratives that end with workers either triumphantly leaving a job or bitterly returning defeated, “Made in Dagenham” presents a third path: returning changed, with changed circumstances.
The pay deal itself was a watershed moment in British labor law. Before 1968, women in manufacturing could legally be paid substantially less than men for comparable work. The Dagenham strike directly led to the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, which made such discrimination illegal across the United Kingdom. This two-year lag between the film’s depicted events and actual legislative change illustrates how individual workplace victories can seed larger systemic reforms, though not always immediately.
What Does the Symbolic Dress Scene Represent in Context?
Earlier in the film, a crucial moment occurs when an upper-class woman loans her designer dress to one of the striking workers—Barbara Castle, the Labour Minister who becomes their political ally. The dress fits perfectly, and this small moment carries enormous symbolic weight. When revisited through the lens of the ending, this scene represents the film’s core theme: that class divisions and gender divisions are not natural hierarchies but constructed barriers that can be bridged through solidarity and shared purpose. The dress that fits perfectly suggests that these women were always capable of occupying spaces they’d been told were beyond their reach.
However, there’s a limitation to how the film depicts this class alliance. While the narrative presents Castle and the upper-class support network as essential to the workers’ victory, the film somewhat underrepresents the role of working-class women’s own political organizing and shop-floor leadership. The ending’s triumphalism, while earned, can obscure the fact that even after this victory, systemic barriers for working-class and women workers remained substantial. The 1970 Equal Pay Act, while transformative, contained loopholes and was implemented gradually across industries.
Why Does the Film Use Historical Footage in the Credits?
The decision to roll actual documentary footage during the credits is a deliberate authenticity anchor. Viewers have just watched actors portraying these events, and there’s an inherent question: how much of this really happened? By showing genuine newsreel footage and photographs of the actual 1968 strike, the filmmakers assert that the emotional core of the narrative—the women’s dignity, their determination, their ultimate success—was historically factual. This wasn’t artistic license applied to a marginal labor dispute; it was a major event documented at the time.
This technique also serves a psychological function for viewers. Having invested emotionally in these characters’ struggle, seeing the real participants validates that investment. The faces on screen during credits aren’t just historical artifacts; they’re the actual women whose workplace transformed 1960s Britain. The juxtaposition of Sally Hawkins and Frances O’Connor’s performances directly against their real-life counterparts creates a powerful moment of connection between cinema and documented history.
How Does the Ending Compare to Other Strike Films?
many strike narratives climax with workers either leaving their jobs permanently or returning in defeat. “Erin Brockovich” ends with workers receiving settlements and Erin gaining recognition outside the system. “Norma Rae” concludes with union certification but with costs paid by the protagonist. “Made in Dagenham” diverges by showing return without defeat or punishment—the workers keep their jobs, improve their conditions, and remain in the very space that oppressed them.
This reflects the particular victory of the historical strike: it wasn’t about exit or separation but about dignity within an existing relationship. The tradeoff in this approach is that it can seem less dramatically conclusive than narratives featuring worker departures or corporate collapses. The Dagenham plant continued operating for decades after 1968, and the women returned to assembly lines and machine work. The film argues that dignity and equal pay within difficult work is itself a genuine victory, even when that work remains unchanged. This is a more ambiguous, mature ending than audiences might expect from a social justice film.
What Limitations Should Viewers Understand About the Film’s Resolution?
While the ending depicts the immediate strike settlement, it doesn’t show what came next for these workers. The 92% pay figure achieved in 1968 was a massive step forward, but it still represented a gap rather than true parity. Full equal pay remained a theoretical and practical challenge for decades. Additionally, the film was released in 2010, and by then, deindustrialization had already eliminated many of these manufacturing jobs entirely.
The plant where these women fought for recognition eventually closed, making their victory a hard-won but ultimately temporary position in that particular workplace. Another warning: the film’s focus on the charismatic central characters, particularly Rosamund Pike’s role as Barbara Castle, can inadvertently overstate the role of individual allies versus structural change. Labor historians note that while Castle’s support mattered, the strike succeeded because of sustained collective action by working-class women who organized across multiple shifts and withstood pressure from both management and some male-dominated unions. The film necessarily simplifies this complexity for narrative purposes, but viewers should understand that the ending’s triumphalism emerges from collective effort, not individual heroism.
The Significance of the Song Choice
Jimmy Cliff’s reggae anthem “You Can Get It If You Really Want” was released in 1970, two years after the events depicted. The film’s use of this song in the 1968-set narrative creates a deliberate anachronism that functions as a thematic statement.
The song’s message—that determination and persistence overcome obstacles—perfectly captures the strike’s philosophy. Its reggae sound also introduces cultural elements somewhat outside the typical working-class British film aesthetic, suggesting universality in the struggle for dignity and fair treatment. The song choice implies that the Dagenham women’s victory is part of a global, ongoing movement for recognition and equality.
What the Ending Reveals About the Real 1968 Strike
The historical accuracy of the film’s ending is surprisingly substantial, though compressed. The women did return to work after achieving a pay settlement, which didn’t fully equalize their wages with male workers but represented genuine progress negotiated from a position of collective strength.
The real strike lasted three weeks in May 1968 and involved approximately 187 sewing machinists. Their action didn’t immediately generate nationwide pay equality—that required legislative intervention through the Equal Pay Act. However, the Dagenham strike is historically recognized as the catalyst that forced the government to finally act on equal pay legislation that had been discussed but never enacted for years prior.
