1.3 - Trade Unions

Question 1

What did the 1871 TU act do?

Answer 1

• Gave legal recognition to TUs
• Large ‘new’ unions catered for both artisan + unskilled workers

Question 2

What were typical characteristics of unskilled workers?

Answer 2

• More radical
• less likely see interests best reped in CP/ LIP

Question 3

What is the trade union congress (TUC)?

Answer 3

• Reped unions collectively

Question 4

What did the UC establish in 1900?

Answer 4

• Labour representation committee (LRC)
• Pursued parliamentary representation for newly enfranchised WC
• EVENTUALLY became LAP

Question 5

Start of period - what, why

Answer 5

• Lots of union unrest
• Brief post-war boom increased labour disputes
• Factories took on large numbers men, therefore TUC realised in position to extract concessions from employers
• 20s: continued hardship + slump for WC, weakening TU membership

Question 6

Why was there industrial change after WW1

Answer 6

• British industry largely same as victorian times
• Based in centres of iron ore + coal in N, S Wales, S Scotland with overwhelming heavy industry
• Therefore due to decline, most industrial unrest occurred here in interwar years

Question 7

What were the reasons for industrial decline?

Answer 7

• Old machinery
• Old production methods
• underinvestment
• inability to compete with foreign competitors (USA)

Question 8

What were the developments in new industries?

Answer 8

• Midlands + SE: motor vehicles (mass production techniques of USA)
• Light engineering factories produced consumer goods + household appliances (domestic market)
• Light + airy + good wages therefore unions struggled penetrate workforce

Question 9

Why was the term ‘two Englands’ coined during interwar years?

Answer 9

• Newer vs older centres of industry measured by workforce:
• Cotton, mining, ship building: lost 1/3
• Electrical appliances: increased by 2 1/2 x
  -Building industry: 33% increase
• Service industries (hotels, holiday camps, etc…): 40% increase (reflects more could take holiday as 1939: 11.5Mn awarded holiday pay for first time)
• MOST still worked in older industries

Question 10

Red Clydeside

Answer 10

• 1919: Clydeside Glasgow - epicentre for union unrest
• Glasgow trade council proposed reduced working week 54hrs to 40hrs to give surplus o unemployed men (many ex-service)
• 31 Jan 1919: 90,000 demonstraters in George Square demanded change + raise socialist red flag
• Inflammatory action due to gov concerns of revolution
• Tanks, soldiers transported to put down violence
• Scale + potential for more bloodshed from army = union leaders shocked

Question 11

What had DLG negotiated with TUM?

Answer 11

• Keep strikes to minimum due labour discipline needed for wartime economy

Question 12

What were the actual impacts of the negotiations?

Answer 12

• 1917: 48 strikes in Britain with >200,000 workers
• 1918: deteriorating relationship between gov + workers
• 1918: after artistic - enormous unrest as workers + soldiers + police went on strike as resentments & perceived injustices developed during war unleashed

Question 13

What happened after the end of WW1?

Answer 13

• Factories took more men = decline in strikes
• New jobs (many well paid) satisfied unionised workers
• 1919: 32Mn days lost to strikes
• 1920: 25Mn
  -1921: 84Mn as unemployment soared and previously employed workers saw wages slump

Question 14

What were many of the striker’s grievances?

Answer 14

• Repressed wages
• Rising prices
• Food shortages
• Minority expressed more political + ideological grievances

Question 15

How did gov contain many strikes post-WW1?

Answer 15

• Offered concessions
• Perception that Britain close to revolution inaccurate

Question 16

Miners strike (1921) - background

Answer 16

• Miners Federation of GB (MFGB) largest union
• > 900,000 members
• Wartime gov control popular with miners as viewed pit owners as lazy, greedy, incompetent

Question 17

Miner’s strike - end of wartime control

Answer 17

• Return to private industry
• Wage cuts, longer hours = better competition with foreign coal imports
• High unemployment levels = mine owners reduce wages

Question 18

Who were possibly going on strike in 1921 and why?

Answer 18

• MFFGB
• NTWF (national transport workers federation)
• NUR (national union of railwaymen)
• Protect wages if post-war econ slump
• Miners strike could break with foreign import UNLESS dock workers refused unload + rail workers refused move across country

Question 19

What was the trigger for the 1921 miner’s strike?

Answer 19

• Union leaders refused to accept pay cuts
• April 1: owners locked workers out
• Emergency Powers Act enacted by gov, sent troops to S Wales, anticipated unrest & violence

Question 20

What happened on Black Friday

Answer 20

• April 15: NUR + NFTW sabotaged ‘tiple alliance’ by abandoning cause
• Crucial error of miner’s leaders: ask support but refuse part in negotiations
• made members reluctant strike + union leaders wary of possible consequences with members

Question 21

What was the result of the miner’s strike

Answer 21

• April 15-28
• Forced end walkout as could not beat mine owners alone
• Accepted pay cuts that left wages 20% lower than 1914
• Lasting sense of grievance to TUM + hope that LAP gov change fortune

Question 22

What was the result in the fall of the first LAP gov in 1924 and its after effects?

Answer 22

• Didn’t achieve any core goals
• Union militancy = primary means for change
• Baldwin decision to return to Gold Standard left mine owners’ profits depleted therefore cut pay
• MFGB organised another strike led by Arthur Cook