|
The UK Bible Students Website History Corner
|
THE BRITISH TRADES UNION MOVEMENT
PART III (Conclusion)
(For Part II go here)
A WRONG TURN into a Sarajevo side street placed the
Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife at the mercy of Gavrilo Princip
– a Bosnian Serb revolutionary. Princip seized the moment and assassinated them.
The ensuing diplomatic scramble failed to prevent Europe descending into the
Great War of 1914, a conflict which drained British factories of several million
men who went to fight for their country in the Belgian
trenches.
The demand for munitions, ships and armaments
distorted Britain’s economy. The War Office, with its huge budget, immediately
monopolised several trades by requisitioning their produce. The coal and steel
industries were two that benefited.[fn1] A shortage of men
and soaring demand meant that requests for increased wages were usually
granted.
By the time the armistice came in 1918, the
war effort had bolstered industrial organisation and workers were enjoying the
benefits of a minimum wage and guaranteed terms of employment. The post war
clean-up and regeneration sustained a brief boom in trade, which stalled as the
combatant nations confronted their post-war debts. Britain, at once a creditor
and a debtor nation, ended subsidies, raised taxes, and returned the industries
it had commandeered during the war to private ownership. The cuts coincided with
a rising cost of living and provoked a period of industrial
unrest.
1918-1939
The inter-war years were turbulent. Union
membership peaked at 8 million in 1920 and fell away after the post-war boom.
Unemployment rose to over 2 million by 1921. The government was fixed on a
programme of austerity, and could not afford the increased wages demanded by the
unions. A request by the miners for more pay, under threat of a general strike,
was turned down. When the Railway Workers and Transport Workers Unions withdrew
their support, the strike failed, increasing discontent among the
miners.
The Conservative government was defeated in
the 1923 election and one hundred years of working- class aspirations were
realised when James Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) led the first Labour
government, beginning early in 1924. However, the mandate given to MacDonald was
a poisoned chalice. The Labour party did not have a majority and MacDonald was
forced to sacrifice traditional policies to maintain a coalition with the
Liberals. MacDonald’s term in office is marked for British diplomatic successes
abroad and a failed economic policy at home. By the end of the year his
government fell.
1926: The
General Strike
The country’s economic woes increased in 1925
when German and Polish coal mines resumed their normal production levels,
restoring competition. The increase in supply knocked the bottom out of the
European market. At the request of the unions the government temporarily
subsidised coal production while a Royal Commission investigated a long-term
solution. When the Commission recommended an end to subsidies and a cut to
wages, the miners answered, ‘Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day’.
The negotiations between the mine owners, the miners and the government failed
to win any compromise. On 3 May, 1926 the mines closed and a national strike began.[fn2]
The General Strike of 1926 is without
parallel, unique not only for its scale but because the same men that chose to
fight in Flanders field now sacrificed a second time and joined the miners in
their strike for a living wage. During the course of the month over 3.5 million
men and women stopped work, creating a record loss of 162 million working days,
a figure to which no other strike comes close. The government declared a
national emergency. Winston Churchill (1874-1965), then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, aggressively opposed the strike and demanded an ‘unconditional
surrender’ from the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Churchill believed the strike
would lead to a ‘Soviet of Trade Unions with real control of the country and the
effectual subversion of the state’. While dockers, bus drivers, and transport
workers picketed, university students and bank clerks stepped in to keep the
country moving.
British society had entered the General Strike
still bearing the historic stain of class division. The press painted the action
as a class war, the beginning of a revolution, a notion given weight by events
in Russia and the creation of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Indeed, socialist
ideals and anti-establishment views became popular among the middle class in
Britain after the bloody sacrifices of the trenches. The experience gave the
opposing sides an appreciation of one another. But by November the strike was
over and the miners defeated, their struggle recompensed with longer hours and
lower pay.
The March to the Second World
War
Whereas the constitution of British politics
peaceably accommodated the rise of Labour, Continental Europe was in turmoil.
After 1918, monarchies and aristocracies gave way to more democratic
governments. The war of shells and bullets had become a war of ideologies.
Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism contended for the chief place of influence.
Germany gave Europe a brutal example of the triumph of a planned economy over
laissez-faire capitalism.
In spite of the heavy reparations imposed on
Germany after the First World War, the resultant hyper-inflation, and the world
depression that began in 1929, German industry united in a single effort to
re-arm. Indoctrinated by the Fascist campaign for an expanded ‘lebensraum’
(habitat, living space), the German people relinquished butter for
guns. Under government direction, the factories churned out the tanks, fighter
planes and mechanised weaponry which carried the Storm Troops into
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark and France. This lightning war has left
historians wondering how different the world might have been if Adolf Hitler
had, instead, mobilised for peace.
Britain had anticipated a belligerent Germany,
but had not matched her in war preparation. George Orwell, writing during a
German bombing raid in 1940, described Britain’s
predicament:
A
businessman’s first duty is to his shareholders. Perhaps England needs tanks,
but perhaps it pays better to manufacture motor cars. To prevent war material
from reaching the enemy is common sense, but to sell in the highest market is a
business duty. Right at the end of August 1939 the British dealers were tumbling
over one another in their eagerness to sell Germany tin, rubber, copper, and
shellac and this in the clear certain knowledge that war was going to break
out in a week or two.[fn3]
In May 1940 Winston Churchill became Prime
Minister of a coalition government, comprised of Conservative, Labour, and
National party members. His cabinet included the one-time TUC chairman Ernest
Bevin as Minister for Labour. The Emergency Powers Defence Act gave Bevin
sweeping authority to reorganize industry.
Three factors contributed to Bevin’s success:
Firstly patriotism, which was by far the strongest unifying motive. Secondly,
Britain and Russia became allies after Germany attacked the Soviet Union in
1941, suppressing communist antagonism in the trades unions. Thirdly, Bevin
strengthened employment rights, improved welfare, and made equitable pay
agreements which retained the favour of working men and
women.
Change for A War-Weary Britain
A turning point came at the end of the war
when, despite the nation’s victory under Churchill, the electorate chose a
Labour government to rebuild the country. The Labour Party had campaigned with a
manifesto promising full employment, a large-scale programme of nationalisation,
and the creation of the National Health Service. After the grim and depressed
thirties, and the trauma of the war years during which Britain was mobilised
at every level of society the nation desired a better country, a land fit for
heroes. It was Labour’s first majority government.
The following extract from the 1945 Labour Party Election Manifesto illustrates the mood at the end of the war:
Let Us
Face the Future:
A Declaration of Labour Policy for the Consideration of the Nation
Victory in War must
be followed by a Prosperous Peace
Victory is assured for us and our allies in the European war. The war in the East goes the same way. The British Labour Party is firmly resolved that Japanese barbarism shall be defeated just as decisively as Nazi aggression and tyranny. The people will have won both struggles. The gallant men and women in the Fighting Services, in the Merchant Navy, Home Guard and Civil Defence, in the factories and in the bombed areas they deserve and must be assured a happier future than faced so many of them after the last war. Labour regards their welfare as a sacred trust.
So far as Britain’s contribution is concerned, this war will have been won by its people, not by any one man or set of men, though strong and greatly valued leadership has been given to the high resolve of the people in the present struggle. And in this leadership the Labour Ministers have taken their full share of burdens and responsibilities. The record of the Labour Ministers has been one of hard tasks well done since that fateful day in May, 1940, when the initiative of Labour in Parliament brought about the fall of the Chamberlain Government and the formation of the new War Government which has led the country to victory.
The people made tremendous efforts to win the last war also. But when they had won it they lacked a lively interest in the social and economic problems of peace, and accepted the election promises of the leaders of the anti-Labour parties at their face value. So the ‘hard-faced men who had done well out of the war’ were able to get the kind of peace that suited themselves. The people lost that peace. And when we say ‘peace’ we mean not only the Treaty, but the social and economic policy which followed the fighting.
In the years that followed, the ‘hard-faced men’ and their political friends kept control of the Government. They controlled the banks, the mines, the big industries, largely the press and the cinema. They controlled the means by which the people got their living. They controlled the ways by which most of the people learned about the world outside. This happened in all the big industrialised countries.
Great economic blizzards swept the world in those years. The great inter-war slumps were not acts of God or of blind forces. They were the sure and certain result of the concentration of too much economic power in the hands of too few men. These men had only learned how to act in the interest of their own bureaucratically-run private monopolies which may be likened to totalitarian oligarchies within our democratic State. They had and they felt no responsibility to the nation.
Similar
forces are at work today. The interests have not been able to make the same
profits out of this war as they did out of the last. The determined propaganda
of the Labour Party, helped by other progressive forces, had its effect in
‘taking the profit out of war’. The 100% Excess Profits Tax, the controls over
industry and transport, the fair rationing of food and control of prices -
without which the Labour Party would not have remained in the Government - these
all helped to win the war. With these measures the country has come nearer to
making ‘fair shares’ the national rule than ever before in its history.[fn5]
The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee
(1883-1967), promptly began work on the election promises. The government
nationalised the Bank of England in 1946, with the intention that it ‘be made
answerable to us, the people’. The coal industry shared a similar fate in the
same year and over 800 mining companies were placed under control of the
National Coal Board. In 1947, air, road and rail transport were nationalised and
controlled by the British Transport Commission. Attlee’s programme continued
under future governments with nationalisation of the gas and electricity
companies, the steel industry, and some car makers.[fn6]
Universal Health
Care
The National Health Service Bill of 1946 was
an enlightened piece of legislation, and is the most enduring work of Attlee’s
government. Beginning with the implementation of the Service in July 1948, all
members of the population, regardless of income or status, were entitled to
health care free at the point of delivery, through a network of local hospitals
and doctor’s surgeries. It was the natural legacy of government funding during
the war for municipal and voluntary hospitals dealing with casualties. Britain’s
welfare state was thus established and remained unchallenged for the next thirty
years.
The statistics for the quarter-century after
the Second World War show a crescendo of rising earnings, rising prices and
rising trades union membership. In 1946, union membership was over 8 million, by
1970 over 11 million. For the same years, a loaf of bread just after the war
cost under the equivalent of two new pence; twenty five years later it cost
nearly nine. Annual negotiations by the trades unions won a yearly two percent
increase in take-home pay. Throughout this time unemployment remained below
three percent of the workforce.[fn7]
Strikes . . . and More
Strikes
Britain’s commitment to the post-war social
contract proved to be a tough wrangle. Wage rises fed price increases, and the
inflationary spiral forced lagging unions to campaign for further increases. The
industrial turmoil lowered productivity, and precipitated a crisis which marked
the end of growth for the trades unions. The year 1975 is remembered for record
inflation, which reached a staggering 24.2 %. The plans for government spending
forced the Labour Chancellor, Denis Healey, to apply in 1976 to the
International Monetary Fund for a loan of £2.3 billion (US$3.9 billion) about
ten times that figure in today’s terms (2010). Under pressure from the United
States and (West) Germany, as significant lenders, the IMF directed Britain to
shape up her finances, an embarrassing turn of events for a nation of Britain’s
stature (though not all of the loan was taken up).
Healey enforced a programme of pay restraint
in the short term and promised a return to open pay negotiations by 1978. In
that year the government recommended a pay rise cap of five percent, a limit
which was overwhelmingly rejected by the TUC. In September, workers at Ford
brazenly demanded a 30% increase in wages, the management responded with an
offer of five percent, and strike action followed.
The strike triggered oil tanker drivers, road
hauliers, water and sewerage workers, railway men and dockers to launch separate
campaigns for more pay. The public sector joined the fight, with school
caretakers, cooks, ambulance men, and refuse collectors adding to the
government’s woe. The press titled the trouble Britain’s winter of
discontent. Over 29 million working days were lost to strike
action.
Margaret
Thatcher
The Labour government itself was now largely
identified with Britain’s failing economy and lost the General Election of May
1979 to the Conservatives. The defeat divided the party, and its leaders
descended into an internal power struggle. The new Prime Minister, Margaret
Thatcher, determined and gritty, instituted policies designed to recover the
economy through tax increases and spending cuts, and kicked off a regimen of
deregulation, encouraging the privatization of publicly-owned companies. To
lower inflation, the economics of the ‘new right’ recommended a tight control
over the supply of money. Mrs. Thatcher maintained the cuts even as businesses
folded and unemployment soared to over three million. Her actions earned her the
epithet, Iron Lady.
As the numbers in employment fell, so did
membership in the trades unions. While some helplessly joined job centre queues,
others prepared to fight. The coal miners, backbone of the union movement,
rallied against the cuts. The threat of 20 pit closures and one in five miners
losing their jobs gave Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of
Mineworkers, sufficient support to begin strike action in 1984. Scargill, a man
who matched Margaret Thatcher in his determination not to compromise, refused to
accept the closure of any pit while there was coal to be
mined.
The timing of the strike was ill-judged. The
National Coal Board announced the closures in March, by which time the power
stations and coal depots were well stocked; when the strike began in April the
demand for coal was low. Fortunately for the government, the police had dealt
with riots in London and Liverpool several years previously, and were trained,
equipped and experienced to manage the picket lines. A rolling series of strikes
over ten months witnessed violent confrontations between miners and the police.
By 1985 Scargill’s heroics had failed and the miners were forced back to work in
their thousands.[fn8]
Once the backbone of the British economy, and a huge exporter, the coal
mining sector was decimated. Within fifteen years, 155 out of 170 pits
had closed and a workforce of 191,000 miners reduced to fewer than 15,000. Since
then, membership of all unions has fallen to pre-war
numbers.
From Working Class to Middle
Class
The decline in union strength signals a sea
change in the nature of the British workforce. While many of the advances in
social welfare and politics for which the unions fought remain, the industries
out of which they were born have faded away. Machinery replaced heavy labour,
repetitive manual work was automated, and whole sectors of industry moved
abroad. The progress of technology of the past three decades has halved
employment in manufacturing, once a stronghold of union power and national
strength.
To some extent, the dwindling union numbers
are the natural consequence of economic and technological progress. The credit
boom of the eighties made homeowners and shareholders of the working class, and
removed the poverty and toil which once gave the union fathers their ire, taking
with it the sympathy for labour’s struggle.
The Present
Situation
Twenty-first-century Britain long ago left
behind the squalid factories and child exploitation of the nineteenth century,
made infamous by Charles Dickens. And although the average standard of living at
home has been raised through a flood of cheap imports churned out by non-union
workers labour’s struggle has effectively been transferred to the developing
world.
Globalisation has outstripped the power of the
trades unions to act nationally. We now live in a world market, in which
corporations are free to buy labour where wages are low. Unless there comes into
being a union with worldwide solidarity an unlikely development trades
unions in Britain and other post-industrial economies will most likely continue
to decline in numbers, retaining power and influence only in those industries in
which their work cannot be automated or moved
overseas.
________________
NOTES
Citations to Web pages are correct as of
the dates retrieved, but sites may expire or be
moved.
[fn1] A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945 (Revised Edn., Pelican Books, 1979), 65.
The 'Defence of the Realm Act'
gave the government the authority to force a business to sell its produce to it at a fixed price.
The Act allowed prices to be set at the cost of production plus a reasonable profit.
The phrase 'costs plus' is still used in the defence industry
today for government contracts.
fn2] R.H. Haig, D.S. Morris, A.R. Peters,
The Guardian Book of the General Strike
(First Edn., Aldershot: Wildwood
House Ltd., 1988), ix.
[fn3] George Orwell, George Orwell Essays
(London: Penguin Books, 2000), 162.
The electronic text of part II of
Orwell’s essay The Lion and the Unicorn is available
online:
<http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/>
(retrieved 22 August
2010).
[fn4] John McIlroy, Trade Unions in Britain Today
(Second Edn., Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1988), 21.
[fn5] Full text at <http://www.labour-party.org.uk/
manifestos/1945/1945-labour-manifesto.shtml>
(retrieved
Sept. 12, 2010)
fn6] Peter Teed, Britain 1906 – 1951:
A Welfare State (London: Hutchison
Educational Ltd., 1964), 275.
[fn7] The Office of National Statistics offers comprehensive
datasets covering many economic indicators,
with records dating back as far as 1900.
These statistics are
available online at:
<http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/index.html>
A relevant study covering employment and
price changes from 1900 to 2000 can be found here:
<http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/labour_market_trends/century
_labour_market_change_mar2003.pdf>
(retrieved 22 August
2010)
[fn8] Andrew Marr, The Making of Modern Britain (London: MacMillan, 2009),411
_______________
Article copyright September 2010 by ukbiblestudents.co.uk
You are free to reproduce any or all of this material, but please let us know if you do.