By 1884 the agricultural labourer had been given the vote which gave the workers a spirit of determination to campaign for favourable legislation in Parliament. As the workers were slowly gaining political power they also gained a sense of growing confidence. The revival of socialism was also important to the development of trade unions for the unskilled as a number of individual socialists inspired a number of the strikes which took place during the 1880s. The successful strikes which took place in 1888-9 saw the turning point for the unskilled and semi-skilled workers.
In 1888 Annie Besant investigated the working conditions of female labour at Bryant and May’s factory in East London. Here she found low wages, girls suffering from phosphorus poisoning and a harsh regime of rules and regulations. Mrs Besant organised The Match-Makers Unions which came out on strike and eventually the girls won an increase in wages and some of the rules were relaxed. This successful strike encouraged other unions to take on their employers. In 1889 Will Thorne , a member of the Social Democratic Federation, assisted by Eleanor Marx, formed the Gas workers’ and General Labourers’ Union. Thorne organised a strike at the Becton Gas-works and demanded a change from two 12-hour shifts to three 8 hour shifts. The employers agreed to the demand and an increase in wages.
The summer of 1889 however saw the greatest struggle. In London’s dockland the dockers were being badly paid and demoralised until Ben Tillett organised them into making a number of demands of the employers. Tillett prepared for a long strike and was joined by John Burns and Tom Mann in leadership. The strike won public support and financial aid for the strikers was received from as far away as Australia. The strike lasted five weeks until Cardinal Manning called a conciliation meeting between the two sides which resulted in victory for the dockers. The Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers Union was formed after the strike under the leadership of Tillett and Mann and within two months they had gained a membership of 30,000 men.
The immediate effect of these strikes was a rapid growth in trade union membership and an increase in the number of disputes as the unions tested their strength. Trade union membership grew rapidly from 750,000 in 1888 to 2,000,000 in 1900. The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain was a large union which was formed during this period.
The employers were faced with foreign competition and were determined that the new unions should not dictate terms to them so used the ‘lock-out’ as a tactic. An employers’ counter-attack was deliberately conceived with the organisation of Employers’ Federations; these federations also co-ordinated lock-outs to defeat strikes. In 1877 the Employers’ Parliamentary Council was formed. The council’s objective was to influence parliament over the employers’ case, they used propaganda arguing that the unions were damaging the British economy. Bringing in blackleg labour during a strike was also a tactic that many employers used to stop a strike and continue work. In 1893 the National Free Labour Association was set up by William Collison to supply employers with blackleg labour during a strike. However many employers also tried to make the best of a bad job realising that the unions had established a foothold and were here to stay. These employers tried to settle disputes by using the various items of arbitration and conciliation machinery. This machinery was strengthened by the 1896 Conciliation Act which allowed the Board of Trade to intervene directly in disputes and appoint conciliators; this proved to be quite successful.
After many successful strikes the unions started to face legal setbacks in the period 1880-1910, one of the most famous cases was the Taff Vale Case which happened in 1900-01. On the 20th August 1900 the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants called a strike against its employer the Taff Vale Railway Company. The running of the strike was organised by James Holmes, the area convenor and Richard Bell, the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. There were a number of acrimonious exchanges with the company which included a threat from the union that they were ready to back the strike to the tune of £250,000. However the threat did not work as the company’s manager called on the National Free Labour Association and was supplied with blackleg labour; he also gained an injunction to stop the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants from picketing. The dispute was ‘settled’ on 31st August and was a humiliation for the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants leadership as the union did not achieve a wage increase or recognition. This was a major blow to trade unions itself but then the company decided to take the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants to court and sued for damages to compensate the loss of revenue during the strike. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants ended up paying £23,000 to the company and the costs of the case; this was a crushing blow to trade union aspirations as people feared that future strikes in the industry could suffer the same fate.
The Labour party started to increase its recognition and in 1906 the Liberal Government became under pressure form the 29 Labour Party MPs, this caused the Government to revoke the Taff Vale Judgment by introducing a Trade Disputes Act. This Act made picketing a legal activity once again and said, “An action against a Trade Union . . . in respect of . . . damages . . . shall not be entertained by any court,” this removed the ‘cloud’ of the Taff Vale case. The Osbourne case and judgment which happened in 1908-9 was also nullified by two acts. These acts were the 1911 Payment of Members Act and the 1913 Trade Union Act. Therefore on the eve of the First World War trade unions had overcome all legal obstacles; they now had the right to picket, the power to strike and play an important role in politics.
Bibliography
- An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century British History 1800-1914, Michael Lynch, Hodder and Stoughton.
- Britain Since 1700, RJ Cootes, Longman Group, 1985.
- Mastering Modern British History, Norman Lowe, Palgrave Master Series, 1998.
