The difficulties experienced by the coal industry between 1914 and 1925.

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Craig bowman

The difficulties experienced by the coal industry between 1914 and 1925

There were many difficulties for the coal industry between 1914 and 1925 which I will be discussing in this essay. Industries in Britain at this time were privately owned, mostly by English people. In April 1914 the ‘big three’ Unions met together to see how they could strengthen their claims in the future. The Miners Federation of the MFGB represented over 1 million men working in 2500 pits, the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU). A Trade Union is a organisation which gives protection for members, fighting for better pay and compensations and protecting workers rights. The Unions altogether represented one and a half million Trade Union members, and were certainly not going to make life easy for the industry owners over the next couple of years. The alliance of these unions meant that they could now have ‘sympathetic strikes’. This meant that if one group had a strike then other industries would strike in sympathy even though the problem going on has nothing to do with them. An example of this is in 1984 when a miners strike threatened the steel workers job. The unions were very important for workers in the coal industry because conditions were very poor as they were working for long hours underground with nothing to protect them from things falling from above them etc. Because the mines were privately owned they were nationalised in 1914 because of the war to break down the differences in conditions and pay to make the miners happier so there would be no problems during the war.

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However, during the war the demand for coal was enormous and the industry had an ‘economic boom’. Because of this boom workers were in a stronger position to bargain as their job was so important for the war cause, this meant that the government would be willing to give them much more money since they could not afford to have a strike in the coal industry. Relationships between workers and employers were strained because they wanted a lot more. They wanted much greater rewards for their role in winning the war. Many workers also wanted to keep ‘state rationalisation’ that ...

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