The General Workers
In 1888 the leaders of the skilled craftsmen and better-paid workmen were inclined to believe that effective or durable Trade Unionism among the general labourers and unskilled or nondescript workmen was as impracticable as it had hitherto proved to be among the mass of women wage-earners. The outburst of Trade Unionism among the dockers and gasworkers in 1888-89 was commonly expected to be as transient as analogous movements had been in 1834 and 1871. In 1920 we find the organisations of this despised section, some of them of over thirty years’ standing, accounting for no less than 30 per cent of the whole Trade Union membership, and their leaders—notably Mr. Clynes, Mr. Thorne, and Mr. Robert Williams—exercising at least their full share of influence in the counsels of the Trade Union Movement as a whole. For a few years after 1889, indeed, the aggregate membership of the newly-formed labourers’ Unions declined, and some of the weaker ones collapsed, or became merged in the larger societies. But the Gas-workers’ and General Labourers’ Union (established 1889), which changed its name in 1918 to the National Union of General Workers; and the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Workers’ Union (established 1887) maintained themselves in existence; and already in 1907 there were as many as 150,000 organised labourers in half-a-dozen well-established societies. The outburst of Trade Unionism among the farm labourers in 1890 gradually faded away. But in 1906 a new society, the National Agricultural Labourers and Rural Workers’ Trade Union, was formed, which at once made headway in Norfolk and the adjacent counties; to be followed in 1913 by the energetic Scottish Farm Servants’ Trade Union. Organisation was, between 1904 and 1911, steadily extending in all directions, when the passing of the National Insurance Act, which practically compelled every wage-earner to join an “Approved Society” of some kind, led to a dramatic expansion of Trade Union membership, from which the various Unions of general workers, as they now prefer to be styled, obtained their share of advantage. The Workers’ Union, in particular, which had been established in 1898, for the enrolment of members among the nondescript and semi-skilled workers of all sorts not catered for by the craft Unions, had, after twelve years’ existence, only 5000 members in 111 branches in 1910, but grew during 1911-13 to 91,000 members in 567 branches. In three years more it stood at 197,000 members in 750 branches, and by the end of 1919 its membership had risen to about 500,000 in nearly 2000 branches, comprising almost every kind and grade of worker, of any age and either sex, from clay-workers and tin miners to corporation employees and sanitary inspectors, from domestic servants and waiters to farm labourers and carmen, and every kind of nondescript worker in the factory, the yard, or on the road. The organising of the rural labourers has been shared by nearly all the principal Unions of General Workers. The passing of the Corn Production Act in 1917, with its incidental establishment of Joint Boards in every county of the United Kingdom, empowered to fix a legal minimum wage for a prescribed normal working day, had the result of greatly extending Trade Union membership among all sections of agricultural labourers, who are now (1920), for the first time in history, more or less organised in every county of Great Britain—partly in the very successful Agricultural Labourers’ Union, which had, at the end of 1919, 180,000 members in no fewer than 2700 branches; partly in the Workers’ Union, which has a large number of agricultural branches; partly in the National Union of General Workers, the Dock, Wharf and Riverside Labourers’ Union, and the National Amalgamated Union of Labour; in all the Scottish counties, in the powerful Scottish Farm Servants’ Union; whilst in Ireland the agricultural wage-earners have been enrolled in the Transport and General Workers’ Union. The total number of agricultural labourers in Trade Unions in 1920 probably reaches more than three hundred thousand, being about one-third of the total number of men employed in agriculture at wages.
Throughout the years of war the membership of the various Unions classified under the head of Transport and General Labour (including the dockers and seamen), which in 1892 was only 154,000, continued to increase by leaps and bounds until, in 1920, their aggregate membership considerably exceeds that of the entire Trade Union world of 1890, and does not fall far short of a couple of millions.
Of recent years there has been a steady pressure towards amalgamation and consolidation of forces. Many small and local Unions have been merged, and several of the larger bodies seem to be on the point of union. Meanwhile the movement towards closer federation is strong. In 1908 all the big general Labour Unions became associated in the General Labourers’ National Council, a useful consultative body, having for its principal function the prevention of overlapping and conflict among the different Unions. It was successful in arranging for freedom of transfer and mutual recognition of each other’s membership among its constituent Unions, and in promoting a certain amount of demarcation of spheres, and even of amalgamation. This Council in May 1917 developed into a National Federation of General Workers, which includes eleven important general Unions of General Workers, having an aggregate membership of over 800,000. This important federation took a significant step towards unification in November 1919, in appointing ten District Committees, consisting of two representatives of each of the affiliated societies, charged to consult with regard to any local trade dispute involving more than one society.
Recent years have seen the rise of a new grouping. The several Unions of seamen, lightermen, dock and wharf labourers, coal-porters and carmen have asserted themselves as Transport Workers, seeking not merely to take common action in matters of wages and hours, but also to formulate regulations for the government of the whole industry of transport (apart from that of railways), which is one more example of the tendency to create “industrial” federations on a national basis. The organisation for the purpose is the National Transport Workers’ Federation, comprising three dozen of the Unions having among their members men engaged in waterside transport work, including seamen, dockers, and carters. It was formed in November 1910 at the instance of the Dockers’ Union, and came at once into prominence during the London strike of 1911, which it handled with great vigour.[609] This was the first great fight in the Port of London since the upheaval of 1889. The National Union of Sailors and Firemen, which had in vain appealed to the Shipping Federation to unite in constituting a Conciliation Board, in June 1911 struck for a uniform scale at all ports and various minor ameliorations of their conditions. Largely as a result of the excitement caused by the seamen’s strike, the dockers in July came out for a rise from 6d. to 8d. per hour, with 1s. per hour for overtime. The stevedores, the gasworkers, the carmen, the coal-porters, the tug-enginemen, the grain porters, and various other bodies of men engaged in or about the port, put forward their own claims. Amid great excitement the whole port was stopped, great meetings on Tower Hill were held daily, and processions of strikers, said to have been as many as 100,000 in number, paraded through the City. The unrest spread to most other ports, and there were some local disturbances. The Port of London Authority, under Lord Devonport, refused all parley, and the Government for some time practically supported this great corporate employer, which had failed (and has to this day failed) to comply with the section of the Act of Parliament by which it was constituted directing it to institute a scheme for more civilised conditions of employment for its labourers. The War Office, at the request of Mr. Winston Churchill, who was then at the Home Office, accumulated troops in London, and actually threatened to put 25,000 soldiers to break the strike by doing the dockers’ work—a step which would undoubtedly have led to bloody conflict in the streets. Finally, however, the Cabinet gave way, and persuaded Lord Devonport and his colleagues, together with shipowners, wharfingers, and granary proprietors, to meet the representatives of the Unions with a view to agreement. For three whole days they sat and argued, ultimately arriving at an agreement under which the men returned to work on the immediate concession of about half their demand and the remission of the other half to arbitration. This was undertaken by Sir Albert Rollit, M.P., at the instance of the London Chamber of Commerce, his award eventually conceding to the men substantially their whole claim; summed up in 8d. per hour for the dockers, with 1s. per hour for overtime, other trades, and the men at other ports, obtaining, in one or other form, analogous advantages.[610] In May 1912 the dispute flared up again in the Thames and Medway, when a combined strike and lock-out, in which 80,000 men were involved, stopped the work of the port for six weeks. Sympathetic strikes in other ports led to some 20,000 men being idle for a few days. The men asserted that the employers had not in all cases fulfilled the agreement of the previous year, and were discriminating against Trade Unionists. The employers seem to have been concerned, in the main, to avoid recognition of the Transport Workers’ Federation, and to check its growing authority. In spite of the vigorous support of the Daily Herald; of pecuniary help, not only from Australia and the United States, but also from the German Trade Unions; and of the mediation of the Government, the strike failed owing to the men breaking away, and to the stubborn obstinacy of Lord Devonport, as Chairman of the Port of London Authority, who insisted on a resumption of work upon the employers’ assurance that they would respect all agreements and consider any grievances put forward by the representatives of any section. Notwithstanding the failure of this somewhat premature effort of the Transport Workers’ Federation, its formation, together with that of the National Federation of General Workers, have gone far to transform the position. For a couple of decades the efforts of the General Labourers’ Unions took the form of innumerable local and sectional demands, not merely for higher rates of pay, though advances of several shillings per week have continually been secured, but for mutual agreement of piecework rates, a reduction of working hours, insistence on compensation for accidents, the provision of better accommodation or greater amenity in work, and extra allowances for tasks of peculiar strain or discomfort. The efforts of the federations have raised these local and sectional arrangements to the level of national questions; and the agreements now concluded with the employers’ national representatives amount to an increasingly effective control over the industry.