The Rise in Status of Trade Unionism
So far we have described only the changes in the legal status of the Trade Unions and the consequent increase in their freedom of action and in their influence, alike in the industrial and political sphere. This advance in legal status has been accompanied by a still more revolutionary transformation of the social and political standing of the official representatives of the Trade Union world—a transformation which has been immensely accelerated by the Great War. We may, in fact, not unfairly say that Trade Unionism has, in 1920, won its recognition by Parliament and the Government, by law and by custom, as a separate element in the community, entitled to distinct recognition as part of the social machinery of the State, its members being thus allowed to give—like the clergy in Convocation—not only their votes as citizens, but also their concurrence as an order or estate.
Like all revolutionary changes in the British constitution, the recognition of the Trade Union Movement as part of the governmental structure of the nation began in an almost imperceptible way. Though Trade Union leaders had been, since 1869, appointed occasionally and sparsely on Royal Commissions and Departmental Committees, it was possible, as recently as 1903, for a Government to set up a Royal Commission on Trade Disputes and Trade Combinations without a single Trade Unionist member. Such a thing has not been repeated. It is now taken for granted that Trade Unionism must be distinctively and effectually represented, usually by men or women of its own informal nomination, on all Royal Commissions and Departmental Committees, whether or not these inquiries are concerned specifically with “Labour Questions”—excepting only such as are so exclusively financial or professional that the representatives of Labour do not seek or desire representation upon them.
In 1885-86, and again in 1892-95, Liberal Prime Ministers had appointed leading Trade Unionists (who were, it must be noted, also Liberal M.P.’s) to subordinate Ministerial positions, where they were permitted practically no influence.[677] In 1905 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman startled some of his Whig associates by asking Mr. John Burns—who had presided over the Trades Union Congress as a representative of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, but who had sat in Parliament since 1892 as a Liberal supporter—to join his Cabinet as President of the Local Government Board. This recognition of Labour in the inner councils of the Government was quickly followed by an explicit recognition of the Trade Unions as part of the machinery of State administration. In 1911, when the vast scheme of National Insurance was brought forward by Mr. Asquith’s Government, and Parliament sanctioned the raising and expenditure of more than twenty million pounds a year for the relief of sickness and unemployment, the Trade Unions, equally with the universally praised Friendly Societies, were made the agents for the administration of the sickness, invalidity, and maternity benefits, and, parallel with the Government’s own local organisation, and to the exclusion of the Friendly Societies, also for the administration of the State Unemployment Benefit to their own members. But it was during the Great War that we watch the most extensive advance in the status, alike of the official representatives of the Trade Unions and of the Trade Unions themselves, as organs of representation and government. It is needless to say that this recognition was not accorded to the Trade Union world without a quid pro quo from the Trade Union Movement to the Government. Hence the part played by the Trade Unions in the national effort, and its effect on their influence and status, demands explicit notice.