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Employers' Organisation and Strikebreaking in Britian, 1880–1914*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Arthur J. McIvor
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The historical development of employers' associations and the role these organisations played in strikebreaking has been considerably neglected in industrial-relations history. With a few notable recent exceptions, research has tended to concentrate on the development and struggles of the organisations of men, rather than the masters. This is partly the result of the secrecy and anonymity of employers' associations and their reluctance to allow access to their records or to attract media interest, and partly because the defensive and conservative attitudes and policies of employers' organisations have proved less attractive to historians than the more militant political and social theories that lie at the foundation of trade-union policy. In particular, the strikebreaking activities of employers and their organisations were not widely publicised. As a result, this whole emotive area is shrouded in exaggeration, sensationalism, distortion and the propagation of myths by both workers and employers. The object of this paper is to analyse the parameters of employers' coercive strikebreaking tactics from the 1880's to 1914 and to shed some light on the role employers' associations played during industrial stoppages. The first section briefly outlines the main developments in employers' organisation, solidarity and labour-relations policy before 1914. Following this is a discussion of the various strikebreaking tactics utilised by employers in this period, broken down into sections on labour replacement, victimisation and legal action, strike compensation and internal solidarity, and, finally, the lock-out.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , April 1984 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1984

Footnotes

*

A version of this paper first appeared in November 1982 as a Polytechnic of Central London Research Working Paper (No 20). The present draft was prepared for presentation to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch Labour History Conference on Industrial Conflict, Newcastle, April 1984. I am pleased to acknowledge the help of Ph. Bagwell, A. E. Musson, H. Gospel, E. Taplin and D. J. Oddy, all of whom made helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. Many thanks also to the Economic and Social Research Council for financial support, and to the various employers' organisations who have allowed access to their records.

References

1 For work on employers' associations in the period prior to 1914 see in particular Garside, W. R. and Gospel, H. F., “ Employers and Managers”, in: A History of British Industrial Relations 1875–1914, ed. by Wrigley, Ch. (1982);Google Scholar Yarmie, A. H., “Employers' Organisations in Mid-Victorian England”, in: International Review of Social History, XXV (1980);Google Scholar Bean, R., “Employers' Associations in the Port of Liverpool, 1890–1914”,Google Scholar ibid., XXI (1976); Wigham, E., The Power to Manage: A History of the Engineering Employers'Federation (1973); and Essays in Anti-Labour History, ed. by Brown, K. D. (1974).Google Scholar There are also a number of rather dated “official” histories, including Powell, L. H., The Shipping Federation (1950), and Howe, E., The British Federation of Master Printers, 1900–1950 (1950), but these tend to be narrative histories and “apologias”, lacking any comparative analysis.Google Scholar Reference might also be made to the excellent theses of Gospel, H. F., “Employers' Organisations: Their Growth and Function in the British System of Industrial Relations in the Period 1918–39” (Ph.D. London School of Economics, 1974),Google Scholar and Williams, L. J., “The Monmouthshire and South Wales Coalowners' Associations, 1873–1914” (M.A., University of Wales, 1957), and to my own recently completed thesis,Google Scholar Mclvor, A. J., “Employers' Associations and Industrial Relations in Lancashire, 1890–1939” (Ph.D., Manchester University, 1983).Google Scholar

2 On the origins of employers' associations see Yarmie, , “Employers' Organisations”, pp. 211–18.Google Scholar

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30 Lancashire and Cheshire Federation of Building Trades Employers, Minutes, 5 and 29 April 1899.

31 Ibid., 27 January 1897.

32 Lancashire and Cheshire Federation of Building Trades Employers, Yearbook, 06 1914, p. 37. According to Postgate, R., The Builders' History (1923), pp. 367–68, even Italian blacklegs were brought in.Google Scholar

33 Iron Trades Employers' Association, Record (1900), pp. 25, 36, 84–85, 84–85, 130.

34 Manchester Engineering Employers' Association, Minutes, 21 and 28 September, 5 and 19 October 1897.

35 Ibid., 31 December. Also cited in Wigham, The Power to Manage, pp. 282–83.

36 Labour's Turning Point 1880–1900, ed. by Hobsbawm, E. J., 2nd ed. (1974), p. 157.Google Scholar

37 See, for example, Manchester Engineering Employers' Association, Minutes, 3 December 1901, and Circulars Index, 11 February 1907; Engineering Employers' Federation, Microfilm Archive, 1905, ref. S(7)3; and Collison, Apostle of Free Labour, op. cit., pp. 265–71.Google Scholar

38 Bolton Master Cotton Spinners' Association, Diary, 2 May to 7 August 1889; Tenth Annual Report of the Bolton Operative Spinners' Association, for 1889, pp. 8–9; Ashton Master Cotton Spinners' Association, Minutes, 27 04 1892; Federation of Master Cotton Spinners' Associations, Minutes, 6 05 and 28 06 1892.Google Scholar

39 Federation of Master Cotton Spinners' Associations, Annual Reports, 1902–08.

40 The scale of the underrepresentation of strikes in the official figures can be gauged from the fact that White, J. L., The Limits of Trade Union Militancy (1978), p. 184, found that 36 strikes in the cotton trade over 1910–14 were not included in the annual reports, despite being clearly within the inclusion criteria. This is, therefore, by no means a perfect and infallible source.Google Scholar

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59 Booth, H. (Solicitors), Legal Opinion No 34, to the Oldham Master Cotton Spinners' Association, 03 1909.Google Scholar

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61 Cotton Spinners' and Manufacturers' Association, Minutes, 21 February 1913, and Circular, 22 February 1913.

62 Engineering Employers' Federation, Correspondence Files, 1898–1914, passim; Minutes of Evidence, pp. 164–65, 169.

63 Manchester Engineering Employers' Association, Circulars Index, 1898–1914; Engineering Employers' Federation, Circular Letter, 27 April 1905.

64 Oldham Master Cotton Spinners' Association, Annual Reports, 1892, pp. 28–29; 1899, p. 10; 1909, pp 7–8; 1913, p. 10;Google Scholar Cotton Spinners' and Manufacturers' Association, Minutes, 27 06 1911;Google Scholar Williams, , “The Monmouthshire and South Wales Coalowners' Associations”, pp. 241–43.Google Scholar

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71 Inter-trading had a very long history in the building trade, dating back at least to the 1860's, and the use of the employers'–association crest on a firm's stationary was one method used to facilitate such inter-trading.

72 Bolton Master Cotton Spinners' Association, Minutes, 5 August 1898; Darwen Cotton Spinners' and Manufacturers' Association, Minutes, 24 January 1902.Google Scholar

73 Knowles, K. G. J. C., Strikes (1952), p. 122.Google Scholar

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78 One good example of the use of strike compensation as a delaying tactic to localise industrial conflict was during the “bad spinning” crisis and the abrogation of the Brookiands Agreement over 1913–14.

79 Membership of the Engineering Employers' Federation declined from 810 firms in 1913 to 744 firms in 1914, largely as the result of the adoption of a more costly “Subsidy Scheme”. See Wigham, , The Power to Manage, pp. 82–83, 303.Google Scholar

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86 The employers ended the lock-out with 702 firms closed. See Engineering Employers' Federation, List of the Federated Engineering and Shipbuilding Employers Who Resisted the Demand for a 48 Hours Working Week (1898).

87 Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bolton Operative Spinners' Association, for 1893, pp. 4, 10.Google Scholar