Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-11T21:48:51.591Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Organisation, membership and solidarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2009

Arthur J. McIvor
Affiliation:
University of Strathclyde
Get access

Summary

As noted in chapter I, a significant strand of research upon employers' organisations emphasises the persistence of disunity, fragmentation, and fractured collective consciousness amongst British employers prior to the First World War. According to this interpretation, employer combinations in Britain before 1914 lacked centralised control and authority over their members, were unable to develop a consensus labour relations strategy, or significantly influence the existing division of labour. Initiatives towards employer solidarity before the First World War thus generated weak, fragile alliances which were short-lived and episodic, the removal of the immediate threat leading inevitably to a rapid fracturing in cohesion, undermining employer organisation. Roy Bean's case study of Liverpool shipping provides one such example of a strong employer association critically weakened by breakaways after the threat from the dockers and seamen subsided. Indeed, the Employers' Labour Association in Liverpool haemorrhaged from covering fifty major shipping lines in 1890 to just thirteen in 1909. But was this experience typical or exceptional in this period?

This chapter investigates the organisational structures which employers collectively constructed, evaluates membership trends and employer solidarity within associations and elaborates a little on the services offered by such institutions. How strong and cohesive were employers' associations before 1914? How were they organised? Who were members? What were the forces which stimulated collective organisation? It will be argued here that the interpretation presented above has important merits, especially in dispelling the myth of a monolithic employer class.

Type
Chapter
Information
Organised Capital
Employers' Associations and Industrial Relations in Northern England, 1880–1939
, pp. 59 - 91
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×