What has the Union ever done for me?
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‘I’m happy with my pay and conditions’
‘What has a Union ever done for me?’
Sadly, these are not unheard phrases so, for the next
several weeks this spot is going to be dedicated to a brief history of trade
unions and what they have done for us.
For example, did you know ‘that trade unions were first decriminalised under the recommendation of a
Royal Commission in 1867, which agreed that the establishment of the
organisations was to the advantage of both employers and employees’? (Wikipedia, 4/2/13)
Background up to 1815
Between the late 18th and mid-19th centuries, Britain was
transformed from a mainly agrarian and rural society into one whose wealth
was based on industrial production and whose population was increasingly
located in fast expanding towns. Some of these towns like Manchester and
Leeds had been mere villages 70 years previously.
The process of industrialisation (commonly known as 'the
industrial revolution') was facilitated by the use of new sources of motive
power - first water, then steam. Steam was used to drive the machinery, which
now had to be located in factories, near to the source of power - coal.
The disruption caused by industrialisation was made worse by
22 years of war with France (1793-1815) and huge rises in food prices. All
this gave an impetus to workplace combination and trade organisation, despite
the notorious Combination Acts 1799/1800. These acts banned every kind of
combination or meeting leading to combination.
1815-1834
Fearing the influence of the ideas inspiring the French
Revolution (1789), the Tory government of 1815 was determined to crush
protest. Nevertheless, political radicalism was widespread in these years and
was expressed in demonstrations, rebellions and a flurry of political tracts
and newspapers defying the infamous 'taxes on knowledge' (the stamp duties of
1819). Political power was in the hands of the aristocracy and it is
estimated that only c.400, 000 men had the vote, thus parliamentary reform
was a major campaigning issue. The 1832 Reform Act extended the franchise to
the industrialists and in so doing dashed the hopes of working people who
dubbed 1832 'the great betrayal'.
[…]
There were […] attempts to form general unions of all
workers irrespective of trade. William Benbow (a Lancashire shoemaker),
Robert Owen and many others looked upon trade unionism not just as a means
for protecting and improving workers' living standards, but also as a vehicle
for changing the entire political and economic order of society. Owen
experimented with co-operative ventures and 'labour exchanges'; both attempts
to bypass the existing order of wage slavery.
The most famous of the general unions was, the Grand
National Consolidated Trades Union (GNCTU) 1833-4. In 1834, the government
attempted to smash the union by arresting six agricultural labourers from the
village of Tolpuddle in Dorsetshire (the Tolpuddle Martyrs). These six men,
having joined the GNCTU, were accused and found guilty in a show trial of
'administering illegal oaths'. They were transported to Australia. There was
a mass campaign to prevent the sentences being carried out and, although
unsuccessful in its immediate aim, it succeeded in pressuring the government
to commute the sentences of the six.
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