THE TRADE UNION WORLD
[1890-1894]
When we were engaged, between 1890 and 1894, in investigating the
history and organisation of all the several Unions, no complete
statistics as to the extent of the membership were in existence. We
accordingly sought to obtain, not only an analysis of the Trade Union
world as it then was, but also a complete census of Trade Unionism
from one end of the kingdom to the other. We retain this analysis
practically as it stood in the first edition of the book in 1894, as a
record of the position as it then was--in subsequent chapters tracing
the principal changes and developments of the last thirty years.
To deal first with the aggregate membership, we were convinced in
1894 that, although a certain number of small local societies might
have escaped our notice, we had included every Union then existing
which had as many as 1000 members, as well as many falling below that
figure. From these researches we estimated that the total Trade Union
membership in the United Kingdom at the end of 1892 certainly exceeded
1,500,000 and probably did not reach 1,600,000. Our estimate was
presently confirmed. Working upon the data thus supplied, the Labour
Department of the Board of Trade extended its investigations, and now
records a Trade Union membership for 1892 of 1,502,358.[577] The Trade
Unionists of 1892 numbered, therefore, about 4 per cent of the Census
population.
But to gauge the strength of the Trade Union world of 1892 we had to
compare the number of Trade Unionists, not with the total population,
but with that portion of it which might conceivably be included within
its boundaries. Thus at the outset we had to ignore the propertied
classes, the professions, the employers and the brain-workers of every
kind, and confine our attention exclusively to the wage-earners engaged
in manual work. Even of the working-class so defined we could exclude
the children and the youths under twenty-one, who are not usually
eligible for Trade Union membership. The women present a greater
difficulty to the statistician. The adult female wage-earners engaged
in manual labour in 1891 were estimated to number between two and three
millions, of which only about 100,000 were even nominally within the
Trade Union ranks. To what extent the men’s Trade Unionism was weakened
by its failure to enrol the women workers was a matter of dispute. From
the industrial point of view the answer depends on complicated economic
considerations, such as the extent to which women compete with men
in particular industries, or women’s trades with those in which men
are employed. Owing to the exclusion of women from the Parliamentary
franchise until 1918 their absence from the Trade Union world detracted
little from its political force. We have dealt elsewhere[578] with the
relation of women workers to the Trade Union organisation. Meanwhile we
omit the women as well as the young persons under twenty-one from our
estimate of the place occupied by Trade Unionism in working-class life.
We know of no exact statistics as to the total numbers of the
manual-working class. The figures collected by Leone Levi, and
those of Sir Robert Giffen, together with the inferences to be
drawn from the census and from Charles Booth’s works, led us to the
conclusion--at best only hypothetical--that of the nine millions
of men over twenty-one years of age in 1891, about seven millions
belonged to the manual-working class. Out of every hundred of the
population of all ages we could roughly estimate that about eighteen
are in this sense working men adults. Accepting for the moment this
hypothetical estimate, we arrived at the conclusion that the Trade
Unionists numbered at this date about 20 per cent of the adult male
manual-working class, or, roughly, one man in five.
But this revised percentage is itself misleading. If the million and a
half Trade Unionists were evenly distributed among all occupations and
through all districts, a movement which comprised only 20 per cent of
working men would be of slight economic or industrial importance, and
of no great weight in the political world. What gave the Trade Union
Movement its significance even thirty years ago and transformed these
million and a half units into an organised world of their own, was the
massing of Trade Unionists in certain industries and districts in such
a way as to form a powerful majority of the working-class world. The
Trade Unionists were aggregated in the thriving industrial districts of
the North of England. The seven counties of England north of the Humber
and the Dee contained at least 726,000 members of trade societies, or
almost half of the total for the United Kingdom. At a considerable
distance from these followed the industrial Midlands, where the seven
counties of Leicester, Derby, Notts, Warwick, Gloucester, Northampton,
and Stafford included a total Trade Union membership of at least
210,000, whilst South Wales, including Monmouthshire, counted another
89,000 members of trade societies. The vast agglomeration of the London
district, in which we must reckon Middlesex, the subsidiary boroughs of
West Ham, Croydon, Richmond, and Kingston, as well as Bromley in Kent,
yielded not more than 194,000 Trade Unionists.
These four districts, comprising nearly 21,000,000 inhabitants, or
rather more than two-thirds of the population of England and Wales,
possessed in 1892 twelve-thirteenths of its Trade Unionists. The total
Trade Union membership in the remainder of the country, with its
8,000,000 of population, did not exceed 105,000, largely labourers.
The only county in England in which in 1892 we found no trace of
Trade Union organisation was Rutland, which did not, at this date,
contain a single branch of any Union whatsoever. But Huntingdonshire,
Herefordshire, and Dorsetshire, containing together over 350,000
inhabitants, included, according to our estimate, only about 710 Trade
Unionists between them. Scotland, with four millions of population,
had 147,000 Trade Unionists, nearly all aggregated in the narrow
industrial belt between the Clyde and the Forth, two-thirds of the
total, indeed, belonging to Glasgow and the neighbouring industrial
centres. Ireland, with three-quarters of a million more population,
counted but 40,000, nine-tenths of whom belonged to Dublin, Belfast,
Cork, and Limerick.
Of particular counties, Northumberland and Durham at that date took
the lead, closely followed by Lancashire. The table on following
page supplies particulars of this date for the strongest Trade Union
counties in England and Wales.
This superficial investigation shows us at once that Trade Unionism
coincided in 1892, as it does in 1920, in the main with density of
population. The thinly peopled plains of Dorsetshire, the Highlands of
Scotland, the West of Ireland, the Cumberland and Westmorland Hills,
were practically devoid of Trade Unionism; the valleys of the Tyne and
Tees, Lancashire and London, and the busy industrial villages of the
Midlands showed a comparatively high percentage. But the correspondence
of Trade Unionism with density of population is by no means exact.
Oldham, for instance, with a population of 201,153, had 25,000 male
Unionists,[579] or 12.43 per cent, whereas Birmingham (including the
suburbs of Aston, Handsworth, and Solihull), with 621,253, had only
26,000, or 4.19 per cent. Newcastle (including Gateshead), with 328,066
inhabitants, had 26,500 Trade Unionists, or 8.08 per cent, whilst Leeds
(including Wortley, Hunslet, and Burley) had but 16,000 to a population
of 415,243, or 3.85 per cent. And, most striking exception of all,
the crowded five and a half millions of the Metropolitan area had but
194,000 Trade Unionists, or only 3.52 per cent of its population,
whilst Lancashire, even including its northern moorlands and its wide
agricultural districts, had 332,000 for less than four millions of
people, or 8.63 per cent of its population. Reckoning that 18 out of
every 100 of the population are adult male workmen, Trade Unionism thus
counted among its adherents in some counties over 50 per cent of the
total number of working men.
_Table showing, for certain counties in England, and for
South Wales, the total population in 1891, the ascertained
number of Trade Unionists in 1892, and the percentage to
population in each case. (In the first edition of this
book the student will find a coloured map of England and
Wales, showing, in five tints, the percentage of Trade Union
membership to Census population in 1891 in the several
counties, as estimated in this table.)_
------------------------------+------------+--------------+------------
| Total | Ascertained | Percentage
| Population | Number of | of Trade
County. | in 1891. | Members of | Unionists
| | Trade | to
| | Societies | Population.
| | in 1892. |
------------------------------+------------+--------------+------------
Northumberland | 506,030 | 56,815 | 11.23
Durham | 1,024,369 | 114,810 | 11.21
Lancashire | 3,957,906 |[580]331,535 | 8.63
Yorkshire, E. Riding | 318,570 | 23,630 | 7.42
Leicestershire | 379,286 | 27,845 | 7.34
Derbyshire | 432,414 | 29,510 | 6.82
South Wales and Monmouthshire | 1,325,315 | 88,810 | 6.70
Nottinghamshire | 505,311 | 31,050 | 6.14
Yorkshire, W. Riding | 2,464,415 | 141,140 | 5.73
Gloucestershire | 548,886 | 26,030 | 4.74
Cheshire | 707,978 | 32,000 | 4.52
Staffordshire | 1,103,452 | 49,545 | 4.49
Suffolk | 353,758 | 14,885 | 4.21
Warwickshire | 801,738 | 33,600 | 4.19
Northampton | 308,072 | 12,210 | 3.96
Cumberland | 266,549 | 10,280 | 3.86
London District (including | | |
Middlesex, Croydon, West | | |
Ham, Richmond, Kingston, | | |
and Bromley) | 5,517,583 | 194,083 | 3.52
Yorkshire, N. Riding with | | |
York City | 435,897 | 15,215 | 3.49
| ---------- | ---------- | ----
Totals | 20,957,529 | 1,232,993 | 5.89
------------------------------+------------+--------------+------------
No other county had 15,000 Trade Unionists, nor as much as 3 per cent
of its population in trade societies.
But this percentage itself fails to give an adequate idea of the extent
to which Trade Unionism, even in 1892, dominated the industrial centres
in which it was strongest. Within the concentration by localities,
there was a further concentration by trades--a fact which to a large
extent explains the geographical distribution. The following table
shows in what proportion the leading industries contributed to the
total Trade Union forces:
_Table showing the approximate number of members of trade societies
in 1892 according to industries, in the different parts of the United
Kingdom._
---------------------+-------------+-----------+----------+------------
Trade. | England and | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
| Wales.[581] | | |
---------------------+-------------+-----------+----------+------------
Engineering and | | | |
Metal Trades | 233,450 | 45,300 | 8,250 | 287,000
Building Trades | 114,500 | 24,950 | 8,550 | 148,000
Mining | 325,750 | 21,250 | ... | 347,000
Textile Manufactures | 184,270 | 12,330 | 3,400 | 200,000
Clothing and | | | |
Leather Trades | 78,650 | 8,400 | 2,950 | 90,000
Printing Trades | 37,950 | 5,650 | 2,400 | 46,000
Miscellaneous Crafts | 46,550 | 7,450 | 4,000 | 58,000
Labourers and | | | |
Transport Workers | 302,880 | 21,670 | 10,450 | 335,900
| ---------- | -------- | ------ | ----------
Totals | 1,324,000 | 147,000 | 40,000 | 1,511,000
| | | | [582]
---------------------+-------------+-----------+----------+-----------
For the general reader, this table, together with the foregoing one
showing the geographical distribution of Trade Unionism, completes our
statistical survey of the Trade Union world of 1892. To the student of
Trade Union statistics a more particular enumeration may be useful.
Before we attempt to picture Trade Union life, we shall therefore
devote a dozen pages (which the general reader may with a clear
conscience skip) to the dry facts of organisation in each of the eight
great divisions into which we distributed the Trade Union membership of
1892.
The first division, comprising all the numerous ramifications of
the engineering, metal-working, and shipbuilding trades, was then
characterised by old-established and highly developed national Unions,
with large membership, centralised administration, and extensive
friendly benefits. The 287,000 Trade Unionists in this division
were enrolled in over 260 separate societies, but almost one-half
belonged to one or other of four great national organisations, the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers (established 1851), the United
Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders (established 1832),[583]
the Friendly Society of Ironfounders of England, Ireland, and Wales
(established 1809), and the Associated Society of Shipwrights, a
belated amalgamation formed in 1882 by the many ancient local
Unions of wooden shipbuilders. Of these great Unions, that of the
Boilermakers, with 39,000 members, was incomparably the strongest,
having no rival for the allegiance of its trade and including
practically the whole body of skilled workmen engaged in iron
shipbuilding and boilermaking from one end of the United Kingdom to
the other. The great Unions of Ironfounders and Shipwrights, with
respectively 15,000 and 14,000 members, were not quite so universal as
the Boilermakers. The Associated Society of Ironmoulders (Ironfounders)
of Scotland (established 1831), with 6000 members and a few minor
Unions of less skilled ironfounders, maintained separate organisations;
whilst the Shipwrights’ Provident Union of the Port of London
(established 1824, 1400 members), the Liverpool Trade and Friendly
Association of Shipwrights (established 1800, 1400 members), and a few
other old-fashioned port Unions still held aloof from the Shipwrights’
amalgamation.[584] The Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the largest
centralised Trade Union in the kingdom, with 66,000 members at home
and 5000 abroad, towered over all its rivals, but had to compete
with compact sectional or local Unions, admitting one or more of the
numerous classes of workmen in the engineering and machine-making
trade.[585] Among the actual producers of iron and steel, the British
Steel Smelters’ Association (established 1886), with 2400 members,
originally a Scotch Union, was extending all over the kingdom; whilst
the Associated Society of Iron and Steel Workers (established 1862),
with 1250 members.
7800 members, occupied a unique position in the Trade Union world
from its long and constant devotion to the sliding scale. The tin and
hollow-ware workers,[586] the chippers and drillers, the Sheffield
cutlers, and the craftsmen in precious metals were split up into
innumerable local societies, with little federal union.
It is interesting to notice the large proportion which this division of
Trade Unionists in Scotland bore to the total for that country. Whilst
in England and Wales it formed only one-sixth of the aggregate number,
in Scotland it measured nearly one-third, almost entirely centred about
Glasgow.
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists in each group
of the Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades._
-----------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------
Trade. | England | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
| and Wales.| | |
-----------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------
Engineers and Machine Makers | 74,000 | 8,250 | 2,750 | 85,000
Smiths and Farriers | 7,350 | 2,250 | 300 | 9,900
Brass and Copper Workers | 13,350 | 2,000 | 150 | 15,500
Sheet Metal Workers | 16,000 | 1,300 | 200 | 17,500
Ironfounders and Core-makers | 15,500 | 7,250 | 500 | 23,250
Shipbuilding and | | | |
Boiler making | 45,500 | 13,250 | 3,600 | 62,350
Iron and Steel Smelters. | 23,500 | 1,500 | ... | 25,000
Workers in Precious Metals | 3,500 | ... | ... | 3,500
Sundry Metal Workers | 34,750 | 9,500 | 750 | 45,000
| -------- | ------ | ------ | --------
Totals | 233,450 | 45,300 | 8,250 | 287,000
-----------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------
The organisation of Builders and Furniture Makers resembled in many
respects that of the Engineers and Shipbuilders. The 148,000 Trade
Unionists in this division were sorted into 120 separate Unions; but
again we find one-half of them belonging to one or other of three
centralised Trade Friendly Societies of national scope. Of these
the Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons (established 1832,
16,000 members) was the most powerful, having practically no rival
throughout England or Ireland, and maintaining friendly relations with
the corresponding United Operative Masons’ Association of Scotland
(established 1831, 5000 members). But the largest and richest Union in
this division was the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners
(established 1860, 34,000 members at home and 4000 abroad). Although
this Society could count but a small proportion of the total number
of carpenters in the kingdom, it included three-fourths of those who
were Trade Unionists, the remaining fourth being divided between the
Associated Carpenters and Joiners of Scotland (established 1861, 6000
members), the old General Union of Carpenters and Joiners of England
(established 1827, 4000 members), and a few tiny trade clubs in the
Metropolis which had refused to merge themselves in either of the
national organisations. The Bricklayers were in much the same position
as the Carpenters. The Operative Bricklayers’ Society (established
1848, 22,000 members) included three-fourths of the Trade Unionists,
the remainder being found either in the United Operative Bricklayers’
Trade, Accident, and Burial Society (established 1832, 2500 members),
or in a few isolated local trade clubs in Scotland and Ireland. Of the
other Unions in the Building Trades, the United Operative Plumbers’
Association of Great Britain and Ireland (established 1832, reorganised
1865, 6500 members) was by far the most effective and compact, and
was specially interesting as retaining practically the federal
constitution of the Builders’ Union of 1830-34. With the exception of
the United Operative Plumbers’ Association of Scotland (established
1872, 700 members), a small society resulting from a secession, no
rival organisation existed. On the other hand, the Painters, Slaters,
Packing-case Makers, Upholsterers, and French Polishers were split up
into numberless small Unions, whilst the Cabinetmakers and Plasterers
had each one considerable organisation[587] and several smaller
societies, which, however, included but a small proportion of the trade.
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists in the various
branches of the Building and Furniture Trades._
-----------------------+----------+-----------+----------+---------
Trade. | England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
|and Wales.| | |
-----------------------+----------+-----------+----------+---------
Stonemasons | 16,750 | 8,250 | 250 | 25,250
Bricklayers | 24,000 | 700 | 2,300 | 27,000
Carpenters | 33,000 | 7,850 | 3,250 | 44,100
Cabinetmakers | 7,200 | 2,000 | 300 | 9,500
Sawyers and other | | | |
Wood-workers | 4,250 | 350 | 150 | 4,750
Plasterers | 7,500 | 1,000 | 500 | 9,000
Painters | 12,400 | 2,150 | 1,000 | 15,550
Plumbers | 5,400 | 1,200 | 400 | 7,000
Upholsterers and | | | |
French Polishers | 2,500 | 450 | 300 | 3,250
Sundry Building Trades | 1,500 | 1,000 | 100 | 2,600
| -------- | ------ | ------ | --------
Totals | 114,500 | 24,950 | 8,550 | 148,000
-----------------------+----------+-----------+----------+---------
The Miners and Quarrymen, comprising about sixty-five societies,
were in 1892 the best organised of the eight great divisions into
which we classified the Trade Union forces. Among the coalminers
the “county,” or district Union, without friendly benefits, was the
predominating type. Nearly two-thirds of the whole 347,000 Trade
Unionists in this division were gathered into the Miners’ Federation
of Great Britain (established 1888), a federal Union comprising about
twenty independent organisations, some of which, like the Yorkshire
Miners’ Association (established 1858, 55,000 members), were highly
centralised, whilst others, like the Lancashire Miners’ Federation
(established 1881, 43,000 members), were themselves federal bodies. The
Miners’ Federation, whilst not interfering with the financial autonomy
or internal administration of its constituent bodies, effectively
centralised the industrial and Parliamentary policy of the whole army
of its members from Fife to Somerset. Outside the Federation at this
date stood the powerful and compact Northumberland Miners’ Mutual
Confident Association (established 1863, 17,000 members), and Durham
Miners’ Association (established 1869, 50,000 members), together with
the solid little Mid and West Lothian Miners’ Association (established
1885, 3600 members), and the loose organisations of Sliding Scale
contributors which then figured as Trade Unions in South Wales.[588]
The coal and iron miners of the West of Scotland had scarcely got
beyond the ephemeral pit club and occasional Strike Union. Among
the tin, lead, and copper miners Trade Unionism, as far as we can
ascertain, was absolutely unknown.
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists among the
persons engaged in or about Mines and Quarries._
---------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------
Trade. | England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
| and Wales.| | |
---------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------
Coal and Iron Miners | 301,000 | 17,500 | ... | 318,500
Colliery Enginemen | 5,000 | 1,500 | ... | 6,500
Cokemen, Overmen, Colliery | | | |
Mechanics, &c. | 9,250 | 500 | ... | 9,750
Quarrymen | 10,500 | ... | ... | 10,500
Shale Oil Workers | ... | 1,750 | ... | 1,750
| -------- | ------ | ------ | --------
Totals | 325,750 | 21,250 | ... | 347,000
---------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------
The salient fact of Trade Unionism among the textile operatives in 1892
was that effective organisation was nearly confined to the workers
in cotton, who contributed at least two-thirds of the 200,000 Trade
Unionists in this division. Like the Miners the Cotton Operatives
have always shown a strong preference for federal Associations with
exclusively trade objects. The powerful Amalgamated Association of
Operative Cotton-spinners (established 1853), a federal Union of
19,500 members comprising forty separate district associations,
joined with its sister federations, the Northern Counties Amalgamated
Association of Weavers (established 1884, 71,000 members) and the
Amalgamated Association of Card and Blowing Room Operatives (31,000
members, established 1886), in the United Textile Factory Workers’
Association (established 1886). This Association formed exclusively
for Parliamentary purposes, focussed the very considerable political
influence of 125,000 organised cotton operatives in Lancashire,
Cheshire, and Yorkshire, and was, next to the Miners’ Federation, by
far the most powerful Trade Union organisation in the country.[589]
The highly developed organisation of the Cotton Operatives contrasted
with the feebleness of the Woollen-workers. In the other branches of
textile manufacture the extreme localisation of the separate industries
had given rise to isolated county or district organisations of lace,
hosiery, silk, flax, or carpet-workers usually confined to small areas,
and exercising comparatively little influence in the Trade Union world.
Incomparably the strongest among them was the Amalgamated Society of
Operative Lacemakers (3500 members), which comprised practically all
the adult male workers in the Nottingham machine-lace trade. If we
exclude the constituent organisations of the United Textile Factory
Workers’ Association, the separate Unions in the various branches of
the textile industry numbered 115.
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists in the various
branches of the Textile Manufacture._
----------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------
Trade. | England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
| and Wales.| | |
----------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------
Cotton-spinners | 19,500 | ... | ... | 19,500
Cotton-weavers | 82,500 | 500 | ... | 83,000
Cotton Card-room Operatives | 31,000 | ... | ... | 31,000
Woollen-workers | 6,000 | 9,500 | ... | 15,500
Woolsorters, Combers, &c. | 2,500 | ... | ... | 2,500
Silkworkers | 2,500 | ... | 60 | 2,560
Flax and Linen-workers | 150 | 300 | 2,940 | 3,390
Carpet-weavers | 2,600 | 400 | ... | 3,000
Hosiery-workers | 6,350 | 100 | 50 | 6,500
Lacemakers | 4,500 | ... | ... | 4,500
Elastic Webworkers | 700 | ... | ... | 700
Dyers, Bleachers, and | | | |
Finishers | 11,820 | 180 | 100 | 12,100
Overlookers | 4,850 | 200 | 200 | 5,250
Calico-printers and | | | |
Engravers | 1,950 | 500 | 50 | 2,500
Miscellaneous Textiles | 7,350 | 650 | ... | 8,000
| -------- | ------ | ------ | --------
Totals | 184,270 | 12,330 | 3,400 | 200,000
----------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------
The large section of workers engaged in the manufacture of clothing
and leather goods was, perhaps, the least organised of the skilled
trades. One society, indeed, the National Union of Boot and Shoe
Operatives (established 1874), counted almost 43,000 members, and
exercised a very real control over the machine boot trade. And
although the hand industry was in this case rapidly declining, the
Amalgamated Association of Boot and Shoemakers (established 1862)
maintained and even increased the earnings of this body of 4700 skilled
handicraftsmen. The Tailors, on the other hand, had succeeded neither
in controlling the new machine industry, nor in upholding the standard
earnings of the hand-workers. The Amalgamated Society of Tailors
(established 1866, 17,000 members), together with the Scottish National
Operative Tailors’ Society (established 1866, 4500 members), had
absorbed all the local Unions, but included only a small proportion
of those at work in the trade. The Felt Hatters and Trimmers’ Union
(established 1872) had 4300 members, together with a women’s branch
(established 1886) numbering nearly as many. In other branches of this
division some strong organisations existed in the smaller industries,
but the workers for the most part formed only feeble local clubs
or else were totally unorganised. There were altogether over sixty
separate Unions in this division.
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists in the
Clothing and Leather Trades._
-------------------------+----------+----------+----------+--------
Trade. | England.|Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
|and Wales.| | |
-------------------------+----------+----------+----------+--------
Boot and Shoemakers | 46,250 | 2,250 | 500 | 49,000
Other Leather Workers | 5,900 | 550 | 100 | 6,550
Tailors and other | | | |
Clothing Makers | 16,100 | 5,500 | 2,300 | 23,900
Hatmakers, Glovers, &c. | 10,400 | 100 | 50 | 10,550
| ------ | ------ | ------ | ------
Totals | 78,650 | 8,400 | 2,950 | 90,000
-------------------------+----------+----------+----------+--------
The 46,000 Trade Unionists in the paper and printing trades were
divided between four considerable Unions with 27,000 members, and
forty-five little societies numbering not more than 19,000 altogether.
The compositors lead off with three extensive organisations, the London
Society of Compositors, confined to the Metropolis (established 1848,
9800 members), the Typographical Association (established 1849, 11,500
members), which had absorbed all but four of the Irish and four of
the English local societies outside the Metropolis, and the Scottish
Typographical Association (established 1852, 3000 members). The
Bookbinders and Machine Rulers’ Consolidated Union (established 1835,
3000 members), mainly composed of provincial workers, far exceeded the
London Consolidated Bookbinders’ Society, the largest of half-a-dozen
Metropolitan Unions in this trade.
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists in the various
branches of the Paper and Printing Trades._
--------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+--------
Trade. | England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
|and Wales.| | |
--------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+--------
Compositors and Press and | | | |
Machine Men | 27,250 | 4,000 | 2,000 | 33,250
Bookbinders | 5,150 | 700 | 300 | 6,150
Papermakers | 3,150 | 500 | ... | 3,650
Miscellaneous Printing | | | |
Trades | 2,400 | 450 | 100 | 2,950
| ------ | ------ | ------ | ------
Totals | 37,950 | 5,650 | 2,400 | 46,000
--------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+--------
There remained a number of trades which it was difficult to classify.
These miscellaneous crafts furnished over 130 societies and 58,000
Trade Unionists. Some, like the Coopers, Cigarmakers, Brushmakers,
Basketmakers, and Glassworkers, were usually well organised; others,
like the Coachbuilders, Potters, Bakers, and Ropeworkers, included but
a small percentage of their trades.[590]
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists in the
Miscellaneous Trades._
--------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+---------
Trade. | England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
|and Wales.| | |
--------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+---------
Basket and Brushmakers | 2,800 | 350 | 100 | 3,250
Coach and Waggon Builders | 6,000 | 400 | 600 | 7,000
Coopers | 4,400 | 1,300 | 300 | 6,000
Glassworkers | 7,350 | 500 | 150 | 8,000
Millers and Bakers | 7,000 | 2,500 | 2,500 | 12,000
Potters | 6,250 | 1,650 | ... | 7,900
Sundry Trades | 12,750 | 750 | 350 | 13,850
| ------ | ------ | ------ | ------
Totals | 46,550 | 7,450 | 4,000 | 58,000
--------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+---------
The great army of labourers, seamen, and transport workers of every
kind we enclosed in a single division. Out of the 120 organisations
belonging to this group the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants
(established 1872), with its permanent membership of 31,000, its high
contributions, extensive friendly benefits, and large accumulated
funds, resembled in character the large national societies of the
engineering and building trades. Alongside this stood the Associated
Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (established 1880,
7000 members). Some other Unions in this group, such as the London
and Counties Labour League (established 1872, 13,000 members),
and the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union (established 1872,
15,000 members), had become essentially friendly societies. But the
predominating type in this division was, as might have been expected,
the new Union, with low contributions, fluctuating membership,
and militant trade policy. Of these the strongest and apparently
the most stable was the National Union of Gas-workers and General
Labourers (established 1889), with 36,000 members on the books. Next
in membership came the Dock, Wharf, and Riverside Labourers’ Union
(established 1889), the Tyneside and National Labour Union (established
1889), and the National Amalgamated Sailors and Firemen’s Union
(established 1887), each with a membership fluctuating between 20,000
and 40,000. Other prominent Unions in this division were the General
Railway Workers’ Union (established 1889), the National Union of Dock
Labourers (established 1889), the National Amalgamated Coalporters’
Union (established 1890), and the Navvies, Bricklayers’ Labourers, and
General Labourers’ Union (established 1890). The builders’ labourers
and the carmen were organised in numerous local Unions, which, in some
cases, such as the Mersey Quay and Railway Carters’ Union (established
1887), and the Leeds Amalgamated Association of Builders’ Labourers
(established 1889), were effective trade societies. The chief exponent
of New Unionism among the agricultural labourers was then the Eastern
Counties Labour Federation (established 1890), which had enrolled
17,000 members in Suffolk and the neighbouring counties. But any
statistical estimate of the ill-defined and constantly fluctuating
membership of the Unions in this division must necessarily be of less
value than in the more definitely organised trades.[591]
_Table showing the approximate number of Trade Unionists among the
Labourers and Transport Workers of every kind._
---------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------
Trade. | England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total.
| and Wales.| | |
---------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------
Seamen, Fishermen, | | | \
Watermen, &c. | 33,850 | 3,900 | 1,500 | 39,250
Railway Traffic Workers | 43,500 | 1,500 | 3,000 | 48,000
Enginemen, &c. (other than | | | |
Colliery or Railway) | 6,300 | 370 | 100 | 6,770
Carmen, &c. | 19,000 | 3,500 | 1,000 | 23,500
Miscellaneous Labourers | 200,230 | 12,400 | 4,850 | 217,480
| -------- | ------ | ------ | --------
Totals | 302,880 | 21,670 | 10,450 | 335,000
---------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------
It would have been an interesting addition to our statistics if we
could have added to these tables a column showing the proportion which
the Unionists in each trade bore to the total number of workers in it.
Unfortunately the classification of the census[592] is not sufficiently
precise to enable this to be done. We were therefore thrown back upon
such information on the point as we can obtain from other sources. We
knew, for instance, that in Lancashire the Amalgamated Association of
Cotton-spinners included practically every competent workman engaged
in the trade. The same might be said of the Boilermakers’ Society in
all the iron shipbuilding ports, though not in some of the Midland
districts. And to turn to an even larger industry, 80 per cent of the
coalminers were in union, some districts, such as Northumberland and
parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, having practically every hewer
in the society. And in other industries and localities the Union was
sometimes equally inclusive. Among the Dublin Coopers or the Midland
Flint Glass Makers, the Nottingham Lacemakers or the Yorkshire Glass
Bottle Makers, non-Unionism was practically unknown. We see, therefore,
that instead of numbering only 4 per cent of the total population, the
Trade Union world was in certain districts and in certain industries,
already in 1892 practically co-extensive with the manual labour class.
On the other hand, there were many occupations in which Trade Unionism
was non-existent. Whole classes of manual workers were practically
excluded from the Trade Union ranks by the fact that they were not
hired workers at wages. In the nooks and crannies of our industrial
system were to be found countless manual workers who obtained a
precarious livelihood by direct service of the consumer. Every town
and village had its quota of hawkers, costermongers, tallymen, and
other petty dealers; of cobblers, tinkers, knifegrinders, glaziers,
chairmenders, plumbers, and other jobbing craftsmen; of cab-runners,
“corner boys,” men who “hang about the bridges,” and all the
innumerable parasites of the life of a great city. When we passed from
these “independent producers” to the trades in which the small master
survived, or in which home work prevailed, we saw another region almost
barren of Trade Unionism. The tailors and cabinetmakers, for instance,
though often highly-skilled craftsmen, had only a small minority of
their trades in Union, whilst the chain and nailmakers were almost
unorganised. The effect upon Trade Unionism of a backward type of
industrial organisation was well seen in the manufacture of boots and
shoes. In Leicestershire and Stafford, where the work was done in large
factories, practically every workman was in the Union. In the Midland
villages, where this was carried on as a domestic industry, and in
East London, where it was only passing out of that phase, the National
Society of Boot and Shoe Operatives counted but a small proportion of
members. And in those districts in which the small master system still
held its own it cast a blight even on other trades. Thus the Birmingham
district and East London were bad Trade Union centres, not only for the
sweated trades, but also for those carried on in large establishments.
But the great bulk of non-Unionism was to be found in another field.
The great army of labourers, as distinguished from mechanics, miners,
or factory operatives, were in normal times as unorganised as the women
workers. Except in certain counties, such as Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk,
Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, and the Fen districts, Trade Unionism among the
farm labourers could scarcely be said to exist. Of the three-quarters
of a million of agricultural labourers in the United Kingdom, not more
than 40,000 were then in union. Nor were the other classes of labour
in much better plight. The two hundred thousand workers in the traffic
department of the railways contributed only 48,000 Trade Unionists,
mostly from such grades as guards and engine-drivers. The large class
of tramway and omnibus workers had, after a brief rally, reverted to
a state of disorganisation. The great army of warehousemen, porters,
and other kinds of city labourers counted only a few hundred Trade
Unionists in all the kingdom.
The Trade Union world was, therefore, in 1892, in the main composed
of skilled craftsmen working in densely populated districts, where
industry was conducted on a large scale. About one-half of the members
belonged to the three staple trades of coalmining, cotton manufacture,
and engineering, whilst the labourers and the women workers were, at
this date, on the whole, non-Unionists.
But the influence of Trade Unionism on working-class life cannot be
measured by the numbers actually contributing to the Union funds at
any one time. Among the non-Unionists in the skilled trades a large
proportion have at one time or another belonged to their societies.
Though they have let their membership lapse for one reason or another,
they follow the lead of the Union, and are mostly ready, on the
slightest encouragement from its members, or improvement in their own
position, to rejoin an organisation to which in spirit they still
belong. In the Labour Unions the instability of employment and the
constant shifting of residence caused the organisation, in 1892, to
resemble a sieve, through which a perpetual stream of members was
flowing, a small proportion only remaining attached for any length of
time. These lapsed members constitute in some sense a volunteer force
of Trade Unionism ready to fight side by side with their old comrades,
provided that means can be found for their support. Moreover, the Trade
Unionists not only belong to the most highly-skilled and best-paid
industries, but they include, as a general rule, the picked men in each
trade. The moral and intellectual influence which they exercise on
the rest of their class is, therefore, out of all proportion to their
numbers. In their ranks are found, in almost every industrial centre,
all the prominent leaders of working-class opinion. They supply the
directors of the co-operative stores, the administrators of clubs and
friendly societies, and the working-class representatives on Parish,
District, and Town Councils. Finally we may observe that the small
but rapidly increasing class of working-men politicians invariably
consists of men who are members of a trade society. We may safely
assert that, even in 1892, no one but a staunch Trade Unionist would
have had any chance of being returned as a working-class member to the
House of Commons, or elected to a local governing body as a Labour
representative.
It is therefore impossible by a statistical survey to give any adequate
idea of the Trade Union world of 1892. We may note the fact that the
thousand separate unions or branches between Blyth and Middlesborough
numbered some 200,000 members. We may ascertain that within fifteen
miles of the Manchester Exchange at least as many Trade Unionists lived
and worked. But no figures can convey any real impression of the place
which the Trade Union, even then, filled in the every-day life of the
skilled artisans of the United Kingdom. We are therefore fortunate in
being able to supplement our statistics by a graphic description of
Trade Union life supplied to us in 1893 by a skilled craftsman, who
joined his Union on the expiration of his apprenticeship, and served
for some time in various official capacities.
To an apprentice, Trade Unionism is little more than a name.
He may occasionally overhear the men in his shop discussing
their Union and its work; and he knows that after “club
night” a number of stories of the incidents of the meeting
will be related; whilst, if he works in a strong Society
shop, he may even hear heated discussions on resolutions
submitted to the meeting. But the chief topic will always
be the personal one--who was at the meeting, and what old
chums were met; for the “club” is generally the recognised
meeting-place for “old cronies” in the trade. If he works
in a shop where any of the Trade Union officials are also
employed he may sometimes receive a word of advice and
exhortation “to be sure to join the Society when he is a
man.” On the whole, however, his knowledge of, and interest
in, the Society will be very slight. But should a strike
occur at his shop whilst he is yet a lad, the presence and
power of the Trade Union will be brought very vividly home
to him; and as he works by himself or with the other lads
in an otherwise deserted shop he will form some opinions of
his own. He will naturally feel a violent antipathy to the
“Blacks” brought into his shop, for the sense of comradeship
is strong among boys; and he will notice with considerable
pleasure that they are usually inferior workmen. But in
spite of this, if the employer is “a good sort,” who treats
him well and kindly, he will probably still think that the
men are wrong to strike. For the boy regards the employer as
the one “who finds work for the men to do,” and hence looks
upon a strike as an act of ingratitude; and further, he has
also a vague idea that the men are in the position of being
many to one, and hence he promptly sides with the weaker
party.
As the youth draws near the end of his apprenticeship he
finds that he is frequently spoken to by Union men and urged
to join the Society. He notices, too, that more attention
is paid to him, and that his opinions are frequently asked
upon trade matters. Finally he is invited round to the
little public in which the club meetings are held, and
introduced to the Lodge officials, and to a number of his
fellow-tradesmen. The advantages offered by the Society
are freely dilated upon, great stress being laid upon the
friendly benefits--the sick, superannuation, funeral, and,
above all, the out-of-work pay. For the Trade Society is
the only institution which provides an out-of-work benefit.
Against sickness and death he may already be insured in
one or other of the numerous Friendly Societies; but the
out-of-work pay is never provided except by a Trade Society,
since only there is it possible to know whether a claimant
is out of work by reason of bad trade, or bad character,
or inefficiency, or even if he is really out of work at
all. And as the advantages of this provision are pointed
out to him he recollects the time when his father, a staid,
steady-going mechanic, was thrown out of work by slack
times; and the memory of that bitter experience clings very
closely to him. Perhaps he is also in love. The thought of
seeing “her” miserable and their children hungry whilst
he himself is helpless to assist, must always be one of
the most harrowing things to a careful young artisan, with
visions of a happy little home in the near future. There
is, however, another view of the club which appeals with
almost equal force to our young artisan just out of his
apprenticeship and finding himself in possession of an
income nearly double that to which he has been accustomed.
The Trade Union Meeting House is the recognised club for the
men in the craft, and thus presents many social attractions.
Friendships are made--numerous “sing-songs” and smoking
concerts arranged; and the joke and friendly glass, the good
cheer and the conviviality, all present great attractions to
the young workman.
The club is also a centre for obtaining the latest trade
news. Here come the unemployed from other towns; here are
to be heard reports of reductions or advance of wages,
increased or diminished working hours, stories of tyranny,
or the first rumours of that bug-bear to the men--the
invention of new machines, with its probable displacement of
their labour; or even worse, the introduction of women and
boys at reduced prices. There is also an occasional visit
from an important official of the central office to look
forward to, and his words to digest afterwards. All these
attractions incline the young artisan to enrol himself in
the Lodge, but it is mainly personal considerations which
in the end decide him to take the step. Are the good men in
his trade--those whom he likes; who have treated him well,
helped him out of his difficulties and given him coppers
when a lad; the powerful men, the foremen, and those whose
words carry most weight with their fellows--are these men
members of the Union? If they are, and if, as is most
probable in a Society shop, he has formed friendships with
other young fellows who are already members, it is not long
before he consents, and allows himself to be duly proposed
as a candidate for membership.
The next club night sees him at the door of the club-room
waiting anxiously, and perhaps timorously, whilst the
formalities go on inside. Usually the ordinary business of
the evening is all disposed of before the election of new
members takes place. At the first mention by the President
of the fact that a candidate is waiting to be elected, the
doorkeeper (hitherto posted inside the door to see that no
one comes in or goes out surreptitiously, and that none of
the “worthy brothers” are in an unfit state to enter the
room) slips rapidly outside, and holding the door firmly,
refuses admission to any one while the ceremony lasts. The
President then rising, calls for order, and having read out
the name of the candidate and those of his proposer and
seconder, asks those members to tell the Lodge what they
know about him. Then the proposer rises, and addressing “Mr.
President and worthy brothers,” states what he knows--that
the candidate is a young man, apprenticed in his shop and
duly served his time--a good workman and a steady young
fellow--anxious to join the Society and sure to be a credit
to the Lodge. He resumes his seat amid applause; and the
seconder rises and repeats the same eulogy. Then the
candidate is called into the room, the doorkeeper admitting
him with some ceremony. He enters in fear and trembling;
for the formality of admission, though shorn of its former
mysterious rites, is still conducted with sufficient
solemnity to make it loom as something rather terrible. At
once he finds himself the object of the friendly curiosity
of the members, and the cause of applause, all of which adds
considerably to his nervousness and trepidation. But he is
agreeably surprised to find the ceremony a very meagre one.
The President, rising, calls upon all the members to do
likewise, and then, all standing, he reads out an initiatory
address, and a portion of the Rules of the Society. Then in
a simple affirmation the candidate pledges himself to abide
by the Rules, to study the interests of the Society, and
neither to do, nor, if he can prevent it, allow to be done,
anything in opposition thereto. He has then to formally
sign this pledge. That being done, his name is entered as a
member, and upon paying his entrance fee, he is presented
with a card of membership and a book of Rules of the Society.
He is now an ordinary member of the Lodge, and this newly
acquired dignity is fully brought home to him in the course
of a week or so, when he receives his first summons to
attend a Lodge meeting. He wends his way to the little
public-house in the dirty back street where the Lodge is
held, and arriving shortly before eight o’clock, the time
fixed for the opening of business, finds a number of his
fellow-workmen congregated round the bar discussing the
evening’s programme and trade matters generally. The men
come in by twos and threes, and he notices that, with few
exceptions, all are neat and clean, having been home and
had their tea and a wash in the interval between then and
working hours.[593] The officers of the Lodge arriving, are
greeted with a general recognition as they pass upstairs
to prepare the club-room for the business of the evening.
Shortly after the hour fixed for commencing, the President
takes the chair, and, as the men slowly straggle up into the
room, rises and declares the meeting open for business. The
club-room is a long, low-ceilinged room which constitutes
the first floor of the public-house. Down the centre of
the room runs a trestle table with forms along the sides,
on which the members are seating themselves. At the top
a shorter table is placed crosswise, forming a letter
T, and here sits the group of officers. The room is
decorated with the framed “emblems” of various trade
societies, interspersed with gilt mirrors and advertising
almanacs. At one end is a throne and canopy, showing that it
is used also as a club-room by one or other of the friendly
societies which still maintain the curious old rites of
their orders. In a corner stands a cottage pianoforte,
indicating that the room is also used for concerts,
sing-songs, and convivial gatherings.
The first business of the evening is the payment of
contributions. The Secretary, aided by the “Check
Secretary,” the Money Steward, and Treasurer, receives
the subscriptions from the men as they come, one by one,
up the room, enters the payment in the books, and signs
the members’ cards. In many cases women and children come
to pay the subscriptions of their husbands or fathers; and
he will feel a sense of shame at the idea of these having
to come through the public bar to perform their errand.
When the subscriptions are all received, the unemployed
members, and the wives or other relatives of those who are
sick, present themselves to draw their respective benefits.
General inquiries are made after the health and hopes are
expressed for the speedy recovery of the sick ones; and the
sums due are paid out by the officials with considerable
formality. During these proceedings there has been a
constant hum of conversation in the room, and a continual
running in and out of members to the bar, and back again.
But all this now comes to an end. The President rises and
calls for order. Strangers and non-members are cleared out
of the room. The doorkeeper takes up his position inside
the door to watch the comers-in and goers-out; and the
drink-stewards make ready to attend to the members’ wants,
and act as waiters, in order to dispense with strangers
in the room, and to prevent any unnecessary bustle and
confusion.[594] The business of the evening opens with
the reading of the minutes of the last meeting. Questions
concerning the enforcement of some resolution, or the result
of some instructions given to the officers, are asked
and answered, and the minutes are confirmed by a show of
hands and signed by the President. Then letters received,
and copies of those despatched by the Secretary since the
last meeting are read. These include letters from the
General Office interpreting some rule as to the payment of
benefits, from the District Committee giving notice of a
trade regulation, and from other branch secretaries asking
for particulars as to the character and ability of some
candidate for admission. Then follows the excitement of the
evening--the report of delegates appointed to interview
an employer on some grievance. They will explain how they
waited on Mr. So-and-so, who at first refused to see them,
and ordered them off his premises; how presently he came
round and listened to their complaints; how he denied the
existence of the alleged evil, and demanded the names of
the men who complained, which the delegates of course
refused to give; and how at last, after much dispute, he
temporised, and gave them to understand that the grievance
would be remedied. Then the members present from the shop
in question are called upon to explain what improvements, if
any, have been made in the matters of which they complained.
If their report is satisfactory, the subject is allowed to
drop. If not, there is a heated discussion. Our friend,
seated with the young fellows at the back of the room, finds
himself clamouring for a strike. The officers do their best
to hold the meeting back. They suggest that the District
Committee[595] ought first to be communicated with; or if
the grievance is one against which the General Rules or
District Bye-laws permit the men to strike without superior
sanction, they urge further negotiations with the employer.
The discussion is eventually closed by an order to the
Secretary to write to the District Committee for advice, or
by an instruction to the delegates to again interview the
offending employer, and if he “bamboozles” them a second
time, to strike the shop.
This excitement over, the interest of the meeting flags,
and members drop out one by one. Perhaps there is an appeal
by a member to whom the Committee has refused some benefit
to which he thinks himself entitled. Against this decision
he appeals to his fellow-members in Lodge assembled, urging
his long membership, his wife and family, and his work
for the Union as reasons why he should be leniently dealt
with. Eloquent speeches are made on his behalf by personal
friends. But the Committee and the officers declare that
they have acted according to the Rules, and remind the
Lodge that if they are ordered to pay an illegal benefit,
the Central Office will disallow the amount, and order
the members to repay it to the Union funds. With a strong
Committee the vote will be against the man; with a weak one,
and especially if the man is a jovial and “free-and-easy”
comrade, his friends will turn up in sufficient numbers
to carry the appeal. It being now ten o’clock, all other
business--such as resolutions proposed by individual
members--gets adjourned to the next club night, and the
President declares the Lodge duly closed. The Secretary
hastens home, to sit up burning midnight oil in balancing
the books, entering the minutes, making reports to the
Central Executive or District Committee, and writing the
letters ordered by the meeting.
The Lodge meeting soon plays an important part in the life
of our active-minded artisan. He feels that he is taking
part in the actual government of a national institution.
Special meetings are held to discuss and vote on questions
submitted by the Executive to the whole body of the members,
such as the alteration of a rule, the election of some
central official, or a grant in aid of another trade. But
primarily the Lodge is his Court of Appeal against all
industrial tyranny, a court in which he is certain of a
ready and sympathetic hearing. There he takes complaints of
fines and deductions, of arbitrary foremen, of low piecework
prices--of anything, in short, which affects his interest or
comfort as a wage-earner.
The tendency of this ever-present power and actuality of
the Lodge and its officials is to overshadow in the mind
of the member the larger functions and responsibilities
of the Central Executive. To him they are something far
away in the vast outside world, and their powers are very
vague and shadowy. They are, however, brought home to him
in some of the incidents of his Trade Union and working
life. There is, for instance, the “emblem” of his Society,
a large and generally highly-coloured representation of the
various processes of the trade in which he is engaged, often
excellently designed and executed. This, purchased for a
few shillings soon after his admission to the Society, or
more probably at the time of his marriage, is hung, gaily
framed, in his front parlour. On it is recorded his name,
age, and date of admission to the Society, and it bears
the signatures, and perhaps the portraits, of the general
officers. To him it is some slight connecting link with the
other men in his trade and Society. To his wife it is the
charter of their rights in case of sickness, want of work,
or death. As such it is an object of pride in the household,
pointed out with due impressiveness to friends and casual
visitors.
But more important is the Monthly Circular, now a recognised
feature in most of the large Unions. Here the member feels
himself brought into direct contact with the outside world
of his trade. Has he been ill or out of work and drawn
relief, his name and the amount of money drawn are duly
recorded. If he has not himself been so unfortunate, he
here learns the names of those who have, and perhaps hears
from this source for the first time of such a calamity
having befallen some friend in another and distant town.
Here also are reports of the state of trade and the number
of unemployed in every place where a branch of the Society
exists; of alterations in hours and rates of wages effected
during the month, by friendly negotiations or by a lock-out
or a strike. Finally, there are letters from lodges or
from individual members on all sorts of topics, including
spicy abuse of the Central Executive, and tart rejoinders
from the General Secretary. As his interest in the Society
increases, our artisan himself writes letters to the
Circular, explaining some grievance, suggesting a remedy for
some grievance already explained, or answering criticisms
upon the conduct and policy of his District Committee or his
Lodge.
In addition to the Monthly Circular there is the Annual
Report. This is a large volume of some hundreds of pages,
containing, in a summarised form, the progress and doings of
the Society for the whole year, with the total income and
expenditure and the balance in hand, the proportionate cost
of all the various benefits, a statement of the accounts
of each branch, and many other figures of interest and
importance. He feels a glow of pride as the growth of his
Society in funds and members is recorded, and perhaps also a
longing to see his own name printed as one of the officers
of one of the Lodges, and thus be even distantly associated
with the success of the Society.
But after a year or two of the comparative freedom of
the journeyman’s life he begins to feel strongly the
desire for change and adventure. The five or seven years’
apprenticeship through which he has just passed has kept
him chained in one place, and a period of unrest now
begins. Moreover, he has heard as a commonplace among his
fellow-workmen, that no man knows his own ability or what
he is worth until he has worked in more towns or shops than
one. They have also expatiated to him upon the delights of
“the road”; and finally he determines to take advantage of
his membership of the Society to go on tramp on the first
opportunity. He is therefore not altogether displeased when
some temporary contraction in his trade causes his employer
to turn him adrift, and thus gives him a right to draw his
travelling card.[596]
At the close of his first day’s tramp, footsore and weary,
he seeks the public-house at which the local Lodge is
held, and having refreshed himself, starts off to find the
Secretary. To him he presents his tramp card. When, on
examination, the dates upon it are found to be correct,
and the distance traversed is sufficient to entitle the
traveller to the full benefit of sixpence and a bed, the
Secretary writes an order to the publican to provide this
relief. The date and place are then clearly marked on the
travelling card, and the Secretary retains the corresponding
half of the receipt form to serve as his own voucher for the
expenditure. Should he know of any suitable situation vacant
in the town, he will tell the tramp to repair there in the
morning. But if no such post offers itself, the wayfarer
must start off again in the morning, in time to arrive
before night at the next Lodge town, at which alone he can
receive any further relief.
If our friend takes to the road during the summer months
and finds a situation within a few weeks, he will have had
nothing worse than a pleasant holiday excursion. But if his
tramp falls during the winter, or if he has to remain for
months on the move, he will be in a pitiable plight. Whilst
he is in the thickly-populated industrial districts, where
“relief towns” in his trade are frequently to be met with,
he finds his supper and bed at the end of every fifteen or
twenty miles. But as he one by one exhausts these towns,
he will, by the rule forbidding relief from the same Lodge
at less than three months’ interval, be compelled to go
further afield. He presently finds the Lodges so far apart
that it is impossible for a man to walk from one to another
in a day. The relief afforded becomes inadequate for his
maintenance, and many are the shifts to which he has to
resort for food and shelter. Finally, after a specified
period, usually three months, his card “runs out”; he has
become “box-fast,” and can draw no more from the Society
until he has found a job, and resumed payment of his
contributions.
But our artisan, being an able-bodied young craftsman, has
found a job. Settled in a new town, his tramping for the
present at an end, and himself recovered from the evils,
moral and physical, which that brief period has wrought upon
him, his interest in his Society revives. He attends his new
Lodge regularly, at first because it is the only place in
the town where he meets friends. Presently his old desire
to figure as an official of the Society returns to him. He
cultivates the acquaintance of the officers of the Lodge,
mixes freely with the members, and takes every occasion to
speak on exciting questions. At the next election he is
appointed to some minor post, such as auditor or steward. He
makes himself useful and popular, and in the course of the
year finds himself a member of the Lodge Committee.
From membership of the Branch Committee he succeeds to
the position of Branch Secretary, the highest to which his
fellow-tradesmen in his own town can elect him. On the night
of the election he is somewhat surprised to find that there
is no keen competition for the post. The pay of a Branch
Secretary is meagre enough--from ten to fifty shillings per
quarter. Most of his evenings and part of his Sundays are
taken up with responsible clerical work. Besides attending
the fortnightly or weekly committee meeting, lasting from
eight to eleven or twelve at night, he has to prepare the
agenda for the special and general meetings of the members,
conduct the whole correspondence of the Lodge, draw up
reports for the District Committee and Central Executive,
keep the accounts, and prepare elaborate balance-sheets
for the head office. Even his working day is not free from
official duties. At any moment he may be called out of his
shop to sign the card of a tramp, or he may have to hurry
away in the dinner-hour to prevent members striking a shop
without the sanction of the Lodge. When a deputation is
appointed to wait on an employer, he must ask for a day
off, and act as leading spokesman for the men. All this
involves constant danger of dismissal from his work, or
even boycott by the employers, as an “agitator.” Nor will
he always be thanked for his pains. Before he was elected
to the Secretaryship, he was probably “hail, fellow, well
met” with all the other members. Now he has constantly to
thwart the wishes and interests of individual members. He
must be always advising the Committee to refuse benefits to
members whose cases fall outside the Rules of the Society,
and counselling Lodge meetings to refuse to sanction
strikes. Hence he soon finds little cliques formed among
the malcontents, who bitterly oppose him. He is charged
with injustice, pusillanimity, treachery, and finally with
being a “master’s man.” But after a while, if he holds
steadfastly on his course, and abides strictly to the Rules
of the Society, he finds himself backed up by the Executive
Committee, and gaining the confidence of the shrewd and
sensible workmen who constitute the bulk of the members, and
who can always be called up to support the officers in Lodge
meetings.
One of the duties or privileges thrust on our Secretary is
that of representing his trade on the local Trades Council.
He is not altogether gratified to find that the Branch has
elected, as his co-delegates, some of the more talkative
and less level-headed of its members. Some older and more
experienced men decline to serve, on the ground that they
have no time, and “have seen enough of that sort of thing.”
Nevertheless our Secretary at the outset takes his position
very seriously. To the young Trade Unionist the Trades
Council represents the larger world of labour politics, and
he has visions of working for the election of labour men on
the local governing bodies, and of being himself run by the
Trades Council for the School Board, or the Town Council, or
perhaps even for Parliament itself. When the monthly meeting
of the Council comes round, he therefore makes a point of
arriving punctually at eight o’clock at the Council Chamber.
He finds himself in the large and gaudily decorated assembly
room, over the bar of one of the principal public-houses of
the town. A low platform is erected at one end, with chairs
and a small table for the Chairman and Secretary. Below
the platform is placed a long table at which are seated
the reporters of the local newspapers, and the rest of the
room is filled with chairs and improvised benches for the
delegates. Here he meets the thirty or sixty delegates of
the other Unions. He notices with regret that the salaried
officials of the Societies which have their headquarters in
the town, and the District Delegates of the great national
Unions who are located in the neighbourhood--the very men
he hoped to meet in this local “Parliament of Labour”--are
conspicuous by their absence. The bulk of the delegates are
either branch officials like himself, or representatives of
the rank and file of Trade Unionism like his colleagues.
The meeting opens quietly with much reading of minutes
and correspondence by the Secretary. Then come the trade
reports, delegate after delegate rising to protest against
some encroachment by an employer, or to report the result
of some negotiations for the removal of a grievance. A few
questions may perhaps be asked by the other delegates,
but there is usually no attempt to go into the merits of
the case, the Council contenting itself with giving a
sympathetic hearing, and applauding any general denunciation
of industrial tyranny. If a strike is in progress, the
delegates of the trade concerned ask for “credentials”
(a letter by the Secretary of the Council commending the
strikers to the assistance of other trades), and even appeal
for financial assistance from the Council itself. This
brings about difference of opinion. The whole Council has
applauded the strike, but when it comes to the question of
a levy, the representatives of such old-established Unions
as the Compositors, Engineers, Masons, and Bricklayers get
up and explain that the Rules of their Societies do not
allow them to pledge themselves. On the other hand, the
enthusiastic delegates from a newly-formed Labour Union
promptly promise the assistance of their Society, and
vehemently accuse the Council of apathy. Then follows a
still more serious business--a complaint by one of the
several Unions in the engineering or building trades that
the members of a rival Union have lately “black-legged”
their dispute. The delegates from the aggrieved Society
excitedly explain how their men had been withdrawn from a
certain firm which refused to pay the Standard Rate, and
how, almost immediately afterwards, the members of the
other Society had accepted the employer’s terms and got
the work. Then the delegates from the accused Society with
equal warmth assert that the work in question belonged
properly to their branch of the trade; that the members of
the other Society had no business to be doing it at all;
and that as the employers offered the rates specified in
their working rules, they were justified in accepting the
job. At once an angry debate ensues, in which personal
charges and technical details are bandied from side to side,
to the utter bewilderment of the rest of the members. In
vain the Chairman intervenes, and appeals for order. At
last the Council, tired of the wrangle, rids itself of the
question by referring it to a Committee, and an old member
of the Council whispers to our friend a fervent hope that
the Committee will shirk its job, and never meet, since its
report would please neither party, and probably lead to the
retirement of one if not both trades from the Council.
The next business brings the Council back to harmony. The
delegates appointed at the last meeting to urge on the
Town Council or the School Board the adoption of a “fair
wage clause” now give in their report. They describe how
Mr. Alderman Jones, a local politician of the old school,
talked about wanton extravagance and the woes of the poor
ratepayer; and the Council will be moved to laughter at
their rejoinder, “How about the recent increase in the
salary of your friend, the Town Clerk?” They repeat, with
pleasure, the arguments they used on the deputation, and
their final shot, a bold statement as to the number of
Trade Unionists on the electoral register, is received with
general applause. But in spite of all this they report that
Alderman Jones has prevailed, and the Town Council has
rejected the clause. Our new member notes with satisfaction
that the Council is not so ineffective a body as he has been
fearing. After a good deal of excited talk the Secretary is
instructed to write to the local newspapers explaining the
position, and calling attention to the example set by other
leading municipalities. The members, new and old alike,
undertake to heckle the retiring Town Councillors who voted
against the interests of labour; and the best men of the
Council, to whichever political party they belong, join in
voting for a Committee to run Trade Union candidates against
their most obdurate opponents.
Passing, rejecting, or adjourning resolutions, of which
notice has been given at a previous meeting, takes up the
remainder of the evening. First come propositions submitted
on behalf of the Executive Committee, composed of five or
seven of the leading men in the Council. The Secretary
explains that an influential member of the Trade Union
Congress Parliamentary Committee has intimated that if they
want a certain measure passed into law, they had better
carry a particular resolution, which is thereupon read to
the meeting. It is briefly discussed, carried unanimously,
and handed to the reporters, the Secretary being ordered
to send copies to the local M.P.’s and possibly to the
Cabinet Minister concerned. Resolutions by other members are
not so easily disposed of. The delegate from the Tailors,
a fanatical adherent of the Peace Society, proposes a
strong condemnation of increased armaments, ending up with
a plea for international arbitration. But the engineer
and the shipwright vehemently object to the resolution as
impracticable, and one of them moves an amendment calling
on the Government to find employment for hardworking
mechanics in times of industrial depression by building
additional ironclads. The Socialist Secretary of a Labour
Union submits a resolution calling on the Town Council to
open municipal workshops for the unemployed--a project
which is ridiculed by the Conservative compositor (who is
acting also as one of the reporters). During the debate the
Chairman, Secretary, and Executive Committeemen lie low and
say nothing, allowing the discussion to wander away from
the point. The debate drops, and if a vote on a popular
but impracticable resolution becomes imminent, some “old
Parliamentary hand” suggests its adjournment to a fuller
meeting. For the next few evenings our friend finds all this
instructive and interesting enough. Before the year is up
he has realised that, except on such simple issues as the
Fair Wages Clause, and the payment of Trade Union wages by
the local authorities, the crowded meeting of tired workmen,
unused to official business, with knowledge and interest
strictly limited to a single industry, is useless as a
Court of Appeal, and ineffective even as a joint committee
of the local trades. At the best the Council becomes the
instrument, or, so to speak, the sounding-board, of the
experienced members, who are in touch with the Trade Union
Parliamentary leaders, and who (at a pay of only a few
shillings a quarter) conduct all the correspondence and
undertake all the business which the Trade Unions of the
town have really in common.
But our friend receives a sudden check in his career. One
pay-day he is told by his employer that he will not be
wanted after next week. It may be that he has had some
words with the foreman over a spoilt job, or that he has
been making himself too prominent in Trade Union work, or
simply that his employer’s business is slack. But whatever
the cause he is discharged, and must seek employment
elsewhere. At once he declares himself on the funds of the
Society, sending notice to the President and Treasurer of
his position and signing the out-of-work book at the club
daily, like any other unemployed member. For the next two
or three weeks he tramps from shop to shop in his district
seeking work, and eagerly scans the daily papers in hopes
of finding an advertisement of some vacant situation. Then
comes the news from a friend of a vacancy in a distant town.
He resigns his position as Secretary of the Lodge, draws
the balance of out-of-work pay due to him, and departs
regretfully from the town where he has made so many friends
to start upon a new situation.
On arriving at his new place he is surprised to find that
there is no branch of his Society in the town. There are a
few odd members, but not enough to support a branch--hence
they send their contributions to the nearest Lodge town.
As soon as he has settled down he takes steps to alter
this. In his own workshop he argues and cajoles the men
into a belief in Trade Unionism. At night he frequents
their favourite haunts, and by dint of argument, promises
and appeals, finally gets enough of them to agree to join
a Lodge to make it worth while opening one in the town. He
forthwith communicates with the Central Executive Committee,
and they, knowing his previous work, appoint him Secretary
_pro tem._ A meeting of all the trade is then called by
handbills sent round to the shops, and posted in the men’s
favourite public-houses. On the eventful night the General
Secretary and perhaps another Central officer, come down
to the town. They bring a Branch box containing sets of
Rules and cards of membership, a full set of cash and other
books, a number of business papers, and even a bottle of
ink--in fact all that is needful to carry on the business
of a Lodge. The room will be crammed full of the men in the
trade interested in hearing what the Society is and what it
wants to do. Speeches are made, the advances of wages and
reduction of hours gained by the Society are enumerated, the
friendly benefits are explained, and instances are given
of men disabled from working at their trade, receiving £100
accident benefit from the Society, and setting up in a small
business of their own. Then the General Secretary opens the
Lodge, and entrance fees and contributions are paid by a
large number of those present, and the meeting changed from
a public to a private one. Officers are elected, our friend
again finds himself chosen as Secretary, a friendly foreman
accepts the post of Treasurer, while the other old members
present at the meeting are elected to the remaining offices.
Addresses from the Central officials start the Lodge on its
way, and the meeting breaks up at a late hour with cheers
for the Society and the General Secretary.
Within the next three months the Branch Secretary finds that
all that glitters is not gold. At least half of those who
joined at the beginning have lapsed, and at times the branch
looks like collapsing altogether. But by dint of much hard
work, persuasion, and perhaps the formation of friendships,
it is kept together until a time of prosperity for the
trade arrives. This is the Secretary’s opportunity to make
or break his Lodge, and being a wise man he takes it. He
puts a resolution on the agenda paper for the next Lodge
meeting in favour of an advance of wages, or a reduction of
hours, or both. The next meeting carries it unanimously,
and it at once becomes the talk of the whole trade in the
town. Men flock down and join the club in order to assist
and participate in the proposed improvements. Then the
Secretary appeals to the General Executive for permission
to ask for the advance. They consider the matter seriously,
and want to know what proportion of the men in the town are
members, and how long they have been so; what is the feeling
of the non-Unionists towards the proposed movement, and
whether there is any local fund to support non-Unionists
who come out, or buy off tramps and strangers who come to
the town during the probable strike. All these questions
being more or less satisfactorily answered, permission to
seek the improvement is at length given, and now comes the
Secretary’s first taste of “powder” in an official capacity.
During this agitation the number of members in the Lodge
has been steadily increasing, until it comes to include a
good proportion of the trade in the town. The non-Unionists
have also been approached as to their willingness to assist
the movement, and the bulk of them readily agree to come
out with the Society men if these undertake to maintain
them. A special Committee is formed to conduct the “Advance
Movement,” including delegates from the non-Society shops
prepared to strike. A local levy is put on the members of
the Lodge, in order to form a fund from which to pay such
strike expenses as may not be charged to the Union. At
length all is ready, and our Secretary is instructed to
serve notices upon all the employers in the town, asking for
the advance in wages or the reduction of hours claimed by
the men.
Meanwhile the employers have not been idle. They have
heard rumours of the coming storm and have met together
and consulted as to what should be done, and have formed
a more or less temporary association to meet the attack.
Upon receiving the notices from the men’s Secretary they
invite a deputation of the men to wait upon them and discuss
the matter. To this the men of course agree, and on the
appointed night the Secretary and the “Advance Committee”
appear at the joint meeting. The leading employer having
been elected to the chair, asks the men to open their case
for an advance of wages and reduction of hours. This they
do, emphasising the facts that wages are lower and hours
longer here than in the same trade in neighbouring towns;
that the cost of living is increasing; and that some men
are always unemployed who would be absorbed by the proposed
change. The employers retort by urging the smallness of
their profits and the difficulty of securing orders in
competition with other towns where wages are even less than
they are here; and also by urging that the cost of living
is decreasing and not increasing--an assertion which they
support by statements of the price of various articles
at different times compared with the present. The men’s
Secretary has as much as he can do to keep his men in order.
The new members--the “raw heads” of the Committee--are
almost hoping that the employers will not agree, for to them
a strike means merely a few weeks’ “play,” at the expense
of the Union. And the ordinary workman is so little used
to discussing with his adversaries that any statement of
the other side of the case is apt to arouse temper. The
employers, too, unaccustomed to treating with their men,
and still feeling it somewhat derogatory to do so, are not
inclined to mince matters, or smooth over difficulties.
Hence the meeting becomes noisy; discussion turns into
recrimination; and the conference breaks up in confusion.
Meanwhile the Central Executive has watched with anxiety
the approach of a dispute which will involve the Union in
expense, and end possibly in defeat. The General Secretary,
accompanied by one of the Executive Council, appears on the
scene, and endeavours to mediate. But as the town has been
a non-Union one, the employers refuse to see any but their
own workmen, and thus lose the chance of the very moderate
compromise which the General Secretary is almost sure to
offer. This slight to their Official naturally incenses the
local Unionists, and on the following Saturday, when their
notices have expired, they “pick up” their tools as they
leave the works and the strike is begun.
Then follows a period of intense excitement and hard
work for the men’s officials. The employers advertise in
all directions for men at “good wages” to take “steady
employment,” and counter advertisements are inserted
giving notice of the strike. All the streets are closely
picketed by men, who take it in turns to do duty in twos
and threes outside a factory or workshop for so many hours
each day; pickets are sent to meet all trains, and by dint
of promises, bribes, and appeals to their “manliness and
brotherhood,” workmen who have been attracted to the town by
the employers’ advertisements are induced to depart. Perhaps
a few “blacks” may escape their vigilance and get into some
shop. Every time they come out they are followed and urged
to abandon their dirty calling and join their fellows in the
good work. Some give way, and their fares are at once paid
to the place whence they came. Subscription boxes and sheets
are sent out to raise the funds necessary for the extra
expenses, which must not be taken from the Society’s funds.
If the strike drags on for many weeks delegates go from
town to town addressing meetings of Trade Unions and Trades
Councils soliciting aid, and usually succeed in getting a
good deal more than their own expenses, the surplus being
remitted to the Lodge. There are the non-Unionists who have
come out on strike to be supported; “blacks” to bribe and
send away; printing and delivering of bills and placards to
be paid for, and numerous other subsidiary expenses to be
met, all of which must be defrayed from the local fund.
But even the most protracted strike comes to an end. If
trade is good and the men are well organised, the employers
will not have succeeded in getting any good workmen, and not
even sufficient bad ones, to continue their works, and their
plant and reputation are alike suffering from unskilled
workmanship. So one by one they give in, and accept the
men’s terms, until at length the men are again at work. On
the other hand, if business be slack the strike may end in
another way. One by one the employers obtain enough men
of one sort or another to carry out what orders they have
in hand. As week succeeds week the strikers lose heart,
until at last the weak ones suddenly return to work at the
old terms. The officers and committeemen and a few dogged
fighters may remain out, hoping against hope that something
will turn up to make the employers give in. But the Central
Executive will probably object to the continued drain of
strike-pay, and may presently declare the strike closed.
This will cause some little resentment among the local
stalwarts, but the strike-pay being now at an end, those
who are still unemployed must tramp off to another town in
search of work.
If the strike results thus in failure the newly formed
Lodge will soon disappear and the men in the trade remain
unorganised until the advent of another leader of energy and
ability. But if it has resulted in victory the prosperity of
the Lodge is assured. The workmen in the trade flock to the
support of an institution which has shown such practically
beneficial results. Meanwhile the Secretary, to whom most of
the credit is due, begins to be known throughout the trade,
and spoken of as the man who changed such and such a place
from a non-Union to a Union town. Short eulogistic notices
of his career appear in the Monthly Circular, and thus the
way is paved for his future advancement.
Having thus succeeded in organising his own trade, he finds
an outlet for his energies in doing the same for others
in his town. Perhaps there are other branches of his own
industry without organisations, and if so he begins among
them exactly the same work as he pursued among his own
members. When the time is ripe a meeting is called and a
branch of the society, which embraces the particular body of
men, opened, and he accepts the post of President to help it
along until its members have gained some experience. Then he
will begin again with other trades and go through the same
process, and thus in the course of time succeed in turning
a very bad Trade Union town into a very good one. When that
is accomplished he determines to start a Trades Council.
He attends meetings of all the Unions and branches in the
town and explains the objects and urges the importance of
such a body. He writes letters to the local Press, and
agitates among his own personal following until his object
is well advertised. Finally a joint meeting of delegates
from the majority of the local societies and branches is
got together. The Rules of a neighbouring Trades Council
are discussed and adopted, and at length a Trades Council
is definitely established, if only by the two or three
branches which he has himself organised. He is of course
appointed its Secretary, and gradually by hard work, and
perhaps by successfully agitating for some concession to
labour by the Town Council or local School Board, he wins
the approval of all the societies, and the Council then
becomes a thoroughly representative body. As Secretary of
a newly established Trades Council he becomes rapidly well
known. He is in constant request as a speaker in both his
own and neighbouring towns; and he is sent to the Trade
Union Congress and instructed to move some resolution of
his own drafting. But as the work gradually increases, our
friend, who has all the time to be earning a livelihood at
his trade, finds that he must choose between the Trades
Council and his own Lodge. Through the Trades Council he
can become an influential local politician, and may one
day find himself the successful “Labour Candidate” for
the School Board or the Town Council. But this activity
on behalf of labour generally draws him ever further away
from the routine duties of Branch Secretary of a National
Society, and he will hardly fail to displease some of the
members of his own trade. He may therefore prefer to resign
his Secretaryship of the Trades Council, take a back seat in
politics, and spend all his leisure in the work of his own
Society, with the honourable ambition of eventually becoming
one of its salaried officers. In this case he not only
conducts the business of his Lodge with regularity, but also
serves on the District Committee. Presently, as the most
methodical of its members, he will be chosen to act as its
Secretary, and thus be brought into close communication with
the Central Executive, and with other branches and districts.
All this constitutes what we may call the non-commissioned
officer’s service in the Trade Union world, carried out
in the leisure, and paid for by the hour, snatched from a
week’s work at the bench or the forge. But now the fame
of our Secretary and his steady work for the Society have
spread throughout the district, and when it is decided to
appoint a District Delegate with a salary of £2 or £2: 10s.
per week, many branches request him to run for the post.
His personal friends and supporters among them raise an
election fund for him, and for a few weeks he dashes about
his district and attends all the branch meetings to urge his
candidature upon the members. Finally the votes are taken
in the Lodges by ballot and sent to the general office to
be counted, and he finds himself duly elected to the post.
Again he moves his home, this time to some central town,
so that he can visit any part of his district with ease
and rapidity. His district stretches over three or four
counties, and includes many large industrial centres, and he
finds himself fully occupied. Let us see how he spends his
days, and what is the work he will do for his Society.
Every morning he receives a whole batch of letters on
Society business. The General Secretary orders him
immediately to visit one of the branches in his district and
inspect the books, a report having reached the office of
some irregularity. A Branch Secretary telegraphs for him to
come over at once and settle a dispute which has broken out
with an important firm. Another writes asking him to summon
a mass meeting of the trade in the district to take a vote
for or against a general strike against some real or fancied
grievance. The Secretary of the Employers’ Association
in another town fixes an appointment with him to discuss
the piecework prices for a new sort of work. Finally the
Secretary of his District Committee instructs him to attend
a joint meeting which they have arranged with the District
Committee of another Union to settle a difficult question of
overlap or apportionment of work between the members of the
two societies.
Our friend spends the first half an hour at his
correspondence, fixes a day for a special audit of the
accounts of the suspected branch, drops a hasty line to the
General Secretary informing him of his whereabouts for the
next few days, and writes to the Branch Secretary strongly
objecting to the proposed mass meeting to vote on a strike
on the ground that “an aggregate meeting is an aggravated
meeting,” and appointing, instead, a day for a small
conference of representatives from the different branches.
Then he is off to the railway station so as to arrive
promptly on the scene of the dispute just reported to him.
Here he finds that a number of his members have peremptorily
struck work and are hanging about the gates of the works.
He will half persuade, half order them to instantly resume
work, whilst he goes into the office to seek the employer.
If it is a “Society shop” in a good Trade Union district
he is heartily welcomed, and the matter is settled in a
few minutes. The next train takes him to the neighbouring
town, where he spends two or three hours with the Employers’
Secretary, using all his wits to manipulate the new prices
in such a way as at least to maintain, if not to increase,
the weekly earnings of his members. In the evening he has
to be back at the centre of his district, thrashing out, in
the long and heated debate of a joint meeting, the difficult
question of whose job the work in dispute between the two
Unions properly is, and what constitutes a practical line
of demarcation between the two trades. Thus he rushes about
from day to day, finishing up at night with writing reports
on the state of trade, organisation, and other matters to
the Executive Committee sitting at the headquarters of his
Union.
He has now been for many years the devoted servant of his
fellow-workmen, re-elected at the end of each term to his
post of District Delegate. Upon the removal by resignation
or death of the General Secretary he is pressed on all
sides to put up for the post. The members of the District
Committee, and all the secretaries of the local branches,
urge on him his fitness, and the advantages the district
will derive from his election as General Secretary. Again
a committee of his friends and supporters raises a fund
to enable him to travel over the whole country and visit
and address all the branches of the Society. Meanwhile the
Executive Committee prepares for the election of the new
General Secretary. At the removal of the late head officer
they at once meet to appoint one of their number to carry
on the duties _pro tem._, and to issue notices asking for
nominations for the post (generally confined to members who
have been in the Society a certain number of years and are
not in arrears with their subscriptions). Printed lists of
candidates are forthwith sent to the branches in sufficient
numbers to be distributed to all the members. A ballot-box
is placed in the club-room, the election standing over at
least two meeting nights in order to allow every member full
opportunity to record his vote. The boxes are then sent from
the branches to the central office, where the members of the
Executive Committee count the papers and declare the result.
Our District Delegate having been declared duly elected
to the post of General Secretary is again compelled to
remove. This time it is to one of the great cities--London,
Manchester, or Newcastle--the headquarters of his Society.
He is now entitled to a salary ranging from £200 to £300 per
annum, and has attained the highest office to which it is in
the power of his fellow-tradesmen to appoint him. We will
there leave him to enjoy the dignity and influence of the
position, to struggle through the laborious routine work of
a central office, and to discover the new difficulties and
temptations which beset the life of the general officer of a
great Trade Union.
The foregoing narrative gives us, in minute detail, the inner life of
Trade Union organisation of thirty years ago. But this picture, on
the face of it, represents the career of an officer, not a private
soldier, in the Trade Union army. Nor must it be supposed that the
great majority of the million and a half Trade Unionists rendered, even
as privates, any active service in the Trade Union forces. Only in the
crisis of some great dispute do we find the branch meetings crowded,
or the votes at all commensurate with the total number of members.
At other times the Trade Union appears to the bulk of its members
either as a political organisation whose dictates they are ready to
obey at Parliamentary and other elections, or as a mere benefit club
in the management of which they do not desire to take part. In the
long intervals of peace during which the constitution of the Society
is being slowly elaborated, the financial basis strengthened, the
political and trade policy determined, less than a half or perhaps even
a tenth of the members will actively participate in the administrative
and legislative work. Practically the whole of this minority will,
at one time or another, serve on branch committees or in such minor
offices as steward, trustee, auditor or sick-visitor. These are the
members who form the solid nucleus of the branch, always to be relied
on to maintain the authority of the committee. From their ranks come
the two principal branch officers, the President and the Secretary,
upon whom the main burden of administration falls. Though never elected
for more than one year, these officers frequently remain at their posts
for many terms in succession; and their offices are in any case filled
from a narrow circle of the ablest or most experienced members.
Besides the active soldiers in the Trade Union ranks, to be counted by
hundreds of thousands, we had therefore, in 1892, a smaller class of
non-commissioned officers made up of the Secretaries and Presidents of
local Unions, branches and district committees of national societies,
and of Trades Councils. Of these we estimate that there were, in
1892, over 20,000 holding office at any one time. These men form the
backbone of the Trade Union world, and constitute the vital element
in working-class politics. Dependent for their livelihood on manual
labour, they retain to the full the workman’s sense of insecurity,
privation, and thwarted aspirations. Their own singleness of purpose,
the devotion with which they serve their fellows in laborious
offices with only nominal remuneration, and their ingenuous faith in
the indefinite improvement of human nature by education and better
conditions of life, all combine to maintain their enthusiasm for every
kind of social reform. Thus they are always open to new ideas, provided
these are put forward in a practical shape, by men whose character and
intelligence they respect. This class of non-commissioned officers it
is which has, in the main, proved the progressive element in the Trade
Union world, and which actually determines the trend of working-class
thought. Nevertheless these men are not the real administrators
of Trade Union affairs except in the little local Unions, run by
men working at their trade, which are fast disappearing. In the
great national and county Unions the branch or lodge officials are
strictly bound down by detailed rules, and are allowed practically no
opportunity of acting on their own initiative. The actual government of
the Trade Union world rests exclusively in the hands of a class apart,
the salaried officers of the great societies.
This Civil Service of the Trade Union world, non-existent in 1850,
numbered, in 1892, between six and seven hundred.[597] Alike in the
modern organisation of industry, and in the machinery of Democratic
politics, it was, even in 1892, taking every day a position of greater
influence and importance. Yet if we may judge from the fact that we
have not met with a single description of this new governing class,
the character of its influence, and even its existence, had hitherto
remained almost unobserved. To understand the part played by this Civil
Service, both in the Trade Union Movement and in the modern industrial
State, the reader must realise the qualities which the position
demands, the temptations to which its holders are exposed, and the
duties which they are called upon to perform.
The salaried official of a great Trade Union occupies a unique
position. He belongs neither to the middle nor to the working class.
The interests which he represents are exclusively those of the manual
working class from which he has sprung, and his duties bring him into
constant antagonism with the brain-working, property-owning class. On
the other hand, his daily occupation is that of a brain-worker, and
he is accordingly sharply marked off from the typical proletarian,
dependent for his livelihood on physical toil.
The promotion of a working man to the position of a salaried
brain-worker effects a complete and sudden change in his manner of
life. Instead of working every day at a given task, he suddenly finds
himself master of his own time, with duties which, though laborious
enough, are indefinite, irregular, and easily neglected. The first
requisite for his new post is therefore personal self-control. No
greater misfortune can befall an energetic and public-spirited Trade
Unionist, who on occasions takes a glass too much, than to become
the salaried officer of his Union. So long as he is compelled, at
least nine days out of every fourteen, to put in a hard day’s manual
work at regular hours, his propensity to drink may not prevent him
from being an expert craftsman and an efficient citizen. Such a man,
elected General Secretary or District Delegate, is doomed, almost
inevitably, to become an habitual drunkard. Instead of being confined
to the factory or the mine, he is now free to come and go at his own
will, and drink is therefore accessible to him at all hours. His
work involves constant travelling, and frequent waiting about in
strange towns, with little choice of resort beyond the public-house.
The regular periods of monotonous physical exertion are replaced by
unaccustomed intellectual strain, irregular hours, and times of anxiety
and excitement, during which he will be worried and enticed to drink
by nearly every one he meets. And in addition to this the habitual
drunkenness of a Trade Union official, though it involves discredit,
seldom brings dismissal from his post. No discovery is more astounding
to the middle-class investigator than the good-natured tolerance with
which a Trade Union will, year after year, re-elect officers who are
well known to be hopeless drunkards. The rooted dislike which working
men have to “do a man out of his job” is strengthened, in the case
of a Trade Union official, by a generous recognition of the fact
that his service of his fellows has unfitted him to return to manual
labour. Moreover, the ordinary member of a Trade Union overlooks the
vital importance of skilled and efficient administration. He imagines
that the drunkenness and the consequent incompetency of his General
Secretary means only some delay in the routine work of the office, or,
at the worst, some small malversation of the Society’s funds. So long
as the cash keeps right, and the reports appear at regular intervals,
it seems never to occur to him that it is for lack of headship that his
Society is losing ground in all directions, and forgoing, in one week,
more than a dishonest Secretary could steal in a year.
Fortunately the almost invariable practice of electing the salaried
officials from the ranks of the non-commissioned officers tends to
exclude the workman deficient in personal self-control. The evenings
and holidays spent in clerical duties for the branch do not attract
the free liver, whilst the long apprenticeship in inferior offices
gives his fellow-workmen ample opportunity of knowing his habits. Thus
we find that the salaried officials of the old-established Unions
are usually decorous and even dignified in their personal habits. An
increasing number of them are rigid teetotalers, whilst many others
resolutely refuse, at the risk of personal unpopularity, all convivial
drinking with their members.
But another danger--one which would not immediately have occurred
to the middle-class investigator--besets the workman who becomes a
salaried official of his Union. The following extract, taken from the
graphic narrative we have already quoted, explains how it appears to a
thoughtful artisan:
And now begins a change which may possibly wreck his whole
Trade Union career. As Branch Secretary, working at his
trade, our friend, though superior in energy and ability to
the rank and file of his members, remained in close touch
with their feelings and desires. His promotion to a salaried
office brings him wider knowledge and larger ideas. To the
ordinary Trade Unionist the claim of the workman is that
of Justice. He believes, almost as a matter of principle,
that in any dispute the capitalist is in the wrong and the
workman in the right. But when, as a District Delegate,
it becomes his business to be perpetually investigating
the exact circumstances of the men’s quarrels, negotiating
with employers, and arranging compromises, he begins more
and more to recognise that there is something to be urged
on the other side. There is also an unconscious bias at
work. Whilst the points at issue no longer affect his own
earnings or conditions of employment, any disputes between
his members and their employers increase his work and add
to his worry. The former vivid sense of the privations and
subjection of the artisan’s life gradually fades from his
mind; and he begins more and more to regard all complaints
as perverse and unreasonable.
With this intellectual change may come a more invidious
transformation. Nowadays the salaried officer of a great
Union is courted and flattered by the middle class.
He is asked to dine with them, and will admire their
well-appointed houses, their fine carpets, the ease and
luxury of their lives. Possibly, too, his wife begins to be
dissatisfied. She will point out how So-and-so, who served
his apprenticeship in the same shop, is now well-off, and
steadily making a fortune; and she reminds her husband
that, had he worked half as hard for himself as he has for
others, he also might now be rich, and living in comfort
without fear of the morrow. He himself sees the truth of
this. He knows many men who, with less ability and energy
than himself, have, by steady pursuit of their own ends,
become foremen, managers, or even small employers, whilst
he is receiving only £2 or £4 a week without any chance of
increase. And so the remarks of his wife and her relations,
the workings of his own mind, the increase of years, a
growing desire to be settled in life and to see the future
clear before him and his children, and perhaps also a little
envy of his middle-class friends, all begin insidiously,
silently, unknown even to himself, to work a change in his
views of life. He goes to live in a little villa in a lower
middle-class suburb. The move leads to his dropping his
workmen friends; and his wife changes her acquaintances.
With the habits of his new neighbours he insensibly adopts
more and more of their ideas. Gradually he finds himself at
issue with his members, who no longer agree to his proposals
with the old alacrity. All this comes about by degrees,
neither party understanding the cause. He attributes the
breach to the influences of a clique of malcontents, or
perhaps to the wild views held by the younger generation.
They think him proud and “stuck-up”, over-cautious and even
apathetic in trade affairs. His manner to his members,
and particularly to the unemployed who call for donation,
undergoes a change. He begins to look down upon them all
as “common workmen”; but the unemployed he scorns as men
who have made a failure of their lives; and his scorn is
probably undisguised. This arouses hatred. As he walks to
the office in his tall hat and good overcoat, with a smart
umbrella, curses not loud but deep are muttered against him
by members loitering in search of work, and as these get
jobs in other towns they spread stories of his arrogance
and haughtiness. So gradually he loses the sympathy and
support of those upon whom his position depends. At last
the climax comes. A great strike threatens to involve the
Society in desperate war. Unconsciously biased by distaste
for the hard and unthankful work which a strike entails, he
finds himself in small sympathy with the men’s demands, and
eventually arranges a compromise on terms distasteful to
a large section of his members. The gathering storm-cloud
now breaks. At his next appearance before a general meeting
cries of “treachery” and “bribery” are raised. Alas! it
is not bribery. Not his morality but his intellect is
corrupted. Secure in the consciousness of freedom from
outward taint, he faces the meeting boldly, throws the
accusation back in their faces, and for the moment carries
his point. But his position now becomes rapidly unbearable.
On all sides he finds suspicion deepening into hatred. The
members, it is true, re-elect him to his post; but they
elect at the same time an Executive Committee pledged to
oppose him in every way.[598] All this time he still fails
to understand what has gone wrong, and probably attributes
it to the intrigues of jealous opponents eager for his
place. Harassed on all sides, distrusted and thwarted by his
Executive Committee, at length he loses heart. He looks out
for some opening of escape, and finally accepting a small
appointment, lays down his Secretaryship with heartfelt
relief and disappears for ever from the Trade Union world.
The Trade Union official who became too genteel for his post was,
like the habitual drunkard, an exception. The average Secretary or
District Delegate was too shrewd to get permanently out of touch with
his constituents. Nevertheless the working man who became a salaried
officer had to pick his way with considerable care between the dangers
attendant on the _rôle_ of boon companion and those inseparable from
the more reputable but more hated character of the superior person.
To personal self-control he had to add strength and independence of
character, a real devotion to the class from which he had sprung, and
a sturdy contempt for the luxury and “gentility” of those with whom he
was brought in contact. All this remains as true to-day as it was in
1892, but the general advance in education and sobriety, and the steady
tendency towards an assimilation of manners among all classes, render
the contrasts of the social nineteenth century daily less marked.
The Trade Union official of 1920 finds it much easier to maintain a
position of self-respecting courtesy both among his own members and
among the employers, officials, and middle-class politicians with whom
he is brought in contact.
We break off now to describe, in the following chapters, the
development of the Trade Union Movement from 1890 to 1920, and to
discuss some of its outstanding features.
FOOTNOTES:
[577] During the whole course of the nineteenth century the Government
failed to ascertain, with any approach to accuracy, how numerous the
Trade Unionists were. Until the appointment of Mr. John Burnett as
Labour Correspondent of the Board of Trade in 1886, no attempt was
made to collect, officially, any information about Trade Unionism. The
five annual volumes published by Mr. Burnett between 1886 and 1891
contained a fund of information on Trade Union statistics, and the
returns became year by year more complete. The report for 1891 gave
particulars of 431 Unions with 1,109,014 members, whilst that for 1892
covered a slightly larger total. But, restricted as he was to societies
making returns in the precise form required, Mr. Burnett was unable to
get at many existing Unions, whilst a considerable deduction had to be
made from his total for members counted both in district organisations
and in federations. The Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies gave
particulars, in his Report for 1892 (House of Commons Paper, 146--II.
of March 28, 1893), of 1,063,000 members in 442 registered Trade Unions
alone, after deducting organisations which are not Trade Unions, and
many duplicate entries. A large number of societies, such as the
Northern Counties Amalgamated Weavers’ Association, many of the Miners’
Unions, the English and Scottish Typographical Associations, the United
Kingdom Society of Coachmakers, the Flint Glass Makers, the Yorkshire
Glass Bottle Makers, and others were then (as most of them still are)
unregistered. Thus our own statistics revealed a 50 per cent greater
Trade Union membership than the Government figures. It is difficult to
state with exactness the number of separate organisations included, as
this must depend upon the manner in which federal bodies are regarded.
These exhibit almost infinite variations in character, from the mere
“centre of communication” maintained by the thirty-two completely
independent local societies of Coopers, to the rigid unity of the forty
district organisations which make up the Amalgamated Association of
Operative Cotton-spinners. The number of independent societies may be
reckoned at either 930 or at anything up to 1750, according to the view
taken of federal Unions and federations. We put it approximately at
1100.
[578] See our _Industrial Democracy_ and _Problems of Modern Industry_:
also _Men’s and Women’s Wages, should they be Equal?_ by Mrs. Sidney
Webb, 1919.
[579] There were, at this date, altogether about 45,000 Unionists in
Oldham, but of these some 20,000 were women.
[580] Of these, some 80,000 were women. Fully four-fifths of all the
organised women workers were, at this date, included in the Lancashire
textile Trade Unions.
[581] Including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which
contained together about 1285 Trade Unionists.
[582] Included in the above total were 99,650 women in 52 Unions,
distributed among the groups as follows:
Engineering and Metal Trades 2,850 Building and Furniture Trades 300
Mining ... Textile Manufactures 80,900 Clothing and Leather Trades
8,650 Printing Trades 400 Miscellaneous Crafts 3,450 Labourers and
Transport Workers 3,100 ------ 99,650
We may add that the subsequently published Board of Trade statistics
for 1892, arranged on a slightly different classification, gave the
following totals by industrial groups:
Metal, Engineering and Shipbuilding 279,534
Building 157,971
Mining and Quarrying 315,272
Textile 204,022
Clothing 83,299
Transport 154,947
Other Trades 307,313
----------
1,502,358
See Report on Trade Unions for 1901 (Cd. 773).
[583] The Boilermakers claim only to have been established since 1834,
but there is evidence of the existence of the Society in 1832. In
a few other cases, notably those of the Stonemasons, Plumbers, and
Bricklayers, we have been able to carry the history of the organisation
further back than has hitherto been suspected.
[584] The equally archaic port Unions of the Sailmakers, dating, like
those of the Shipwrights, from the last century, were united in the
Federation of Sailmakers of Great Britain and Ireland (established
1890), with 1250 members.
[585] Of these the most important were the Steam-Engine Makers’ Society
(established 1824, 6000 members), the Associated Blacksmiths’ Society
(a Scottish organisation, established 1857, 2300 members), the United
Kingdom Pattern Makers’ Association (established 1872, 2500 members),
the National Society of Amalgamated Brassworkers (established 1872,
6500 members), the United Journeymen Brassfounders’ Association of
Great Britain and Ireland (established 1866, 2500 members), and the
United Machine Workers’ Association (established 1844, 2500 members).
[586] The makers of tin plates had a Union in South Wales (established
1871, and reorganised 1887) which claimed a membership of 10,000. The
National Amalgamated Tinplate Workers’ Association of Great Britain
(established 1876) had 3000 members, and the General Union of Sheet
Metal Workers (established 1861) had 1250 members.
[587] The Alliance Cabinetmakers’ Association (established 1865,
5500 members) and the National Association of Operative Plasterers
(established 1862, 7000 members).
[588] The South Wales miners were, at this date, in a transition
state. The Miners’ Federation had gained a considerable following in
Monmouthshire and Glamorgan, but the bulk of the men still adhered
to the Sliding Scale machinery, claiming 36,000 members, for the
maintenance of which a fortnightly contribution was usually deducted
by the employers from the miners’ earnings. The Forest of Dean Miners’
Association (4000 members) seceded from the Federation in 1893. A small
Miners’ Union (2250 members) at West Bromwich also held aloof.
[589] The Cotton-spinners’ Union was then composed exclusively of adult
males, the boy “piecers” being brigaded in subordinate organisations.
In the Cotton-weavers and Card-room Operatives’ Unions women formed a
large majority of the members.
[590] The United Kingdom Society of Coachmakers (established 1834) had
5500 members. The Mutual Association of Coopers (established 1878) was
then a loose federation of old-fashioned local Unions, with about 6000
members.
[591] We did not include in the above statistics the Unions in classes
not included among the manual workers. The National Union of Teachers,
established 1870, was, already in 1892, a powerful organisation with
23,000 members. The Telegraph Clerks, Life Assurance Agents, and Shop
Assistants also had Unions varying from 1000 to 5000 members, and there
were two organisations of postal employees. The National Unions of
Clerks and Domestic Servants were less definitely established. There
were also small societies among the London Dock Foremen and Clerks and
the Poplar Ships’ Clerks.
Nor did we include such essentially benefit societies as the Marine
Engineers’ Union (9500 members) and the United Kingdom Pilots’
Association, which were composed largely of workmen belonging for trade
purposes to particular Trade Unions.
[592] The census figures for 1891 merge, for each trade, “workmen,
assistants, apprentices, and labourers.” They do not, for instance,
distinguish between Bricklayers and Bricklayers’ Labourers, who belong
to very different Trade Unions. Under Hosiers or Hatters are included
shop-keepers and their assistants, as well as the manufacturing
operatives.
[593] Old members often recall the days when the men used to come to
the club straight from work, and “in their dirt.” They frequently
ascribe the orderly behaviour at club meetings at the present time,
as compared with the rowdiness of the past, largely to this change of
habit, itself a direct result of the reduction of the hours of labour.
[594] Many Unions forbid all drinking during the branch meeting.
[595] In the great Amalgamated Societies District Committees, composed
of representatives of local branches, are formed in the great
industrial Centres, and decide on the trade policy to be adopted by
their constituent branches. These decisions must be confirmed by the
Central Executive.
[596] The travelling card, formerly called a “blank,” is now, in most
cases, a small book of receipt forms. On it is recorded the particulars
of his membership, and the date to which he has paid his contributions.
Along with it he receives a complete list of the public-houses which
serve as the Society’s Lodge-houses, and also a list of the names and
addresses of the Lodge secretaries.
[597] We did not include in this figure a large class of men who are
indirectly paid officials of Trade Unions, such as the checkweighers
among the coal-miners, and the “collectors” among the cotton-weavers,
cardroom-workers, etc. The checkweigher, as we have stated (p. 305), is
elected and paid weekly wages, not by the members of the Trade Union,
but by all the miners in a particular coal-pit. But as Trade Unionism
and the election of a checkweigher are practically coincident, he
frequently serves as lodge secretary, etc. The collectors employed by
certain Trade Unions to go from house to house and collect the members’
contributions are remunerated by a percentage on their collections.
Though not strictly salaried officials, they serve as Trade Union
recruiting agents, as well as intermediaries between members and
the central office, for complaints, appeals, and the circulation of
information.
[598] We have here another instance of the deeply rooted objection on
the part of workmen to “sack” their officials. A Society will make the
life of an unpopular official unbearable, and will thwart him in every
direction; but so long as he hangs on he has a safe berth.