1926 United Kingdom general strike

Tyldesley miners outside the Miners’ Hall during the strike

The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted 9 days, from 4 May 1926 to 13 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. Some 1.7 million workers went out, especially in transport and heavy industry. The government was prepared and enlisted middle class volunteers to maintain essential services. There was little violence and the TUC gave up in defeat. In the long run, there was little impact on trade union activity or industrial relations.

History

Causes of the 1926 conflict

The Subsidised Mineowner—Poor Beggar!
from the Trade Union Unity Magazine (1925)

Mine owners therefore announced that their intention was to reduce miners' wages. The MFGB rejected the terms: "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day." The TUC responded to this news by promising to support the miners in their dispute. The Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin decided to intervene, declaring that they would provide a nine-month subsidy to maintain the miners' wages and that a Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Herbert Samuel would look into the problems of the mining industry whilst also considering its impact on other industries, families and organisations dependent on coal supplies industry.

The Samuel Commission published a report on 10 March 1926 recommending that in the future, national agreements, the nationalisation of royalties and sweeping reorganisation and improvement should be considered for the mining industry.[4] It also recommended a reduction by 13.5% of miners' wages along with the withdrawal of the government subsidy.[5] Two weeks later, the prime minister announced that the government would accept the report provided other parties also did.[6] A previous royal commission, the Sankey Commission, had recommended nationalisation a few years earlier to deal with the problems of productivity and profitability in the industry, but Lloyd George, then prime minister, had rejected its report.

After the Samuel Commission's report, the mine owners declared that miners would be offered new terms of employment that included lengthening the work day and reducing wages depending on various factors. The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) refused the wage reduction and regional negotiation.

The general strike, May 1926

Foraging for coal in the strike

The final negotiations began on 1 May but failed to achieve an agreement, leading to an announcement by the TUC that a general strike "in defence of miners' wages and hours" was to begin on 3 May,[7] a Monday, at one minute to midnight.[8]

The leaders of the Labour Party were unhappy about the proposed general strike because they were aware of the revolutionary elements within the union movement and of the damage an association with them would do to the party's newly established reputation as a party of government. During the next two days, frantic efforts were made to reach an agreement with the government and the mining industry representatives. However, these efforts failed, mainly owing to an eleventh-hour decision by printers of the Daily Mail to refuse to print an editorial ("For King and Country") condemning the general strike. They objected to the following passage: "A general strike is not an industrial dispute. It is a revolutionary move which can only succeed by destroying the government and subverting the rights and liberties of the people". When Baldwin heard of this, he was concerned about the TUC and printers' action interfering with the freedom of the press.

King George V tried to stabilise the situation and create balance saying, "Try living on their wages before you judge them."[9]

The TUC feared that an all-out general strike would bring revolutionary elements to the fore and limited the participants to railwaymen, transport workers, printers, dockers, ironworkers and steelworkers, as these were regarded as pivotal in the dispute.

The government had been preparing for the strike over the nine months in which it had provided a subsidy, creating organisations such as the Organisation for the maintenance of supplies, and did whatever it could to keep the country moving. It rallied support by emphasizing the revolutionary nature of the strikers. The armed forces and volunteer workers helped maintain basic services. The government's Emergency Powers Act—an act to maintain essential supplies—had been passed in 1920.

On 4 May 1926, the number of strikers was about 1.5–1.75 million. There were strikers "from John o' Groats to Land's End". The Workers' reaction to the strike call was immediate and overwhelming, and surprised both the government and the TUC; the latter not being in control of the strike. On this first day, there were no major initiatives and no dramatic events, except for the nation's transport being at a standstill.

“Constitutional Government is being attacked. Let all good citizens whose livelihood and labour have thus been put in peril bear with fortitude and patience the hardships with which they have been so suddenly confronted. Stand behind the Government, who are doing their part, confident that you will cooperate in the measures they have undertaken to preserve the liberties and privileges of the people of these islands. The laws of England are the people’s birthright. The laws are in your keeping. You have made Parliament their guardian. The General Strike is a challenge to Parliament and is the road to anarchy and ruin.”

Stanley Baldwin, 6 May 1926, British Gazette

On 5 May 1926, both sides gave their views. Churchill (at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer) commented as editor of the government newspaper British Gazette: "I do not agree that the TUC have as much right as the Government to publish their side of the case and to exhort their followers to continue action. It is a very much more difficult task to feed the nation than it is to wreck it". Baldwin wrote that "The general strike is a challenge to the parliament and is the road to anarchy". In the British Worker, the TUC's newspaper: "We are not making war on the people. We are anxious that the ordinary members of the public shall not be penalized for the unpatriotic conduct of the mine owners and the government". In the meantime, the government put in place a "militia" of special constables, called the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS). They were volunteers to maintain order in the street. A special constable said: "It was not difficult to understand the strikers' attitude toward us. After a few days I found my sympathy with them rather than with the employers. For one thing, I had never realized the appalling poverty which existed. If I had been aware of all the facts, I should not have joined up as a special constable".[10] It was decided that Fascists would not be allowed to enlist in the OMS without first giving up their political beliefs, as the government feared a right-wing backlash, so the fascists formed the so-called "Q Division" under Rotha Lintorn-Orman to combat the strikers.

On 6 May 1926, there was a change of atmosphere. The government newspaper British Gazette suggested that means of transport began to improve with volunteers and blackleg workers, stating on the front page that there were '200 buses on the streets'.[11] These were, however, figures of propaganda as there were in fact only 86 buses running.[12]

On 7 May 1926, the TUC met Sir Herbert Samuel and worked out a set of proposals designed to end the dispute. The Miners' Federation rejected the proposals. The British Worker was increasingly difficult to operate because Churchill had requisitioned the bulk of the supply of the paper's newsprint, so it reduced its size from eight pages to four.[13] In the meantime, the government took action to protect the men who decided to return to work.

On 8 May 1926, there was a dramatic moment on the London Docks. Lorries were protected by the army. They broke the picket line and transported food to Hyde Park. This episode showed that the government was in greater control of the situation. It was also a measure of Baldwin's rationalism in place of Churchill's more reactionary stance. Churchill had wanted, in a move that could have proved unnecessarily antagonistic to the strikers, to arm the soldiers. Baldwin, however, had insisted they not be armed.

On 11 May 1926, the Flying Scotsman was derailed by strikers near Newcastle.[14] The British Worker, alarmed at the fears of the General Council of the TUC that there was to be a mass drift back to work, claimed: "The number of strikers has not diminished; it is increasing. There are more workers out today than there have been at any moment since the strike began."

However, the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union applied for an injunction in the Chancery Division of the High Court, to enjoin the General-Secretary of its Tower Hill branch from calling its members out on strike. Mr Justice Astbury granted the injunction, ruling that no trade dispute could exist between the TUC and "the government of the nation"[15] and that, save for strike in the coal industry, the general strike was not protected by Trade Disputes Act 1906. In addition, he ruled that the strike in the plaintiff union had been called in contravention of its own rules.[16] As a result, the unions involved became liable at common law for incitement to breach of contract, and faced potential sequestration of their assets by employers.

On 12 May 1926, the TUC General Council visited 10 Downing Street to announce their decision to call off the strike, provided that the proposals worked out by the Samuel Commission were adhered to and that the Government offered a guarantee that there would be no victimization of strikers. The Government stated that it had "no power to compel employers to take back every man who had been on strike." Thus the TUC agreed to end the dispute without such an agreement.

Aftermath of the conflict

The miners maintained resistance for a few months before being forced by their own economic needs to return to the mines. By the end of November, most miners were back at work. However, many remained unemployed for many years. Those that were employed were forced to accept longer hours, lower wages, and district wage agreements. The strikers felt as though they had achieved nothing.

The effect on the British coal-mining industry was profound. By the late 1930s, employment in mining had fallen by more than one-third from its pre-strike peak of 1.2 million miners, but productivity had rebounded from under 200 tons produced per miner to over 300 tons by the outbreak of the Second World War.[17] The split in the miners that resulted from Spencerism and the agreement of the Nottinghamshire miners to return to work, against the policy of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, divided the coal miners as a national bargaining force and was only resolved by the establishment of the National Union of Mineworkers.

In some mining areas, strikebreakers were ostracised in their communities for the rest of their lives, and some were still being referred to as scabs at the time of the 1984-5 strike.[18]

The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1927, among other things, forbade sympathetic strikes and mass picketing.

It was the only general strike in British history, for union leaders such as Ernest Bevin—who had coordinated the strike—considered it a mistake. They decided that action through political parties was a better solution.[19]

In popular culture

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Graph of UK coal production
  2. ↑ Peter Mathias, The First Industrial Nation: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1914. London: Routledge, 2001. Page 449.
  3. ↑ "Forgotten (or conveniently forgotten) reason for 1926 miners strike recalled - Dr Fred Starr | Claverton Group". Claverton-energy.com. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
  4. ↑ Robertson, D. H. 'A Narrative of the General Strike of 1926' The Economic Journal Vol. 36, no. 143 (September 1926) p.376
  5. ↑ Griffiths, D. A History of the NPA 1906-2006 (London: Newspaper Publishers Association, 2006) pg. 67
  6. ↑ Robertson, D. H. p.377
  7. ↑ Renshaw, P. The General Strike (London: Eyre Meuthen, 1975) pg. 157-160
  8. ↑ "What was the General Strike of 1926?", BBC News UK (London: BBC), 19 June 2011, retrieved 27 April 2012
  9. ↑ David Sinclair, Two Georges: The Making of the Modern Monarchy. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988. Page 105.
  10. ↑ "Nottinghamshire NUM Area History". Nottinghamshireexminer.com. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
  11. ↑ 'Why Walk to Work?' British Worker Issue 2 (6 May 1926), p.1
  12. ↑ Symons, J. The General Strike (London: Cresset Press, 1957) pg. 158
  13. ↑ 'The British Worker and Paper Supplies,' The Times (8 May 1926), pg.4
  14. ↑ Patrick, Renshaw (1975). Nine days in May: the general strike. Taylor & Francis.
  15. ↑ Lee S. J. 1996 Aspects of British Political History 1914-1995 p 90]
  16. ↑ "The Legality of the General Strike in England," A. L. Goodhart The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Feb., 1927), pp. 464-485 Published by: The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc.
  17. ↑ Mathias, The First Industrial Nation, pg. 449.
  18. ↑ Whyles, Stephen (12 September 2014). A Scab is no Son of Mine. Xlibris Corporation. p. 4. ISBN 9781499089585. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
  19. ↑ J. Graham Jones, "Ernest Bevin and the General Strike", Llafur: Journal of Welsh Labour History/Cylchgrawn Hanes Llafur Cymru (2001) 8#2 pp 97–103.

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