The Development of Trade Unionism in Great Britain and Germany, 1880-1914

Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Hans-Gerhard Husung

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351815246
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: Economics

This stimulating collection of essays by distinguished British, American, Australian and German scholars, originally published in 1985, offers a picture of the upsurge of New Unionism and the growth of old unions, and looks at the severe setbacks which occurred in the labour movements of Britain and Germany between the 1880s and the First World War. Labour history is seen from a European perspective and special emphasis is placed on the role of the state in Britain and Germany in its desire to contain and suppress trade union activity by law or force. Insights are provided into the political allegiances of the unions and their members to the parties of the working class and the state.

Part One

The New Unionism in a European Context

1 The ‘New Unionism’ Reconsidered

ERIC J. HOBSBAWM

I

As applied to its period of origin, the 1880s and early 1890s, the term New Unionism suggests three things to a British labour historian. First, a new set of strategies, policies and forms of organization for unions, as opposed to those associated with an already existing ‘old’ trade unionism. It suggests, in the second place, a more radical social and political stance of unions in the context of the rise of a socialist labour movement; and finally, the creation of new unions of hitherto unorganized or unorganizable workers, as well as the transformation of old unions along the lines suggested by the innovators. Consequently it also suggests an explosive growth of trade union organization and membership. The dock strike of 1889 and its aftermath illustrate all these aspects of the New Unionism, and it therefore provides the most popular image of the entire phenomenon. It is interesting that the very similar union upsurge and transformation of 1911–13 has never generated any similar label, though it was quite as innovative and much more radical. This indicates that even at the time it was regarded as a continuation, or a second instalment, of the process initiated in 1889. This in fact seems to be the best way to see it.¹

A comparative study of New Unionism in various countries during the period 1890–1914 implies that there were comparable trade union developments in them. Now the British case was at this time unique in Europe in one respect. Here there was an already established and significant ‘old’ unionism, rooted in the country’s basic industries, to combat, transform and expand. This was notably not the case in the other country of old industrialism, Belgium. In Germany the Free Trade Unions, though they had multiplied their membership almost fourfold since 1889, had by 1900 just about reached a numerical strength comparable to the ‘old unions’ of Britain in 1887 (680,000 as against 674,000). In short, the continental New Unionism of the late nineteenth century was new chiefly in as much as it established trade unions as a serious force, which they had not hitherto been outside some localities and the occasional craft trade such as printing and cigar-making. To this extent the New Unionism of Britain is sui generis.

Thus on the continent unionism developed simultaneously with the mass political labour movement and its parties, and largely under their impulsion. Its major problems arose when it became sufficiently massive to discover that the policies of trade union leaders, however socialist, could not be entirely congruent with the policies of the political leadership of socialist parties. Union membership probably grew faster than party membership and eventually exceeded it in size, except in such countries as Bohemia and Finland where the party consistently had more members than the unions, presumably because of the local impact of national sentiment. However, the party electorate greatly outnumbered union membership, except in Denmark up to 1913.² On the other hand, in Britain the Labour Party was itself a creation of the unions, and before 1914 the total vote for all labour and socialist candidates, whatever their affiliations, never amounted to more than perhaps 20 per cent of union membership,³ while in Germany, even after the unions had grown to a larger size and, according to some, density of organization, than in Britain, the Social Democratic vote was about double the membership of all unions of whatever ideological persuasion, omitting only the organizations of salaried employees.⁴

In certain crucial respects the New Unionism of Britain and continental countries are therefore not comparable. On the other hand there are analogies between the British and continental cases, in so far as the mass extension of unionism raised problems of strategy and organization which had not previously arisen. Moreover, in some respects all trade union movements experimented with the same solutions to these problems, though the British pattern, which was eventually to supplement a broadened craft unionism primarily by general unions, was not paralleled on the same scale in continental Europe. Conversely, neither the policy of forming the union movement into a relatively small number of comprehensive organizations covering entire industries (industrial unionism), nor the formation of local inter-occupational bodies such as bourses du travail or camere del lavoro was notably successful in Britain.

Britain and the continent are also directly comparable, in so far as initiative and ideas in the union movement came largely from the radical, and indeed theoretically revolutionary, left, though naturally in Britain the bulk of the leadership in older unions were not socialists and still less revolutionaries. Still it is important to insist against sceptics like Hugh A. Clegg, Alan Fox and A. F. Thompson⁵ on the disproportionately large role of the numerically small socialist movement in the British unions, particularly from the middle 1890s. The total membership of all socialist organizations in the middle of that decade may be generously estimated at not more than 20,000, and their paid-up membership at the time of the foundation of the Labour Representation Committee cannot have been more than perhaps 10,000, since they themselves only claimed 23,000.⁶

Some of this British left – the Marxists and later the syndicalists – were undoubtedly guided by international ideologies and strategies, and conversely, British trade union experience was taken note of on the continent. That movements in one industrial country thus claimed to be influenced by the experience, the ideologies and strategies of others, is itself evidence for some comparability, even though it may be doubted whether British union history would have been significantly different if nobody in Britain had heard of revolutionary syndicalism, or continental union developments would have been notably different if nobody in France or Germany had been acquainted with the British term ‘ca’canny’ (go-slow).⁷ However, such foreign or international models were not always mere colourful labels which national activists stuck on bottles containing strictly native beverages. The international Marxism of the 1880s had little to say about trade unions, except to demand comprehensive class organization and warn against craft exclusiveness, but from about 1906 the British objective of rationalizing trade union structure along the lines of industrial unionism was certainly derived from ideas and experiences drawn from, or acquired, abroad. In any case the fact that union leadership and activism in this period were so widely identified with social-revolutionary movements, and that trade unionism also came to develop its own international organizations, is itself significant.⁸ It must affect the historical assessment of certain novel forms of action, occurring internationally and much debated, such as general strikes.

The most easily comparable aspect of New Unionism is the general pattern of trade union growth through discontinuous leaps or explosions.⁹ Such leaps occurred in most European trade union movements during the period from the 1880s up to the First World War, though not necessarily at the same time. If Britain and Germany both experienced such a leap in 1889–90 – both increased by about 90 per cent during this brief period, though the British movement from a base five times as large as the German – there is no British equivalent to the major continental leaps of 1903–4 (Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland), and of 1905 (Austria). Conversely, there is no real continental equivalent to the great British explosion of 1911–13. This should warn labour historians against assuming too close a correlation between trade union expansion and cyclical economic fluctuations, national or international.

However, perhaps there is not much point in stressing the obvious, namely, that trade union growth at a certain stage must be discontinuous. Only when unionism in a country has been recognized and institutionalized, or when it has reached a density, by voluntary recruitment or compulsory membership, which only leaves room for marginal growth or expansion and contraction in line with the changing size of the labour force, can the curve of union growth be expected to be smooth and gentle. In no country and no industry (with rare exceptions such as British coalmining just before 1914) had this stage been reached in 1880–1914. Growth must be discontinuous under these circumstances, because if unions are to be effective they must mobilize, and therefore seek to recruit, not numbers of individuals but groups of workers sufficiently large for collective bargaining. They must recruit in lumps.

II

The year 1889 unquestionably marks a qualitative transformation of the British labour movement and its industrial relations. Between the great dock strike and the First World War effective and permanent employers’ organizations were formed on a national scale, such as the Shipping Federation, the Engineering Employers’ Federation and the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association. Britain experienced the first nationwide and national industrial disputes and collective bargains, the first interventions of central government in labour disputes, and indeed the creation of government offices designed to take care of the now constant interest of government in these matters. For during this period the first expressions of political concern about the possible effects of strikes and unions on the competitive position of the British economy were voiced. The appearance of a national Labour Party consisting essentially of trade union affiliates, and the welfare legislation of the years before 1914, are familiar to all.

Table 1.1 Ranking List of the Ten Largest Unions, 1885 and 1893

1885	1963
Amalgamated Society of Engineers	Transport and General Workers’ Union
Durham Miners’ Association	Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers
United Society of Boilermakers and Iron and Steel Shipbuilders	National Union of General and Municipal Workers
Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners	National Union of Mineworkers
Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners	National Union of Shop, Distributive & Allied Workers
Amalgamated Society of Tailors	National Association of Local Government Officers
The Northumberland Miners’ Mutual Confident Association	National Union of Railwaymen
Friendly Society of Ironfounders	Electrical Trades Union
Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons	National Union of Teachers
National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives	National Union and Public Employees

So far as the unions themselves are concerned, the most striking difference lies not so much in the increased size and changed composition of the movement, but probably in its economic effects. Broadly speaking, before about 1900 trade unionism served, if anything, to widen wage-differentials between different groups of workers. After 1900, and especially after 1911, it contributed to the progressive narrowing of such differentials.¹⁰ Nevertheless, the actual innovations in trade union structure and industrial or occupational distribution are not to be overlooked. If the list of the largest unions in 1885 is compared with that of 1963 as recorded by the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations of 1965–8, it becomes apparent (see Table 1.1) that only one of the ten largest unions of 1885 was still in the list eighty years later – the Amalgamated Engineers. Conversely, seven of the ten largest unions of 1963 were founded, or are the lineal descendants of new unions founded during the period 1880–1914: the ancestors of the Transport and General Workers, General and Municipal Workers, National Union of Mineworkers and Electrical Trades Union were born in 1888–9, of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers in 1891, one of those of the National Union of Railwaymen in 1889, and the National Association of Local Government Officers in the 1900s.

A new era in labour relations and class conflict was clearly opening. The shock of 1889 was temporary, but it precipitated permanent changes in attitude not only among unions but among employers, politicians and government administrators as well, and it encouraged or even compelled them all to recognize the existence of transformations which had already taken place below the horizon of collective visibility. To this extent the shock of 1889 was probably more effective than the m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction by Wolfgang J. Mommsen
• Part One The New Unionism in a European Context
• Part Two Strike Movements in Europe: A Comparative Analysis
• Part Three Industrial Modernization, Politics and Trade Union Organization
• Part Four Syndicalism, Christian Unionism and ‘Free’ Labour
• Part Five Trade Unions, Employers and the State
• Part Six Trade Unions and the Political Labour Movement
• Notes on Contributors
• Index