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Law as a Bargaining Weapon: British Labour and the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act 1919

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Gerry R. Rubin
Gerry R. Rubin
Affiliation:
University of Kent at Canterbury
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Extract

In a major new history of British industrial relations, Alan Fox noted in 1985 that, ‘The Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act 1919 has so far received only the briefest of passing references in the texts, apparently on the supposition that its passage can be taken for granted. This understates its significance’. The Act, to which Fox himself devoted only two pages of his lengthy book, was passed after the cessation of the First World War. It declared as its aim the fulfilment of a wartime pledge made by the government to trade unions to reinstate in British factories those pre-war working practices which had been abandoned by Labour for the duration of the war, in order to expedite the output of munitions. These practices covered such matters as manning arrangements, closed shop agreements, restriction of overtime and apprenticeship rules.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 1989 , pp. 925 - 945
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 Fox, A., History and heritage: the social origins of the British industrial relations system (London, 1985), p. 292Google Scholar.

2 Ibid. pp. 292–3 for this and subsequent quotes.

3 Cole, G. D. H., Workshop organisation (London, 1973, edn), pp. 124–5Google Scholar, cited in Fox, , History and heritage, p. 292Google Scholar.

4 According to Cole, the unions' vigorous campaigning during the war to secure post-war restoration, had persuaded employers to adopt the ‘line of least resistance by allowing trade union customs to be restored’. See Cole, G. D. H., Trade unionism and munitions (Oxford, 1923), p. 196Google Scholar.

5 Zeitlin, Jonathan, ‘The labour strategies of British engineering employers, 1890–1922’, in Gospel, H. F. and Littler, C. (eds.), Managerial strategies and industrial relations (London, 1983), p. 46Google Scholar; More, C., Skill and the English working class, 1870–1314 (London, 1980), pp. 33–4Google Scholar. See later. Cole, , Trade unionism and munitions, p. 196Google Scholar, made a similar point. See PRO: CAB 24/71/6X6427 on workers' resentment at the rapidity of discharges from munitions factories, 1 December, 1918.

6 Fabian News, XXVII (11 1916), p. 46Google Scholar; ibid. XXVIII (December 1916), 2; ibid. January 1917), 6; ibid. (February 1917), II; ibid. (April 1917), 19. Cf. Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, , Journal (12 1916), pp. 776–7Google Scholar.

7 For the WEWNC, see Harrison, R., ‘The war emergency workers' national committee’, in Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (eds.), Essays in labour history, II, 1886–1923 (London, 1971)Google Scholar.

8 See the following pamphlets published by the Joint Committee on Labour Problems after the War: Memorandum on the Records of Departures from Trade Union Rules (September 1916); The Munitions Acts and the Restoration of Trade Union Customs (November 1916); The Restoration of Trade Union Conditions in Cases not Covered by the Munitions Acts (1917); and The Restoration of Trade Union Customs after the War (1917).

9 Labour Party, Annual Report 1917, p. 104. Cf., Independent Labour Party, Annual Conference Report 1917, p. 45. See also, Trades Union Congress, Annual Congress 1916, cited in Glasgow Herald, 09 7, 1916Google Scholar.

10 Labour Party, Annual Report 1918, 1918.

11 Not to be confused with the Employers' Parliamentary Association which merged with the Federation of British Industries in the spring of 1917.

12 Nation, 27 January 1917, referring to a series of articles in The Times. The Glasgow Herald ran a similar series of articles in April 1917 entitled Future of Industry. For the Employers' Parliamentary Council, see ibid. 12 February 1917, and for a critique of their reactionary outlook, see Mew Statesman, 17 February 1917, pp. 461–2. For the observations of a committee of Scottish engineers, shipbuilders and steelmakers, see Glasgow Herald, 10 April 1917.

13 A reference, probably, to Lloyd George's Caxton Hall meeting with trade unions and employers to explain government labour policy following the Armistice. See Glasgow Herald, 14, 15, 21 November 1918; War Cabinet, Report for 1918, P.P. xxx (453) 1919, Cmd. 325, p. 164.

14 Glasgow Herald, 28 December 1918. According to the historian of Weir's, employers preferred to return to the status quo ante bellum rather than confront the militancy of skilled engineers who would struggle to resist the introduction of new mass production lines to replace those worn out during the war. He therefore concluded that, ‘There was thus, in the West of Scotland, if not elsewhere, a kind of Ludditism in engineering: surely a unique example of a whole industry deliberately putting itself at a disadvantage against less conservatively-minded foreign competition.’ See Reader, W. J., The Weir group: a centenary history (London, 1971), pp. 83–4Google Scholar. Such an interpretation conflicts with that of Cole and More, discussed elsewhere.

15 CAB 23/8/WC 482, 3 October 1918.

16 Glasgow Herald, 31 October 1918. As a representative of the unskilled, he perhaps suffered from split loyalties.

17 Glasgow Herald, 21 October 1918. The knowledge was, of course, the skills acquired by non craftsmen undertaking skilled work under the wartime dilution of labour programme.

18 Glasgow Herald. Over a year earlier, he had considered that, ‘The best thing to do with diese pre-war conditions’, which he looked upon with ‘loathing and disgust’, was to ‘barter them for better conditions’. See Glasgow Herald, 31 May 1917.

19 Glasgow Herald, 5 February 1918.

20 Glasgow Herald, 28 December 1918.

21 Garton Foundation, The Pledges to the Trade Unions, reprinted in Tracts for the Times (1921), P. 53.

22 LAB2/676/36. The official was W. (later Sir Wilfrid) Eady, on whom, see Lowe, R., Adjusting to democracy: the role of the Ministry of Labour in British politics (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar.

23 New Statesman, 31 May 1919, p. 207.

24 Ibid..

25 Fox, , History and heritage, p. 293Google Scholar; Middlemas, Keith, Politics in industrial society (London, 1979), p. 142Google Scholar; Johnson, P. B., Land fit for heroes (Chicago, 1968), pp. 263–7, 281–4Google Scholar.

26 CAB 24/66/GT 5992, 14 October 1918; RECO 1/800, 18 October 1918. Cf. Arthur Greenwood, assistant secretary to Lloyd George's Reconstruction Committee in 1917, cited in Johnson, , Land fit for heroes, p. 53Google Scholar.

27 CAB 24/67/GT 6024, 17 October 1918.

28 CAB 23/8/WC 487 (17), 16 October 1918.

29 More, , Skill and the English working class, pp. 33–4Google Scholar.

30 See Eady's comment, quoted infra, p. 939.

31 Wolfe, H., Labour supply and regulation (Oxford, 1923), p. 77Google Scholar; Soldon, N. C., Women in British Trade Unions 1874–1976 (Dublin, 1978), pp. 80–1Google Scholar.

32 Ibid.

33 Much of the concern of the Ministry of Labour was with the applicability of the Restoration Act to non-engineering trades, including the railways, haulage, soft goods warehousing, London buses, trams and underground, agriculture, the Post Office, hotels, restaurants and clubs, banks and insurance companies, government offices and ‘professional’ offices. The lifting of ‘technical’ working practices during the war scarcely seemed relevant in those employment sectors. See LAB2/676/27.

34 Soldon, , Women, p. 104Google Scholar.

35 Boston, S., Women workers and the Trade Union Movement (London, 1980), pp. 139–40Google Scholar.

36 Braybon, G., Women workers in the First World War (London, 1981), p. 184Google Scholar.

37 See, for example, a delegation of the Women's Freedom League to the Ministry of Labour: LAB2/676/29.

38 The munitions tribunals were the legal forum for the enforcement of the wartime labour regulation code, the Munitions of War Act 1915. The tribunals were retained for the purpose of enforcing the Restoration Act. For the history of the Munitions Acts, see Rubin, Gerry R., War, law and labour: The Munitions Acts, state regulation and the unions, 1915–1921 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar.

39 LAB2/676/35. According to Scott, W. R. and Cunnison, J., The industries of the Clyde valley during the War (Oxford, 1924), p. 155Google Scholar, there were 25 complaints. A typical contested case which emphasized the straight substitution of women for men during the war concerned the prosecution of a Glasgow firm of packing box manufacturers accused by the Amalgamated Society of Woodcutting Machinists of retaining women in post-war employment, contrary to the pre-war practice. See Labour Gazette, January 1921, p. 42; Glasgow Herald, 7 December 1920. The case was eventually disposed of in February 1921, in favour of the employer. See LAB2/676/34,.

40 Taylor v Smith, Barker & Willson Ltd., Munitions Appeal Reports, IV (20, 27 02 1920), 35–50Google Scholar. Taylor was the ASE Yorkshire district delegate.

41 Ibid. p. 38.

42 For Fyfe, see Rubin, War, law and labour.

43 Cole, , Trade unionism and munitions, pp. 32–6Google Scholar.

44 See note 8, supra.

45 See Labour Research Department [LRD], Monthly Circular, III (1 12 1918), 44–5Google Scholar; ibid. IV (1 May 1919), 37; LRD, Annual Report 1918–1919, report of Legal Committee (chairman, H. H. Slesser; secretary, G. D. H. Cole); ASE, , Monthly Journal and Report, 12 1919, p. 13Google Scholar; Mew Statesman, 31 May 1919, p. 206.

46 Taylor v Smith, Barker & Willson, op. cit. p. 48.

47 For the original Ministry of Munitions instructions to employers to report records of departures, see Clyde Shipbuilders' Association, Minute Book No. 9, 25 October 1915.

48 Controlled establishments were munitions firms where factory discipline, enforced under the provisions of the Munitions Acts, was the quid pro quo for profits limitation imposed on the employers.

49 Joint Committee on Labour Problems, Memorandum on the Records of Departures, pp. 1–2.

50 Scott, and Cunnison, , Industries of the Clyde Valley, pp. 154–5Google Scholar, for this figure.

51 North-West Engineering Trades Employers' Association, Minute Book No. 8, 2 October 1916.

52 After the Armistice, the employers, nationally, submitted that the practices which they had given up should be restored equally with those of the trade unions. However, ‘the unions pertinently enquired whether, and on what occasion, any pledge of restoration had been given to the employers, and stated that they had no mandate to discuss the restoration of employers' customs.’ See New Statesman, 31 May 1919, p. 206.

53 LAB2/719/11.

54 Thus the senior Ministry of Labour official, Horace Wilson, noted that Lord Sands' Scottish appeal judgment was ‘likely to cause some feeling on the part of the unions’. The permanent secretary, Sir David Shackleton, agreed that the unions had a certain justification for their dissatisfaction as the decision ‘certainly is not in harmony with the promises which were made in order to secure relaxation’: LAB2/719/11.

55 Thus Messrs. Smith, Barker & Willson were fined £50 once Roche had remitted the case to the local tribunal. See LAB2/719/11. In respect to McPhail's (supra, p. 935), no fine is indicated in any of the sources consulted. See LAB2/676/35. For the three Appeal Tribunal hearings, see Glasgow Herald, 3 March, 22 June, 1 December 1920.

56 As James Prentice, the union official, told the tribunal, ‘The workmen concerned could not follow the subtle legal questions arising upon the phraseology of the [Act].’ It merely appeared to him that the pledge was being broken. See LAB2/719/11.

57 Bates v Bentley Engineering Co. Ltd., Munitions Appeal Reports, IV (23 07 1920), pp. 58–67Google Scholar. Bates was the ASE Midlands district delegate.

58 Glasgow Herald, 10 April 1917.

59 LAB2/719/11.

60 LAB2/676/34, italics in original. The official was Wilfrid Eady. The EEF was the Engineering Employers' Federation and the AEU was the Amalgamated Engineering Union (formerly the ASE). The background to the 1922 national engineering lockout can be traced to these events. On the lockout, see Wigham, Eric, The power to manage: a history of the Engineering Employers' Federation (London, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Price, Richard, Labour in British society (Beckenham, 1986), p. 161Google Scholar. Whether there existed a ‘Crisis of the British state’ at that time is reconsidered in Nottingham, Christopher J., ‘Recasting Bourgeois Britain? The British state in the years which followed the First World War’, International Review of Social History, XXXI, 1986, 227–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 That is, a policy which still left government ultimately responsible to a sovereign parliament for decisions which might affect the ‘national interest’.

63 Lowe, op. cit. pp. 68, 88; Lowe, R., ‘The Ministry of Labour, 1916–1924: a graveyard of social reform?’, Public Administration, LII (1974), 415–38, 434CrossRefGoogle Scholar.