E120: 1926 general strike, part 3

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Welcome back to the final installment of our mini series
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about the British General strike of nineteen twenty six. If
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you haven't listened to parts one or two yet, I'd
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go back and listen to those first.
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Oh you men, I've done Pundy dig events of coal
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with me little pick and shove for the boss man
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the callery. But I'll never own your soul with me,
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little pick and shove up.
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today at patreon dot com slash working Class history link
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in the show notes. Where we left off last time,
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the strike was causing havoc around the country and the
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British state tried to use all the legal powers at
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its disposal to break the strike. The most crucial of
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these was the Emergency Powers Act, a law passed in
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nineteen twenty which allowed for a state of emergency to
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be declared in the event of an action taken or
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threatened quote on so extensive a scale as to be
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calculated by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel,
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or light, or with the means of locomotion end quote.
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This basically meant that any big strike could result in
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a state of emergency being called and any disobedience punished
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with prison, hard labour, a fine, the seizure of goods,
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or any combination of all of them.
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They could use this to really harass the left and
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to harass any oppositional voices during the strike, so they
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invaded the Communist Party headquarters. They arrested communists for sedition.
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I think something like well over a thousand Communist Party
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members were arrested during the strike, which some people say
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is about a quarter of their whole membership.
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This is Judy Cox, co author of Revisiting the General
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Strike of nineteen twenty six. When workers were ready to.
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Dare, I think there were something like nine thousands arrests altogether,
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so large numbers of people were arrested. I mean some
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were obviously arrested during confrontations with the police, but many
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communists were arrested for sedition, which was simply asking troops
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not to fire on workers, talking about international solidarity and
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those sort of questions. In the sitting MP for Battersey
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Sakala was arrested and sentenced to Timunth's Hard Labor and
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he was a sitting MP, the Communist MP. So yeah,
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they were very repressive and they were very prepared to
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use the power of the state to crush not only
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strikers but communists who might be arguing for striking to
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go further. I think the organization of the strike fed
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from that kind of the seeds of class fear that
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had been sown, this idea that if we don't fight
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this battle, it will be the end of civilization. The
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Communists are taking over.
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The state cracked down severely on the Communist Party, with
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three hundred and seventy four communists being arrested on the
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tenth of May alone, and even before the strike had begun.
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In October nineteen twenty five, twelve Communist Party leaders were
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arrested and charged under the incitement to mutiny Act from
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seventeen ninety seven. The majority of those arrested were still
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in prison during the general strike itself. One Communist Party
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member who was arrested during the general strike was Abe moffat,
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a minor in Scotland's Fife coal fields. Unfortunately, the audio
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quality of this section from Abe's interview was quite poor
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and might be difficult for some listeners to unders stand.
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But I'll go over the main points afterwards, and they'll
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also soon be a full transcript on the web page
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for this episode. Link in the show.
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Notes our senses during the Fintasics. There's more for leading
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a ride to Smart. As a matter of fact, young
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gllla Alec and another young lads and Wade Ellis we've
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got two months under that. We've got two months each
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under that, right Smart. It was mostly although we've got
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a lot of manor paistic during the demo site for
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example for Scott.
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For Scott, the traffic on the roads, you.
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Know what I mean, the higher road color. I had
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another brother there he wild on the GMO straight along
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with another six that start the traffic exactly under the
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such and the disconsil. That time you have a permit
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from a case council to grow up the young just
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at the end of the state and in the other
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end stated almost finished miles downstation up with respect against
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the black lights.
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So to summarize Abe, two of his brothers and another
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miner named Jim Watt all got arrested and sentenced to
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two months in prison for leading a riotus mob. This
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also happened to a number of other miners around the
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Five Coalfields who were arrested for stopping traffic. These traffic
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stops were done under the instructions of the local Trades
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council to check the vehicles had the proper permits for
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the goods that they were carrying, and in the event
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they did not, workers would refuse to allow them to
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continue their journey. As for Harry Watson on the East
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London Docks, he felt that the police were getting increasingly
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heavy handed as the strike wore on.
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The police were becoming more and more not only trucking
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up as they were in the beginning, but vicious and
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when they were attacking the workers, they didn't discriminate whether
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you were men or woman, or whether they were boy
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or girl, or what if you was one of the
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people who was messed there, then you were fair game
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for their truncheons, and they used to bring them down
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and all.
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And Harry was in no uncertainty about whether those police
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attacks were spontaneous or premeditated.
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Oh no, they're around rawers. It was organized. I mean
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a question about a fact. Someone has given them a signal.
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I don't know who it was, but it was obvious
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that they moved when they were told the move, and
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they were told to move in a certain fashion, and
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they did just that, and someone was given them the
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orders because it was I mean, we were unsuspecting of
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anything like that. We were there without any question or
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doubt in our mind about who's going to win, and
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what did we have to do anything about it for
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other than stand firm and our action of being on
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strike and refusing to go to work. In a situation
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like that, then suddenly from behind you or you get
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a whack on the neck or a wap on the shoulder,
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or the arm you temporary immediately flairs. You know it's
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an unprovoked attack in the met whichever way you look
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at it, and tipically, in a situation like that where
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there's not just one of them, but dozens and dozens
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of them laying about them, and when you see women
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getting hit and all your blood balls and them, it's
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like more. I mean, you've become as vicious as they
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do in the finish and get down to their level
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in order to make them understand that they are nothing anyway,
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you know what, right and authority they got to come
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barging in people like that and laying about them in
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the fashion they did, and bloods being still everywhere as
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a result of it. No, they were being instructed. It
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was an organized assault on the public wherever the public
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was gathering at the time.
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Harry's views of state violence during the general strike was
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no doubt informed by the lengths that the government went
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to to break the picketing of the East London docks.
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No more than about forty out of fourteen thousand dock
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workers were available for work, so the government had to
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bring scabs in by boat along the river, even using
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the navy, as Harry mentioned in the last episode, but
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even using strike breakers was itself useless while East London's
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docks were picketed and its surrounding streets filled with strikers.
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To deal with this. On Saturday, the eighth of May,
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the government sent twenty armored cars manned by soldiers to
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the East India docks to escort lorries transporting goods. To
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top it off, a machine gun placed at the dock
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gates was trained on the strikers to discourage any attempts
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to interfere with the convoy. Despite this, strikers across the
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country remained resolute. For the most part. Workers continued to
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respect the strike and clashes even continued in numerous places
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around the UK, while more workers were gearing up to
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be called out as part of the second line of
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the strike. By contrast, however, the General Counsel of the
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Trades Union Congress was seeking ways to bring the strike
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to an end.
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I mean, this is one of the most criminal, kind
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of inexplicable capitulations. When you read the accounts of how
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the strike was getting stronger, how people were still coming
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out on striking. Yet the trade union leaders at some
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point begin to fear that they're going to lose control,
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that more workers are going to come out on strike,
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and so they moved from saying we're going to stand
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by the miners, We're not going to let the miners
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fight alone. Because this whole strike is about solidarity with
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the miners. It's not about people fighting for their own
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pay rise. It's all about standing by the miners. And
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they begin to say the miners are living in a
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fool's paradise if they don't think they're going to accept
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where so these carving out of the miners and their leaders,
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these negotiations begin.
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Much of these negotiations were based around the report of
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the Samuel Commission, named after its chairman, Sir Herbert Samuel,
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the former High Commissioner of British Colonial Palestine. The report
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was published in March nineteen twenty six and recommended a
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number of reforms to the mining industry. However, those reforms
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most beneficial to the miners, like amalgamating smaller mines into larger,
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more efficient ones, were to be postponed for the future. Meanwhile,
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the immediate reforms it suggested were around the reduction of wages,
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either through increased hours or straightforward pay cuts. The report
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also stopped short of calling for nationalization. Unsurprisingly, the Miners'
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Union rejected this, but other leaders on the TUC's General
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Council insisted on pushing through an agreement based on the
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Samuel Report. They met multiple times with Samuel during the
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strike and lobbied him to encourage the government that the
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strike could be brought to an end and on the
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basis of his report. However, the government repeatedly rejected Samuel's
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offer of mediation and underlining that no negotiations could take
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place until the strike had been completely called off. As
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the strike wore on and the TUC's desperation to call
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off the strike became increasingly obvious, the position of the
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government hardened, but among the rank and file workers were
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still standing by the strike, despite the claims of union
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leaders to the contrary.
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They start rumors that the strike is crumbling. That's the
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one of their biggest tactics is to say, really it's crumbling,
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and people going, well, that's strange because it's not crumbling
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around here. But there's no national network where people can
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exchange alternative views. So they start these rumors that the
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strike is crumbling. And the truth is they're fearful of
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losing control of it. And one of the people involved,
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a rank and file worker, in a brilliant quote, says
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they were more afraid of winning than they were of losing.
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They couldn't envisage that, so it was better for them
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to lose and to leave the miners to fight on alone.
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As an example of this, Ben Turner, the textile workers'
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union representative at the TUC, claimed that workers were abandoning
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the strike, particularly in the railway centers. Similarly, John Bromley,
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leader of ASLEFT the train Drivers Union, also claimed that
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his members were going back to work, but as the
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government's own statistics show, the percentage of railway workers still
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out on the final day of the strike was mostly
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ninety percent or more, with engine drivers, fire and motormen
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in particular being closer to ninety eight percent. The main
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exception to this were clerical and supervisory workers, most of
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whom were unable to drive trains anyway, and according to
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the TUC's own internal intelligence report on the morning of
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the twelfth of May, quote, reports coming into this office
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do not confirm or explain the government's claims that large
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numbers of railway workers were returning to work end quote.
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On Wednesday, the twelfth of May nineteen twenty six, the
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the TUC had referred to as the second line of
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workers were due to be called out to join the
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general strike, but instead at midday, a delegation from the
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TUC arrived at ten Downing Street to meet the Prime
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Minister and were only let in once they'd confirmed that
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they were there to call off the strike. Despite hopes
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that this would allow for negotiations around the satisfactory settlement
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to the dispute, TUC leaders left without having the chance
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to discuss either their members returned to work or what
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would happen to the miners and the Samuel Memorandum that
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they'd pinned their hopes on. Shortly after one o'clock, the
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BBC announced that the TUC's first and only general strike
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was over. For many workers, this could only have meant
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one thing.
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And when the new was tang fu that the strike
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was over, course, we was overjoyed. We won. You know,
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never dawned on us that the strike had been called
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off in that situation. The only reason it would be
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called off was because we'd won. It wasn't until a
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long while, some hours afterwards, when they come through that
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had been called off, and it had been a capitulation
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by the trade union leaders at that time. Of course,
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when that come through, it was well, it was technifying.
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The I think there was more resentment and more signs
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then of spontaneous violence from the men and women in
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the East end that the sellout than they'd ever been
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right the way through up until then in the strike itself.
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That's what caused the eruption, when I say, such a
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transformation from being happy and singing and everybody dancing at
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the end of the strike tree supposing that it had
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been one. So it's all kinds of gaiety. And it
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was some hours later when we did find out, and
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it was hard to believe to begin with, but when
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it was established and we understood that it was a betrayal,
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nothing short of a betrayal.
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Oh oh.
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And I might say that the trade union leadership as
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such was, in my opinion, the course of a lot
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of the discuss that were shown by the men in
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leaving trade unions and ceased membership of trade unions after that,
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because that was their way of showing theirs.
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Just with.
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The people who were supposed to be in positions of
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trust and authority, supposed to be giving leadership and guidance, generals,
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supposed to be leading the army in battle as it were,
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abandoning winning positions and turning tail, you know, and leaving
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the army as it were to clear up the mess
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as it were afterwards. Oh that was a terrible experience, really,
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the one I never forgot all forgave eiver.
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We'll be right back after these messages. If you want
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to listen to our podcast with our ads, join us
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00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:09.200
on Patreon, where as well as early access to episodes,
277
00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:12.440
you can also listen to an additional Patreon only bonus
278
00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:15.679
episode for our General Strike mini series. Support from our
279
00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:18.080
listeners on Patreon is the only way that we're able
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00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:20.200
to devote the time and money it takes to make
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this podcast. Learn more and join us at patreon dot
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00:16:23.759 --> 00:16:27.320
com slash working class history link in the show notes
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for Betty Harrison, a textile worker who's due to be
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called out as part of the second line of strikers.
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The betrayal was not a big surprise.
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Well with your scheduled words, because you see, the working
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class people never did to us Baldwin or any of
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those people, particularly those of the Sueke crop mining families.
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And I don't think anyone in the working class woman
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in the Black fed earlier believe Baldwin when I thought
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it was on the side. We're also given the nice
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words to calm down the workers and of course it
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proved to be true too. It was just making nice
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sounds till the time. Yet the workers to sell out,
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and the nice sounds apparently convinced that UC.
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But they they gave up. They strike in a very
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short time.
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So they kind of went crawling back to Downing Street
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and said, oh, we'll accept these conditions. And then of
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course the government and the mine owners who stood behind
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them smelt blood and they said, no, no negotiations, no conditions,
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you come back. It's a complete and utter surrender. And
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the trade union leaders went, okay, hands up, it's a
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complete and utter surrender. So they went back with no
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00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:54.279
guarantees that workers wouldn't be victimized, with no guarantees at all,
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having one, absolutely nothing. So they span it. They said,
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you know, we've shown that the miners won't fight alone.
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We've shown this great solidarity. They pretended it wasn't a
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huge defeat, but it absolutely was. And there was a huge,
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huge rage amongst the millions of people who had been
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out on striking solidarity with the miners. I mean, if
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you read any of the memoirs in accounts, they will
313
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say people said, we heard the news, we didn't believe it.
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People were crying. People refused to accept that this is
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what had happened. People were saying, you know, a deluge
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of telegrams were sent to the TUC the leaders saying,
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why with this is furious, you can't believe this. We're
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still out, and many people testified to the fact there
319
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were more people out the day after the strike was
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00:18:46.759 --> 00:18:50.039
called off than when the day that the trade union
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00:18:50.119 --> 00:18:53.200
leaders said it was crumbling because people were furious. The
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people who went back to work and were humiliated and
323
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walked out again. You know, there was this great ground
324
00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:03.240
swell of a fury from people, but of course it
325
00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:06.359
had nowhere to go. There was no kind of national
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00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:10.160
ranconfile network it was capable of saying, well, let's not
327
00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:13.839
go back, let's forge a different paths, let's keep fighting.
328
00:19:14.200 --> 00:19:17.200
Had there been such a thing, the result could have
329
00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:20.279
been different because there was no way the strike was crumbling.
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Betty was in no uncertainty about who workers were most
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angry with at the end of the strike.
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But do you see, you see amongst the workers at
333
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that time in Britain, they expected the employers to be
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backed up by the government and we didn't expect anything
335
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but methods of any kind and every kind to push
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us back and to keep us down, so that when
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the TUC looked as if it was going to do
338
00:19:58.200 --> 00:20:02.440
something at last by welding the workers together to fight
339
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this opposition of government and employers, which we classed as won,
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then there was a high hope tinged with apprehension now
341
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I come to think of it. We were never quite
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sure whether it was going to come up or not.
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But the bitterness was with the t U see to
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a large extent. I think, to some extent, you know,
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we were not surprised when they called it of it
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I if I can catch my mind back as far
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as that, we were furious, and we were outset, and
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we were disgusted. But I think really in our hearts
349
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we weren't surprised because we didn't think that they were
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the kind of people who were prepared to face the
351
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deeper issues of such a thing. Because the general strike
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didn't set out to be a revolutionary movement, nor was
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it ever revolutionary in content so far as the TUC
354
00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:05.960
were concerned, and was a revolution in the fact that
355
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never been a general strike before. There had never been
356
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as much cooperation between UH the unions to work together
357
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for a common end, but we hadn't all that confidence
358
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in that to you see and say, I don't think
359
00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:27.759
we were really very surprised when it didn't last very long,
360
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although we were hoping that it would duh develop and we
361
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should get the workers would get really something out of it,
362
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because the failure of the general strength was the end
363
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of uh hopes of advancement for the workers for many years,
364
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many as and the bitterness which I don't think it's
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ever gone. I think even the younger ones who are
366
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now in the twenty thirties, when they're here are a
367
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reader of the General's strike, feel something of the bitterness
368
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that we felt at the time.
369
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Ultimately, the strike was called off just as it was
370
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about to be extended, because the leaders on the TUC's
371
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General Council had simply never wanted or even expected to
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go on strike in the first place, as was clear
373
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from the complete lack of preparation until literally the days before.
374
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Real Union leader James Thomas was probably the most exaggerated
375
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and at times ridiculous example of this. Before the strike
376
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had even begun, he was worried that members of the
377
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General Council would be shot by Britain's nascent fascist movement,
378
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and when the miners' union leaders asked him for assurances
379
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that the government would accept the Samuel proposals, Thomas replied,
380
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quote you may not trust my word, but will you
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accept the word of a British gentleman who has been
382
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the governor of Palestine? End quote. What really scared TUC
383
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leaders was hinted at in another passage from the intelligence
384
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:06.640
report mentioned previously, specifically where it said quote, many reports
385
00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:09.480
show that the strike is extending, and that factories and
386
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:13.359
workshops not directly involved are slowing down or shutting down.
387
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The situation is one in which we are holding our own,
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but the government's organization is improving and its policy is
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gradually becoming more aggressive. Every day. The intensity of the
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00:23:24.519 --> 00:23:29.599
struggle will increase end quote. Two things were becoming increasingly clear,
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First that in order to win, TUC leaders would have
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to match the intensity of a struggle that they never
393
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wanted in the first place, And second that, in the
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00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:42.599
absence of direction from the center, local trades councils were
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taking the initiative themselves. The attitude of the TUC to
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00:23:46.559 --> 00:23:49.759
this local initiative was best summed up by Thomas himself
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in a speech to Parliament the day after the strike
398
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was called off. Quote. What I dreaded about the General
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00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:59.240
Strike more than anything, was this, if, by any chance
400
00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:01.240
it should have got out of the hands of those
401
00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:04.880
who would be able to exercise some control, every sane
402
00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:08.000
man knows what would have happened. I thank god it
403
00:24:08.119 --> 00:24:12.400
never did. End quote. We spoke earlier about the myriad
404
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:15.279
of tasks taken on by local councils of action during
405
00:24:15.359 --> 00:24:18.119
the strike, but to really get an idea for how
406
00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:21.440
well they responded, there is no better text than Emilburn's
407
00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:25.799
excellent survey for the Labor Research Department called General Strike
408
00:24:26.200 --> 00:24:31.079
Trades Council's Inaction. As Burns explains, local trades councils were
409
00:24:31.359 --> 00:24:34.960
quote suddenly asked to take on a new and urgent
410
00:24:35.079 --> 00:24:38.319
task without any but the vaguest suggestion of how they
411
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:41.799
should carry it out. With very few exceptions. Indeed, the
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00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:45.160
councils displayed an energy and initiative to an extent that
413
00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:48.160
astonished all who had known them in the preceding period.
414
00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:53.599
Councils became the real expression of the local movement end quote.
415
00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:57.200
It was this energy and initiative which so terrified union
416
00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:01.480
leaders like Thomas. Ultimately, however, this level of initiative was
417
00:25:01.519 --> 00:25:04.480
not enough to resist the call back to work, and
418
00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:08.039
with the strike called off, the government and employers soon
419
00:25:08.079 --> 00:25:09.119
took advantage.
420
00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:12.880
It was heartbreaking because for a few days people held
421
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:15.880
off and Stanley Baldwin said, you know, we want responsible
422
00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:18.839
trade unionism. We don't want to destroy the unions. We
423
00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:24.079
want these institutions we can negotiate with. And then within
424
00:25:24.119 --> 00:25:27.279
a few weeks, once the first wave of fury that
425
00:25:27.359 --> 00:25:30.359
the sellout had died down, then the bosses absolutely went
426
00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:34.799
on the offensive and there was huge victimizations and bitterness
427
00:25:34.839 --> 00:25:38.160
that lasted for years and years. The miners fought on
428
00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:42.720
until November when they too had to admit defeat terrible
429
00:25:42.759 --> 00:25:48.799
wage cuts and attacks on working conditions. And then in
430
00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:52.759
nineteen twenty seven the government passes the Trade Union Dispute Act,
431
00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:59.279
which outlawed solidarity strikes. So you have employers victimizing militants
432
00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:02.480
and indeed anybody who's been on strike. And then you
433
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:06.200
have the employers imposing an open shop instead of the
434
00:26:06.279 --> 00:26:09.559
close shop that the trade unionists had fought for, so
435
00:26:09.640 --> 00:26:12.319
you could only come to work if you renounce the
436
00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:17.640
union and then you have the government legislating against solidarity
437
00:26:17.720 --> 00:26:20.680
strikes in the trade union dispute. So the combination of
438
00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:23.960
the employers in the government, we're going to make sure
439
00:26:24.440 --> 00:26:27.119
as far as they could that this would never happen again,
440
00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:30.839
That never again would you have two million workers out
441
00:26:31.079 --> 00:26:33.839
in support of another million miners in our country.
442
00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:37.200
When the TUC called off the strike, they released the
443
00:26:37.279 --> 00:26:40.599
message telling members returning to work to not accept any
444
00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:44.119
changes to their conditions from before the strike. Desperate to
445
00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:49.480
demonstrate its respectability, the message continued quote, our whole duty
446
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:54.119
is to forget all recrimination. Let employers act with generosity
447
00:26:54.440 --> 00:26:57.759
and workers give their whole hearts loyally to their work.
448
00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:00.519
It is of utmost importance that the whole of the
449
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:04.640
British people should not look backward, but forward and resume
450
00:27:04.759 --> 00:27:08.799
work in a spirit of cooperation and goodwill, putting behind
451
00:27:08.839 --> 00:27:13.920
them all malice and vindictiveness end quote. Employers however, were
452
00:27:13.960 --> 00:27:17.319
not so willing to put that malice and vindictiveness behind them.
453
00:27:17.720 --> 00:27:20.920
As Chesterfield rail worker and member of the National Union
454
00:27:20.920 --> 00:27:22.319
of Railwaymen C. S.
455
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:25.960
Hollis remembers the General Council the TSA yard as a
456
00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:28.799
general return to work on the twelfth of May, but
457
00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:32.119
the railwaymen continued on strap for another two days because
458
00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:34.839
the railway companies would not at first promise a general
459
00:27:34.920 --> 00:27:36.559
reinstatement of the strikers.
460
00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:40.119
Even after an improve settlements of being negotiated on the
461
00:27:40.119 --> 00:27:43.160
fourteenth of May, many men were employed only on a
462
00:27:43.240 --> 00:27:46.119
back time basis on del April nineteenth, twenty seventh.
463
00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:50.200
The agreement that Hollis mentions here was the one reached
464
00:27:50.200 --> 00:27:53.480
by the railway companies with the three rail unions. As
465
00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:56.519
part of that agreement, rail companies agreed to take workers
466
00:27:56.559 --> 00:27:59.599
back on the basis of seniority, but only as and
467
00:27:59.640 --> 00:28:02.240
when work could be found for them. The unions were
468
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:04.799
also forced to admit that the strike was a wrongful
469
00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:08.160
act and undertake to ensure that no similar action would
470
00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:11.599
ever happen again. As a result of this agreement, forty
471
00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:14.920
five thousand rail workers remained out of work for some time,
472
00:28:15.480 --> 00:28:18.400
and meanwhile employers would come back to take away the
473
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:20.119
guaranteed work week as well.
474
00:28:20.519 --> 00:28:20.799
Well.
475
00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:25.359
As I say, this's not only affected me, it affected
476
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:27.799
one or two more men. I mean, one man in
477
00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:30.640
particular was a release thing, and then another one that
478
00:28:30.799 --> 00:28:34.640
was what was now known as a relief. Border coupled
479
00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:37.160
a variety of days other than party, and there was
480
00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:41.039
a man with Lenka, but there was June here in
481
00:28:41.039 --> 00:28:45.720
that particular grade. And the result was that there was
482
00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:49.400
three others the two chaps in the missile that we
483
00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:53.039
didn't a start for six weeks and go up, and
484
00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:56.519
so we've had a bit disfunded. I've lost my father
485
00:28:57.079 --> 00:29:01.079
in nineteen twenty five, and another Netherwood is spending the
486
00:29:01.119 --> 00:29:03.920
cast I was over sixteen. That kind of there would
487
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:05.799
us if he got the son over sixteen. He didn't
488
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:08.400
get one because he was regarded them in the forty
489
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:11.000
and I suppose. So there was a mother and myself
490
00:29:11.079 --> 00:29:14.920
here and then for six weeks wim and he's done
491
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:18.440
twenty four other week that was the end your strip.
492
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:21.839
Paid bob here is another word for a shilling. So
493
00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:24.759
in today's money, Hollis and his mum spent about a
494
00:29:24.799 --> 00:29:27.000
month and a half living off what would now be
495
00:29:27.079 --> 00:29:30.319
the equivalent of about thirty six pounds or forty eight
496
00:29:30.359 --> 00:29:31.079
dollars a week.
497
00:29:31.480 --> 00:29:33.880
And we used to wonder how this start pay once
498
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:38.240
a week, and we got obviously got very very despondent.
499
00:29:38.839 --> 00:29:42.000
There was, as I said, just us, particularly three out well.
500
00:29:42.039 --> 00:29:47.359
Then the railways, although we wasn't started a tow the
501
00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:50.640
guarantee week was suspended in order to allow then work
502
00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:52.960
because they said they wasn't to work for them. So
503
00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:56.319
the unions agreed to suspend the guarantee week and Chaps
504
00:29:56.440 --> 00:29:59.799
was working four days a week. Well, eventually after six
505
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.200
we got back and we go back until four days
506
00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:07.160
a week some weeks, some weeks, the fall a week,
507
00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:10.759
some weeks beyond that three theirs then new and the
508
00:30:10.839 --> 00:30:12.920
fall a week. And of course, as I said, and
509
00:30:13.039 --> 00:30:16.440
Tom nineteen twenty seven, when things that they got about
510
00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:20.519
last aftergook that was a position, they came out down
511
00:30:20.599 --> 00:30:24.079
strapped to say it was a general start. But again
512
00:30:24.200 --> 00:30:28.279
observedly nothing coming nothing at that, And I don't think
513
00:30:28.319 --> 00:30:30.640
there's much motter. I been over th hunted.
514
00:30:31.359 --> 00:30:34.799
This experience on the railways was fairly general throughout the UK.
515
00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:38.359
On the fifteenth of May, employers in the printing trades
516
00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:41.440
came to an agreement with the printers union that allowed
517
00:30:41.480 --> 00:30:44.240
workers to be rehired, but only as and when they
518
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:48.200
were required. The agreement also accepted short time work and
519
00:30:48.359 --> 00:30:51.720
allowed no holidays to those who'd walked out with no notice.
520
00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:56.000
The following day, London newspaper workers were told management could
521
00:30:56.079 --> 00:30:59.039
hire and fire staff as they wished, and that union
522
00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:02.279
meetings could no longer be held during working hours, and
523
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:06.000
around one nine hundred bus and transport workers never got
524
00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:08.799
their jobs back at all. And of course, in all
525
00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:12.200
of this, over a million miners were still locked out,
526
00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:15.960
having refused to return to work after the general strike
527
00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:16.759
was called off.
528
00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:21.119
I mean, the miners had these incredible traditions, and many
529
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:25.799
of them were influenced by Communist party politics. They were
530
00:31:26.400 --> 00:31:29.880
seen as the vanguard of the working class, to use
531
00:31:29.960 --> 00:31:33.880
that phrase. They fought on and were determined to fight on.
532
00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:39.319
They experienced terrible hardship, but also that sense of collective
533
00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:42.000
power and a little bit of that glimpse of liberation
534
00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:47.319
that we talked about earlier. They did have to organize collectively.
535
00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:50.799
They you know, they dug their gardens, they made use
536
00:31:50.839 --> 00:31:53.960
of everything. The miners wives turned sour milk into cheese.
537
00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:56.119
There were all these kind of but it was basically
538
00:31:56.279 --> 00:31:58.440
a huge community effort.
539
00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:01.759
The importance of miners wives to the struggles of their
540
00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:05.519
husband was something that continued for decades after the general strike.
541
00:32:06.160 --> 00:32:08.440
In our episodes, one and eight and one hundred and
542
00:32:08.519 --> 00:32:11.279
nine we cover the involvement of miners wives during the
543
00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:14.279
nineteen eighty four and eighty five minor strike in the UK.
544
00:32:15.039 --> 00:32:18.160
The miners even got support from the Soviet Union, whose
545
00:32:18.200 --> 00:32:21.599
trade union sent a substantial sum of money, as did
546
00:32:21.640 --> 00:32:24.680
groups of workers elsewhere as well, and they got.
547
00:32:24.599 --> 00:32:28.000
Lots and lots of support from other workers both in
548
00:32:28.119 --> 00:32:32.759
this country and abroad, and organizations associated with the Communist
549
00:32:32.839 --> 00:32:36.799
International did a lot of fundraising and supporting, including among
550
00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:40.720
German miners in the RUH, which again is a wonderful
551
00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:44.480
thing when you think that only eight years earlier people
552
00:32:44.559 --> 00:32:46.880
had been fighting each other with bayonets, and now there
553
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.839
was kind of international solidarity of people giving money to
554
00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:53.519
the Welsh miners. And there were a lot of flashpoints
555
00:32:53.599 --> 00:32:58.039
again with the police with miners and particularly miners wives
556
00:32:58.119 --> 00:33:02.240
surrounding poor rely centers that refused to pay up. They
557
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:05.200
tried to change all the laws so that miners and
558
00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:08.240
their families couldn't get poor relief which they were entitled to.
559
00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:09.799
So there was.
560
00:33:09.960 --> 00:33:14.000
Already a contentious aspect to poor relief. So poor relief
561
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:16.319
there was a legal case at the end of the
562
00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:22.359
nineteenth century which stipulated that minus families were entitled to
563
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:25.680
poor relief, and this ruling suggested it could also be
564
00:33:25.799 --> 00:33:30.720
claimed by striking minus families, not minus themselves. So there
565
00:33:30.839 --> 00:33:34.640
was this debate about whether people's families should be entitled
566
00:33:34.680 --> 00:33:38.240
to it. The local ratepayers didn't like this because they
567
00:33:38.359 --> 00:33:43.200
thought they were subsidizing strikers by supporting strikers families helping
568
00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:46.119
workers to stay out longer. So there was a kind
569
00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:50.160
of a big contestation about whether relief should be paid
570
00:33:50.319 --> 00:33:54.000
to miners, and they said, they forgive it to minus families,
571
00:33:54.039 --> 00:33:55.480
what are they going to do, They're going to share
572
00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:57.519
it with the striking miners, So we can't do that.
573
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:01.559
But so there was a lot of arguments from national
574
00:34:01.640 --> 00:34:06.759
government against local government because in the mining areas, the
575
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:10.480
poor law guardians were likely to be miners. Ex miners
576
00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:13.599
related to miners and tended to treat them more sympathetically
577
00:34:13.719 --> 00:34:16.000
than the ratepayers, and the national government wanted.
578
00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:20.159
This pressure from national government to stop providing miners families
579
00:34:20.199 --> 00:34:23.360
with poor relief meant that some local boards of guardians
580
00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:26.599
began to cut them off entirely. One such place was
581
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:29.800
in Westbury On seven in the southwest of England, where
582
00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:32.639
in response to being cut off from poor relief, three
583
00:34:32.760 --> 00:34:36.719
hundred miners, wives and their children occupied the local workhouse.
584
00:34:37.199 --> 00:34:40.519
Women also played a role in confronting scabs, including in
585
00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:43.880
some places through the practice of something called white shirting.
586
00:34:44.760 --> 00:34:48.239
So in a lot of the mining communities, white shirting
587
00:34:48.440 --> 00:34:52.679
had been used as a way of humiliating women who
588
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:57.639
stepped out of line, were immoral in inverted commas, or
589
00:34:57.679 --> 00:35:00.480
who were scolds, and they'd be four to wear a
590
00:35:00.559 --> 00:35:03.760
white dress strapped in a wheelbarrow and paraded around the town.
591
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:08.239
But during the miner's lockout this was reversed, so women
592
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:11.719
would get scabs, they would strip them, put them in
593
00:35:11.800 --> 00:35:15.559
a white shirt and tie them into a wheelbarrow and
594
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:19.440
wheel them round town to accordion music. Well, the other
595
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:21.920
thing they would do was hang a pole with women's
596
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:25.000
underwear on outside their bedroom windows, so that when they
597
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:27.400
woke up in the morning, what they would see as
598
00:35:27.400 --> 00:35:30.360
a pair of women's pants being waved up them on
599
00:35:30.440 --> 00:35:32.559
a stick as a threat that they were going to
600
00:35:32.559 --> 00:35:36.400
be white shirted. So I love the fact that women
601
00:35:36.519 --> 00:35:41.000
took on what was a deeply misogynistic tradition and turned
602
00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:45.239
it into an expression of class of vengeance against the
603
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:46.840
scabs who were breaking the strike.
604
00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:51.079
Ultimately, after seven months locked out from the mines, the
605
00:35:51.239 --> 00:35:54.920
miners were staffed back to work. In the final settlement,
606
00:35:55.239 --> 00:35:57.960
everything the miners had fought for over the years was
607
00:35:58.079 --> 00:36:02.039
torn away from them. Sought a national agreement for conditions.
608
00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:04.960
They were forced to accept settlements on a district by
609
00:36:05.039 --> 00:36:08.679
district basis. The hours they worked were longer than they'd
610
00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:11.960
been before the strike, and their pay in many cases
611
00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:14.599
was now lower than what they had earned when they'd
612
00:36:14.639 --> 00:36:18.239
worked those shorter hours. It was a defeat whose effects
613
00:36:18.360 --> 00:36:19.760
were felt for many years.
614
00:36:20.639 --> 00:36:31.920
Well, it effect and them peering up, and they're only
615
00:36:31.960 --> 00:36:40.599
began to divide in them. I came for and then
616
00:36:40.679 --> 00:36:45.119
piece of a chef. Not much, but there was something
617
00:36:45.159 --> 00:36:45.679
at that time.
618
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:50.039
Well. Aide notes that the demoralization of the miners lasted
619
00:36:50.079 --> 00:36:53.239
well into the thirties. The effects of the strike's defeat
620
00:36:53.280 --> 00:36:56.920
were felt far beyond the UK's mining villages. A year
621
00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:00.360
after the general strike, the government passed the Trade Disputes
622
00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:04.400
and Trade Unions Act, which made solidarity strikes illegal and
623
00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:08.559
placed restrictions on picketing so vague yet also so severe
624
00:37:09.079 --> 00:37:12.639
that it basically made any kind of picketing liable to prosecution.
625
00:37:13.280 --> 00:37:16.559
That year also saw union membership fall by hundreds of
626
00:37:16.639 --> 00:37:20.440
thousands to a low not seen since nineteen sixteen, and
627
00:37:20.559 --> 00:37:23.400
the two years following the General Strike saw the number
628
00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:27.000
of workers involved in industrial disputes dropped to little more
629
00:37:27.079 --> 00:37:31.159
than one hundred thousand, the lowest number since nineteen oh five.
630
00:37:32.199 --> 00:37:34.719
During the nineteen twenty six dispute, as well as the
631
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:37.760
months leading up to it, the General Strike was absurdly
632
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:40.880
portrayed in the media as part of a Bolshevik conspiracy
633
00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:44.519
to overthrow the British state. In the aftermath, however, it
634
00:37:44.599 --> 00:37:48.400
became important to downplay its seriousness and portray the strike
635
00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:51.920
as essentially a non event. From being a revolutionary threat
636
00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:54.920
to the rule of law, it supposedly became a very
637
00:37:55.039 --> 00:37:58.360
British strike, marked by good cheer and fair play on
638
00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:02.519
all sides. These episodes show the strike and its aftermath
639
00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:06.679
were marked by bitter struggle, clashes between police and strikers
640
00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:10.840
across the country, and the military mobilized against its own population.
641
00:38:11.599 --> 00:38:15.039
And despite its defeat, the General Strike and subsequent miners
642
00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:19.199
lockout cost British trade around four hundred million pounds the
643
00:38:19.320 --> 00:38:23.360
equivalent of over twenty one billion pounds today. Ultimately, the
644
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:28.079
strike was probably lost long before the General Council's humiliating capitulation.
645
00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:31.960
As is often said, battles are won or lost before. Therefore,
646
00:38:32.440 --> 00:38:34.800
in the case of the general strike, it was arguably
647
00:38:34.880 --> 00:38:38.679
lost when after Red Friday the government began planning for
648
00:38:38.760 --> 00:38:41.760
a showdown with the unions, while union leaders sat on
649
00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:44.480
their hands and did nothing until the very last minute.
650
00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:48.079
Workers showed their willingness to respect the call to walk out,
651
00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:50.760
but the nuts and bolts of how to conduct the strike,
652
00:38:50.920 --> 00:38:53.400
how to ensure strikers could be fed, and how to
653
00:38:53.519 --> 00:38:58.320
share information, whether locally between strike committees, regionally between trades
654
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:01.960
councils or nationally within union leaders was all left to
655
00:39:02.039 --> 00:39:04.800
be worked out on the fly. Even the idea of
656
00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:08.760
the TUC publishing its own newspaper, The British Worker, only
657
00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:12.079
came about once the strike had already started, almost as
658
00:39:12.119 --> 00:39:15.320
an afterthought. It took a full decade after the strike
659
00:39:15.400 --> 00:39:18.800
for union membership to recover, and while still generally lower
660
00:39:18.840 --> 00:39:21.559
than the years before the general strike, the numbers of
661
00:39:21.639 --> 00:39:25.079
workers involved in industrial disputes continued to grow as well.
662
00:39:25.559 --> 00:39:28.679
Even during the war, when strikes were actually illegal, and
663
00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:31.960
once the war was over, miners engaged in a wave
664
00:39:32.079 --> 00:39:35.719
of wildcat strikes, which was still illegal under those wartime laws,
665
00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:39.920
against the recently elected Labour government's policy of wage restraint.
666
00:39:40.280 --> 00:39:42.599
It should be noted as well that the General Council
667
00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:45.719
of the TUC sided with the government's wage restraint policy
668
00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:50.320
and against its own members. Soon after decades upon decades
669
00:39:50.360 --> 00:39:54.400
of struggle, Britain's coal mines were nationalized and a nationwide
670
00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:58.559
system of collective bargaining instituted, alongside a host of other
671
00:39:58.679 --> 00:40:03.280
social democratic reforms like the National Health Service. However, while
672
00:40:03.320 --> 00:40:05.480
the post war era began to lay some of the
673
00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:09.079
ghosts of the General Strike to rest, then nonetheless remained
674
00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:12.280
a great regret for many participants for what might have
675
00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:14.079
been the bards.
676
00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:16.920
I used to think, yourself, there string us along again,
677
00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:20.000
you know, with a lot of bleeding old twelvel even
678
00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:21.960
if they hadn't have won, if they'd have had a go,
679
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:25.320
and one could sense.
680
00:40:25.159 --> 00:40:25.960
That I was having a go.
681
00:40:26.199 --> 00:40:27.920
But they got all right, You didn't get beat No
682
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:30.360
one was going to be critical of that. But you
683
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:33.559
all get beaten sometimes. But you learn lessons from being
684
00:40:33.679 --> 00:40:37.719
beaten so that you avoid that one again the next time,
685
00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:41.719
like you could be going on into something different, but
686
00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:44.880
you learn from that and each time the chances of
687
00:40:44.920 --> 00:40:47.280
getting beaten get less with each time. That's if you're
688
00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:50.519
sincere about what it is that you're involving yourself with.
689
00:40:50.920 --> 00:40:54.159
You go into this thing to learn and learn the win.
690
00:40:55.280 --> 00:41:01.800
Oh you known of time, did events with me, little
691
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:08.920
pick and shovel for the boss man, the callery. But
692
00:41:09.079 --> 00:41:14.760
I'll never own your soul with me, little pick and shove. Ure.
693
00:41:16.199 --> 00:41:18.599
That's it for our miniseries on the nineteen twenty six
694
00:41:18.719 --> 00:41:21.239
General Strike. If you enjoyed that and want to hear
695
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:23.920
more from two of the strike's participants, we also have
696
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:27.679
a bonus episode with Betty Harrison and Harry Watson exclusively
697
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:30.599
on Patreon, in which they talk more about their life
698
00:41:30.679 --> 00:41:32.960
and work around the time of the strike, as well
699
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:36.599
as union politics more generally. It is only support from you,
700
00:41:36.840 --> 00:41:39.880
our listeners, which allows us to make these podcasts, So
701
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:42.679
if you appreciate our work, please do think about joining
702
00:41:42.760 --> 00:41:46.320
us at patreon dot com slash working class history link
703
00:41:46.480 --> 00:41:48.920
in the show notes, and if you can't spare the cash,
704
00:41:49.119 --> 00:41:51.960
no worries, please just tell your friends about this podcast
705
00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:54.400
and give us a five star review on your favorite
706
00:41:54.440 --> 00:41:57.679
podcast app. Also, be sure to check out General Strike
707
00:41:57.719 --> 00:42:00.400
one hundred dot com to find out more about events
708
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:04.039
commemorating the General Strike in your area and beyond. You'll
709
00:42:04.079 --> 00:42:07.599
also find a ton of historical markers highlighting the locations
710
00:42:07.639 --> 00:42:10.800
of specific incidents that took place in towns and cities
711
00:42:10.880 --> 00:42:14.760
across the UK during the General Strike itself. Also, if
712
00:42:14.760 --> 00:42:17.199
you'd like to get a copy of Judy's book Revisiting
713
00:42:17.239 --> 00:42:19.920
the General Strike of nineteen twenty six, you can find
714
00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:21.800
a link to buy a copy on the web page
715
00:42:21.840 --> 00:42:24.440
for this episode. On the web page, you'll also find
716
00:42:24.480 --> 00:42:28.880
more information, including further reading, images and sources link in
717
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:31.960
the show notes. Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making
718
00:42:32.039 --> 00:42:35.119
this podcast possible, and a special thanks to jazz Hands.
719
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:38.400
Our theme tune for this episode is Montanne's version of
720
00:42:38.519 --> 00:42:41.159
When the Coal Comes from the Ronda, a folk song
721
00:42:41.239 --> 00:42:44.719
originating from Welsh miners in the early twentieth century and
722
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:48.079
sung during the General Strike. The song is performed by
723
00:42:48.159 --> 00:42:51.400
Montaigne and mixed by Wave Racer. You can find a
724
00:42:51.480 --> 00:42:54.599
link to download the song on our website. All proceeds
725
00:42:54.679 --> 00:42:58.199
go into medical aid for Palestinians. For more from Montanne,
726
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:00.440
check the links on the web page for this episode.
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This episode was edited by Jesse French. Anyway, that's it
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for today. Hope you enjoyed the episode and thanks for listening.
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From the Ronder with shovel and me, pick can be
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a little lamp and a wick when the call comes
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from the Ronda. With we shovel and repick can be
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00:43:25.159 --> 00:43:29.440
little lamp and a wick when the call comes from
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the Rondave