CHAPTER IV. On Trades' Unions, Strikes and Co-operative Societies.

The Functions of a Trade's Union explained. A Trade's Union is a society formed by the workmen engaged in any particular trade; this society generally fulfils the double purpose of a benefit club and an organization for protecting the interests of the workmen by obtaining for them such advantages as higher wages, shorter hours of labour, etc. The utility of trades' unions as benefit clubs is undeniable. Each member of a trade's union is compelled by the rules of his society to contribute a certain weekly sum to its funds. In the case of illness or loss of work he obtains assistance from these funds, and in the case of his death his family receives a certain sum of money from the same source. In point of fact a trade's union is an assurance company. The assistance which trades' unions render to workmen is so considerable, that no members of such unions as the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners', or the Amalgamated Engineers'1, are ever known to be in receipt of parish relief.

The other function of a trade's union, namely, that of protecting the interest of workmen by obtaining for them the highest possible rate of wages, is that by which unionism is best known, and it is this which has made it so extremely

1 To give an idea of the importance and prosperity of some of these societies, the following figures may be quoted from Mr Frederic Harrison's address at the Trades' Union Congress in September 1883. The engineers' union in 1867 had 33,325 members, in 1882 they had 50,000 and an income of £124,000 a year. The boiler-makers in 1867 were 6405; in 1882 they were 27,408 and their income was £67,000 a year. The iron founders in 1882 were 11,400 with an income of £42,000 a year. In the six years

beginning with 1876, a period of great stagnation of trade, seven of the leading trades' unions spent in allowances to members out of work nearly £2,000,000 sterling, and of this only £162,000 or less than 9 per cent. was spent in trade disputes. Mr Harrison reckons that unions usually spend only about 1 or 2 per cent. of their available resources in strikes.

unpopular with the capitalist classes. For though unions are not necessarily connected with strikes, a strike could not be successfully carried on without some such organization as a trade's union supplies.

66

Strikes. Notwithstanding the loss which workmen and employers have frequently suffered in consequence of strikes, few would now assert that workmen have not the right to join an association for the protection of what they believe to be their interests. Let us inquire what a strike really is. It is neither more nor less than a refusal on the part of workmen to sell their labour on the terms offered by those who desire to buy it. No one thinks a corn merchant or any other trader is culpable if he refuses to sell his goods at the price offered by his customers. If it be justifiable for a merchant to refuse the terms offered by those who wish to buy his commodities, it cannot be wrong for a workman to do the same; and if it be right for one man to refuse to work on the terms offered by his employer, it cannot be wrong for ten, a hundred, or a thousand men, to do the same. The conduct of workmen in striking for higher wages, or to resist a reduction, may be either prudent or imprudent, but it can never deserve censure as morally wrong. Every one has a right to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other person." If this moral law had always been observed by trades' unionists they would have deprived their enemies of all semblance of an argument against the right of combination. This law is constantly violated by all classes of the community, and workmen have not herein shewn themselves superior to the rest of humanity. In times past and especially while the legislature was engaged in a foolish and unjust endeavour to suppress trades' unionism by law, the men were frequently guilty of using force and violence to compel those workmen to join their societies, who would otherwise have been unwilling to become members of trades' unions. Constant annoyances, bodily violence, and even murder, were weapons which trades' unionists at one time employed in order to prevent the competition of non-unionist workmen and workwomen. Such conduct deserved and received the strongest censure;

but the fact that acts of violence were occasionally committed by unionists does not affect the right of freedom of combination, which is all that rational upholders of trades' unions contend for. The fact that some men abused the power which this right confers affords no reason why all should be deprived of it. It should be an encouragement to those who try to get rid of unjust class legislation that since trade unionism has become legal, acts of violence on the part of unionists perpetrated with the object of promoting the supposed interests of their union have become extremely rare. Rattening, which means hiding or destroying the tools of non-unionist workmen, is now very little practised.

One very important use of a trade's union is that it tends to place the workmen who are making a bargain with regard to wages in a position of equality with the capitalist. Workmen usually have no private store of savings which would enable them to live for more than a few days without work; an isolated workman, unsupported by a union, is therefore in a very disadvantageous position in case of a dispute with his employer with regard to wages. The loss of work to the workman in this position means starvation or the workhouse the loss of labour to the employer means simply a pecuniary loss. One man stakes his life or his liberty and the other his purse. Trades' unions do much to remedy this inequality; for when a strike is agreed upon they supply their members with the means of subsistence while the strike lasts. This function of trades' unions and benefit clubs, aided as well by poor law relief, is probably the principal reason why commercial depression, stagnation of trade and consequent difficulty in obtaining work do not in this country, as in France, lead to political disturbances. In England the agencies above referred to protect the working classes from the fear of starvation, which is nearly always found to be the motive power of dangerous popular tumults.

In consequence of their connection with strikes, trades' unions have attracted more notice than other associations for mutual aid which have long existed among the working classes. But Returns published by the chief Registrar of Friendly Societies in 1886 and 1887 shew that trades' union

ism is only one among many of the means which the working classes have devised for the promotion of thrift and for mutual protection against adversity. For instance, the members of Building Societies were, in 1887, almost twice as numerous as the members of Trades' Unions; and if the members of Trades' Unions, Industrial and Provident Societies and Building Societies are added together, the Trades' Unionists are found to form rather less than a fifth of the whole.

Some of the means employed by Unionists to obtain high wages explained. It has been said that the object of a trade's union is to obtain for its members the highest possible rate of wages. Although trades' unionists are often accused of setting at defiance every principle of political economy, they are good enough economists to know that the rate of wages depends on the proportion between the sum paid as wages and the number of those between whom this sum is distributed. It is true that they do not generally apply this important principle to the whole of the wages-receiving class, but they do, as unionists, apply it to the particular trade in which they happen to be employed. Many of the rules of trades' unions are, therefore, designed with the purpose of reducing or restricting the number of workmen employed in the trade or of preventing the employment of women in it.

For instance, no shipwright can become a member of a union who has not served a seven years' apprenticeship; and no employer can engage a shipwright who cannot produce the indentures of his apprenticeship, because, if he did so, all the unionist workmen in his employment would strike. Again, in the hat trade, no master workman may have more than two apprentices at the same time. A practical restriction is also placed upon the number of bricklayers, because no master mason (as the first-class workman is called) will do any work whatever, unless a labourer is also employed to work under him.

A comparison of the restrictive Rules of Trades' Unions with the Etiquette of the Learned Professions. It is curious to observe that the rules of trades' unions just quoted have a remarkably exact parallel in the rules prevailing in the

F.

ΙΟ

learned professions of medicine and the law. No shipwright will work in the same yard with a man who cannot produce the indentures of his apprenticeship. No doctor will meet in consultation one who has not received the degree of some recognised licensing body. Until 1878 all the licensing bodies in England refused to admit women to their degrees, and the competition in the medical profession was by this means restricted. The admission of women to the medical and other degrees of the London University was at last carried in spite of the opposition of the great majority of medical graduates of the University. In a similar way there have frequently been strikes against the admittance of women into certain trades, such as china-painting, carpet-weaving, etc.; the object being to limit the competition for employment in the trade1. No hatter may have more than two apprentices at the same time. No solicitor may have more than two pupils in his office at the same time. No master mason will work without an inferior under him. No Queen's Counsel will go into court without a junior barrister with him. This curious resemblance is not quoted in defence of the restrictive rules of trades' unions, but merely to shew that the learned and the unlearned have resorted to the same means for protecting the interests of their own profession or trade. No doubt both believe that these restrictions are good for themselves in particular and for the community in general. But if the restrictions are unjustifiable in the one instance, they must be so in the other.

There are Combinations amongst Employers as well as amongst Workmen. There are trades' unions in a great many businesses and professions which are called by other names. Some of the opponents of unionism overlook the fact that combinations are formed by the employers as well as by the employed. The iron-masters, for instance, have their quarterly meetings at which they agree upon the wages to be offered for particular sorts of work during the ensuing three

1 In February 1884, a strike was commenced by the weavers' union at Kidderminster, because one of the carpet manufacturers there was employing women to weave velvet and plush used in upholstery at looms formerly occupied by men.