THE FINAL ARBITER.
Tua Sractes or Tama "IV YOU CANT SETTLE THIS WILL The ruling class had few qualms: Punch's view of how to settle the strike The year 1912 saw the largest industrial dispute that had ever taken place in any industry or any country shake Britain-the first national miners strike.
The strike occurred at a time not unlike the present one: economic problems were beginning to plague the country, and a deep social crisis, reflected in industrial struggles on an unprecedented scale, the growth of the republican and nationalist movement in Ireland, and the women's suffrage movement in this country, threatened to split British society wide open. The year before the miners strike had seen a general strike of transport workers in Liverpool and a national railway strike. The following year there was a general transport workers' strike in Dublin.
The 'social peace for which Britain was so much admired by the rest of the capitalist world had come to an end, and an upheaval of revolutionary proportions was on the cards. Only the timely intervention of a World War in 1914 enabled the ruling class to regain control of the situation and shift the scenes of bloodshed temporarily from the streets of Dublin and Liverpool to the plains of Belgium.
'ABNORMAL PLACES' From the beginning of this century on wards the economic problems of the average miner became particularly burdensome. Wage rates were closely related to coal prices, and, because of growing international competition, these tended to remain stagnant. At the same time growing inflation pushed up the prices of the necessities of life. Moreover, the age of the British coal industry was beginning to tell: the richest portions of many seams had been worked out and miners often found themselves labouring under difficult conditions. This, added to the fact that the introduction of new machinery into mining was proceeding at a slow pace, resulted in falling productivity as the years passed. For face workers, whose pay was totally determined by piece-work, this häd drastic consequences.
One of the bitterest grievances of these years was the abnormal places' problem. If a collier was unfortunate enough to find himself working an 'abnormal place'- under adverse natural conditions or facing difficulties due to inept management-he might end up earning nothing at all, even after a hard day's work. It was customary for a collier in this position to receive some sort of relief payment from the company, but the amount of this was totally dependent on individual negotiation, and the courts had ruled that the company was under no legal obligation to make this payment at all.
The 'abnormal places' question brought together the growing accumulation of economic grievances felt by the miners and a new mood began to stir in the coalfields. In 1910 South Wales, the area in which the power of the coalowners and the moderation of the miners' leaders had combined to produce a particularly oppressed workforce, was shaken by the Cambrian Combine dispute. A lock-out in one pit owned by the powerful Cambrian Combine, imposed because of the refusal of eighty men to begin work on a new seam until there were some guarantees on the abnormal places question, developed into a strike of more than 10,000 miners working in pits owned by the Combine, and at one time almost 30,000 miners were either striking or locked-out.
The struggle lasted for a year and, because of the refusal of South Wales miners' leaders to do anything more than provide financial aid, ended in defeat. But the Cambrian Combine disputewith which are associated such legendary events as the Tonypandy disturbances and the dispatch of troops to the coalfield by Winston Churchilldealt a powerful blow to the hold of the moderate leaders and made 'abnormal places' into a national question which they could no longer ignore.
NEGOTIATIONS From 1910 on the Miners' Federation of Great Britain had been urging local Districts to take up the "abnormal places' question with the coal owners. At a special conference held in July 1911 the results of these negotiations were found to be uneven: progress was being made in some areas, but the South Wales and Scottish owners refused any concessions. To deal with this problem a meeting was sought with the national organisation of the coal owners- the Mining Association of Great Britain-to discuss the MFGB demand for a definite payment for all abnormal places of 7s. per day or such payment equal to day-wage caling rate for each respective county or cistrict in this Federation." The Mining Association, however, had a long standing position that wages could not be discussed on the national level and at the meeting which finally took place they persisted in this position.
The meeting had taught the MFGB representatives one thing, however-that to focus on the question of 'abnormal places was to open themselves up to all sorts of quibbles from the owners. Accordingly, the MFGB annual conference decided to replace the demand for "abnormal place payment with one for a minimum wage for each District, to apply to all mine workers. The negotiations on this demand were to be carried out locally, but the whole Federation was to meet to discuss joint action if any District failed to get satisfaction. The owners in the English Federated Districts (Yorkshire, Lancashire, Midlands, North Wales) were prepared to concede the principle of the minimum wage, but none of the other Districts had any success and all efforts at national negotiations were turned down flat by the owners. So a strike ballot was held throughout the coalfields, which resulted in a majority of 1 March.
GOVERNMENT INTERVENES the total stoppage of coal production in meeting at the Foreign Office. There he this principle. On this basis he urged the the minimum wage.
Shops boarded up in Tonypandy during the Cambrian Combine dispute rates would actually mean negotiating a wage cut for many miners. of the minimum wage in law.
and the bill merely established District defeated by the Government. Finally, in anyway.
LEADERS RETREAT almost 80% in favour of strike action, and Britain's first national miners strike began on A strike of this proportion, which involved Britain and had inevitable repercussions on the country's transport and industry, could not be ignored by the Government. Two days before the strike began the Liberal Prime Minister, Asquith, called the miners' delegates to a endorsed the principle of the minimum wage (not surprisingly, since the most important section of coal-owners had already accepted. this) and pledged the Government to establish Federation to call off the strike and take part in District negotiations to fix the exact level of For the Federation this was an impossible demand. They had already made important concessions in formulating their demands. They had adopted a schedule providing for different minimum rates for each District and in four Districts there were two different rates according to the efficiency of the colliery concernéd). Moreover, rather than adopting the bargaining positions which each District had put forward in local negotiations, they cut these back drastically so that they were asking for no more than the prevailing day rate. Their only point of insistence was that the minimum VS Miners vote in the 1912 strike ballot hold a ballot on whether or not to continue the strike, but refused to make any recommendation to the membership for the voting.
However, they were not to get off the hook so easily. On 4 April the Executive Committee meeting to consider the results of the ballot, found that all but two Districts showed majo rities in favour of continuing the strike and that nationally the vote was 244,000 for continuing against 201,000 for resuming work.