Work in progress: please do not quote without written permission from the author
Paper prepared for the International Labour Process Conference, Athens, 13-15 April 2015
A life without limits? Control, consent and resistance in the
British armed forces’ employment relationship
Abstract
Service in the armed forces rarely features in the literature of industrial relations or the sociology of
work, and it is equally neglected in that of social history and labour history. The work carried out by
members of the army, navy and air force, it has been argued, is not productive but destructive, its study
confronts us with ideological and practical obstacles, and it does not constitute employment. However,
others have reached a different conclusion, suggesting that it is appropriate to examine military
personnel “as workers” (Way 2000: 764) because “soldiers are not a separate category of people who
sometimes fulfil the role of workers: they are workers” (Zürcher 2013: 12). My paper seeks to contribute
to that examination, drawing upon a wide range of literature and documentary sources and presenting
some preliminary findings from my research in the Royal Navy.
My first proposition is that British military personnel are in an employment relationship. Individuals who
join the forces do not do so under a contract of employment: instead their “civilian status is modified by
the superimposition of a military status … [and] certain rights and freedoms are restricted” (Oakes
2000: 10). However, the absence of a contract of employment does not imply the absence of an
employment relationship: at the most fundamental level, members of the armed forces are paid,
confirming that they are engaged in an “economic activity in which an employee … receives a wage in
return for his or her labour” (Edwards 2003: 2). Further, military work meets the requirements of all the
key legal tests of employment status. Hence each armed service “must be seen as an employer [and]
its officers as managers” (Way 2000: 765).
Second, then, I propose that the armed forces employment relationship can be examined through the
lens of the core labour process concepts of control, structured antagonism, consent and resistance
(Braverman 1974, Burawoy 1979, Thompson 1983, Edwards 1986, Thompson and Smith 2010a, Jaros
2010). Control is exercised through a period of intensive training during which “submission is the first
aim” (Steinert 2003: 267) and the military individual is created (Hockey 1986), and then through the use
of disciplinary procedures which feature harsh punishments up to and including imprisonment (AFA
2006). A level of consent is evident, for instance, in the forces’ own annual attitudes survey, with a
stable 66% of serving personnel agreeing with the statement ‘I feel that the Service discipline system is
fair’ (MoD 2014). However, the limits to that consent are illustrated by, for instance, statistics on
absence without leave and desertion, while military personnel also ‘make out’ (Roy 1952), boundaries
are negotiated, and rules interpreted, ignored or broken (Hockey 1986, Rubin 2005, Kirke 2010).
Organised resistance, on the other hand, is somewhat constrained, since there is no collective
representation (Bartle 2006, Heinecken 2010) and any attempts to raise grievances collectively
constitute a serious disciplinary offence (AFA 2006). Nonetheless, members of the British armed forces
persist in acts of collective, organised resistance, taking forms of industrial action which are usually
termed mutiny (Lammers 1969).
Margaret Prior
Doctoral Teaching Assistant
Plymouth University
margaret.prior@plymouth.ac.uk
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A life without limits? Control, consent and resistance in the
British armed forces’ employment relationship1
Some 160,000 men and women serve in Britain's armed forces, which have been comprised
exclusively of volunteers since the early 1960s (Shindler 2012, Rutherford 2014). To date, this sizeable
workforce has not attracted the attention of industrial relations scholars, nor, in the main, that of labour
historians. This paper will explore the intellectual and practical barriers to the study of armed forces
personnel within these fields before setting out the argument for treating military service as employment
and studying it as such. It will then explore some aspects of service in the British military, applying the
core labour process concepts of control, consent and resistance. Throughout, it will draw on
contemporary and historical documentary sources, as well as on a wide-ranging literature review, on
material gleaned from monitoring relevant internet forums and on some very early findings from my
primary research on the Royal Navy. I will conclude that military service is an appropriate area for
further industrial relations and related research, that labour process analysis is a valuable framework
for such research, and that, in sum, there are fewer distinctions between military service and civilian
employment than might be expected.
Service in the armed forces, whether in Britain or elsewhere, presents three sets of problems for
industrial relations research, the first of which might be termed an intellectual distaste. Soldiers and
other military personnel, it is argued, are agents of the state whose work is not constructive but
destructive (Zürcher 2013), not productive but unproductive and 'socially useless' (Braverman 1998).
The work of the armed forces might even be termed counterproductive, in that military labour has been
used throughout history both to put down working class protest, as at the Peterloo Massacre in 1819
(Cole and Postgate 1961, Thompson 1980), and to cover for strikers, as for example during the 1926
General Strike (Symons 1957, Pelling 1987) and more recently during industrial action by members of
the emergency services (see for instance Seifert and Sibley 2005). However, “the various forms of
labour which produce commodities for the capitalist are all to be counted as productive labour”
(Braverman 1998: 284), and in this regard some aspects of military work are indeed clearly productive:
for example, the Royal Navy has a dedicated Fishery Protection Squadron to support that industry
(RN2015b), while bomb disposal units continue to clear unexploded Second World War ordnance from
areas being cleared for redevelopment (see for instance Herald 2013). Moreover, since a commodity is
an object or service which is of use or value to capital, then there can be little doubt that fighting in wars
which are of benefit to the capitalist state is, similarly, productive labour, and that members of the
armed forces are public sector workers in a 'capitalist-like labour process' “where value in the strict
sense is not generated but where work is organised on cognate principles to those of capitalism, for
reasons including the reproduction by the state of those principles” (Edwards 2014: 13). Hence, then,
“participation in military activities [is] just as much a labour process as any other” (Zürcher 2013: 9-10).
If intellectual distaste can be put to one side, there are still substantial practical barriers to researching
the armed forces, particularly if, like me, the researcher has not served in the military (Gazit and MaozShai 2010). Probably a 'total institution' (Goffman 1957), the military is “a micro-society, a clearly
defined yet comprehensive social system, equipped with almost the full range of social institutions and
social relations” (Savage and Cumner 1999: 1). One result of this is that “military culture is
characterised by the creation of insider and outsider categories between military personnel and civilians
... [and] the military continues to present particular challenges to social researchers” (Higate and
Cameron 2006: 224). Most social research on the armed forces internationally is carried out by serving
1
‘A life without limits’ is the current recruiting slogan for the Royal Navy
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and former personnel, or by those working within or alongside military institutions (Howard 1962,
Caforio and Nuciari 2003, Sasson-Levy 2003, Sion 2006, Jenkings et al 2010, KCMHR 2010), and in
Britain the Ministry of Defence, the primary gatekeeper, has demonstrated a preference for 'reliable', as
in quantitative, social research over qualitative and empirical work (Jenkings et al 2010), and tends to
'privilege' psychology over other fields (Higate and Cameron 2006). Moreover, even once access has
been officially granted, local gatekeepers can still be formidable obstacles (Bunyard 1995, Regan de
Bere 1999).
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to industrial relations research of the armed forces, however, is the nature
of military service itself. Members of the British army, navy and air force do not enter into a contract of
employment when they join up: instead, “civilian status is modified by the superimposition of a military
status .... [and] certain rights and freedoms are restricted” (Oakes 2000: 10). These restrictions mean
that members of the armed forces are specifically excluded from most employment legislation, although
they can take cases relating to discrimination, equal pay and working time to the Employment Tribunal
(MoD 2010); rather, they become subject to Service law (AFA 2006). However, the absence of a
contract of employment does not necessarily imply the absence of an employment relationship, which
is characterised by the existence of both market and managerial relations (Flanders 1974). Members of
the armed forces are paid for their work, meaning they are in a market relationship (Edwards 2003),
and they are required to attend work and, once there, to follow rules and instructions, placing them in a
managerial relationship (Pollard 1968, Flanders 1974). Similarly, military service meets the 'control test'
used to establish employment status: the state, in the form of the Ministry of Defence and the command
structures of the individual services, “lays down what is to be done, the way in which it is to be done,
the means by which it is to be done, and the time when it is done”2. Further, it meets three further key
legal tests, those of integration, economic reality and mutuality of obligations: the work of an individual
in the armed forces is an integral part of the whole; he or she is economically dependent on the state as
the wage payer, and there is a mutual obligation to provide and perform tasks within a relationship of
control and subordination (Burchell et al 1999, Collins et al 2012). In short, then, “because soldiering
[is] an exchange of labour for pay, the army must be seen as an employer, its officers as managers,
and its troops as workers” (Way 2000: 765). Service in any of the armed forces, then, is an appropriate
area for industrial relations research, and specifically for analysis utilising the core labour process
theory concepts of control, consent and resistance (Braverman 1974, Burawoy 1979, Thompson 1983,
Thompson and Smith 2010a, Thompson and Smith 2010b, Jaros 2010).
At the heart of labour process theory is an understanding that capitalist employment relationships are
“an inevitable source of dispute” (Hyman 1975: 186) and that the relationship between employer and
worker is one of 'structured antagonism' (Edwards 1986, Edwards 2003), 'dynamic tension' (Rose 2008:
29) or conflict, the “struggle between workers and employers for control over the terms on which labour
power is translated into effort” (Edwards and Scullion 1982: 257). For the employer, then, control is “the
essential managerial function” (Storey 1983: 100), designed to secure subordination, loyalty and
productivity (Harbison and Myers 1959, Child 1969, Rose 1988), through “the mechanisms by which
employers direct work tasks; the procedures whereby they supervise and evaluate performance ..; and
the apparatus of discipline and reward” (Thompson 1983: 122). All of these elements of the control
imperative are evident in the British armed forces' employment relationship.
Control over the military employment relationship starts even before that relationship has begun, in the
form of rigorous screening of, and stringent conditions for, applicants. Those who wish to join the Royal
Navy today, for instance, must pass a fitness test, for which they must also demonstrate that they have
2
Lane V Shire Roofing Company (Oxford) Ltd. [1995] IRLE 493 (Court of Appeal)
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undertaken a comprehensive programme of preparation (RN 2013b), undertake a psychometric
recruitment test (RN nd), pass 'comprehensive' medical and eye tests, complete an application form,
attend and pass an interview, and take part in and pass a compulsory four day Pre Royal Navy Course
“to confirm you're ready for the challenge” (RN 2015a). Successful applicants are also subject to a
more subtle control mechanism in the form of praise; one interviewee said:
“we were told we were the elite, better than civvies [civilians]”
The key mechanism by which control is achieved, however, is basic training: for the Royal Navy, this is
currently a ten week course at HMS Raleigh, near Plymouth, and is followed by professional training for
the applicant's chosen role (RN 2015d). Recruitment literature, and media coverage such as the recent
eight-hour series following new recruits to the Royal Marines (C4 2014), emphasises the physical
challenge and excitement of basic training, but the experience of those who've been through it is rather
different:
The aim of Raleigh is to deprive you of sleep, it's the easiest way of putting you
under stress. ... It's pointless and it's ****, there's nothing to enjoy about it – it
doesn't prepare you for military life because military life is ... absolutely nothing
like basic training (Student Room 2015)
One way in which basic training fails to reflect 'military life' is in the amount of time devoted to drill: that
is, to learning to march and perform manoeuvres in close formation (or, as one interviewee described it,
'marching, saluting and standing still by numbers'). Historically, drills were important because of their
use on the battlefield, but this ceased to be the case around 1900 (Dallas and Gill 1985). Its continued
use, then, is as a control mechanism: “[drill] remains a central means by which recruits are conditioned
to respond obediently to commands” (Hockey 1986: 22). Here, then, is an indication of the real purpose
of basic training, that is, to strip away civilian identity and replace it with military identity:
submission is the first aim, the well-functioning, disciplined, inconspicuous
statistical unit is the result. ... [Basic] training can be described as a prolonged
degradation ceremony. The first aspect of this is de-individualisation (Steinert
2003: 267, 277).
During basic training, the screening of new recruits continues, and they can be discharged if they are
“found to lack the attitude, discipline, or [physical] fitness to continue” (RN 2013a). Meanwhile, they are
given very little freedom: although they are allowed to use mobile phones during relaxation periods,
they are not, for instance, allowed to have portable music or film devices (Joining instructions for new
entrants, cited on Navy Net 2015a). In any case, there is little free time in which to relax, as illustrated
by new recruits' training diaries (RN 2015c) and by one response to a question on a Navy forum about
what to expect:
wake up, shower, muster, scran [food], IMF [Initial Military Fitness], drill, scran,
brief, scran, clean, kit preparation, head down, repeat. ... then on special days
they throw in exercises, inspections, divisions [marching] and kit musters (Navy
Net 2015b).
Moreover, trainees are rarely, if ever, permitted to leave the training centre; one former sailor told me
that:
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[We were] absolutely not allowed to leave the base, not during basic ... the
outside world did not exist
By limiting the activities of new recruits to those required by the trainers, by keeping them busy
throughout their waking hours, and by cutting them off from the outside world, the armed forces achieve
their aim of 'civilian role dispossession' and 'organisational socialisation' (Hockey 1986),
'depersonalising' the recruit and 'converting' him or her into a new, military, person (Zurcher 1967). This
process of 'habituation' (Braverman 1998) is neatly summed up in the current naval recruitment
campaign, which carries the tag-line “I was born in [name of town or city], but I was made in the Royal
Navy” (see for instance RN 2015e).
Having been established through basic training, control is maintained through the use of disciplinary
rules and procedures, which have a “focused need and purpose ... in seeking to mould and modify
behaviour to the specific requirements of military service” (Cathcart 2013: 237). The rules are laid down
in Queen's Regulations, which include all orders and regulations currently in force and which are not
published outside the services, and in the Armed Forces Act 2006, which harmonised disciplinary rules
and procedures across all three services and applies all UK criminal law to personnel wherever they
are serving (AFA 2006, Blackett 2009, MSL 2011). Minor “professional or personal failings” (MoD 2008:
1-1) are dealt with under the minor administrative action procedure, a corrective process “quite
separate from the military disciplinary system” (Taylor 2005: 12) under which instant sanctions can be
applied “where it is clear that criminal and/or disciplinary measures are not necessary, appropriate or
desirable” (MoD 2013: para.20012b). Formal disciplinary matters are dealt with through summary
hearings, presided over by the commanding officer, while the court-martial, which operates in the same
way as a crown court but where decisions are made by a panel of senior officers, hears all serious
disciplinary matters, many criminal cases, and any disciplinary issues where the offender has elected
for trial by court-martial (Blackett 2009, MSL 2011).
Historically, British military discipline was characterised above all by its punitive nature. “Casual
violence and corporal punishment were commonplace in the eighteenth century [Navy]” (Rodger 2004:
321), flogging was still used in the military prisons until nearly 1900 (Holmes 2011), and, although not
used since the 1940s, the death penalty for military personnel was only formally abolished with the
passage of a 2004 amendment to the 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA 2004). However, the use of
physical punishments might not have disappeared entirely: there is evidence from the 1920s and 1930s
that “some soldiers would rather accept an illegal whack than undergo due process that would leave its
mark on their official record” (Holmes 2011: xxii), and one sailor told me about his experience less than
twenty years ago:
This lad would only work for one person. ... I was told to smack him or else he'd
be formally disciplined.
Military punishments are intended to act both as specific and general deterrents (Rubin 2005, Blackett
2009, Apel and Nagin 2011, Nagin 2012): the general sentencing principles which apply to both
summary hearings and the court-martial require the officer or officers to 'have regard', amongst other
things, to “the maintenance of discipline [and] the reduction of service offences and other crimes
(including reduction by deterrence” (AFA 2006 s.237 (1) (b) and (c)). Sentences can, therefore, be
harsher than those in the civilian courts “because of the corrosive effect that ... offending can have on
morale and unit effectiveness” (Blackett 2009: 152). Hence the commanding officer presiding over a
summary hearing has the power to hand down sentences up to and including detention in the Military
Corrective Training Centre for up to 28 days or, with prior approval, up to 90 days (Blackett 2009, MSL
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2011). Similarly, an offence like failure to attend for duty is punishable by up to two years' imprisonment,
while substantial fines and other punishments can be imposed (AFA 2006). However, there is also
substantial scope for discretion by the chain of command: while some offences must be dealt with only
by the court-martial, and some must always be taken to a summary hearing, others may be dealt with
as the relevant officer sees fit. Hence misconduct towards a superior officer or disobedience of lawful
commands, both potentially serious charges, may be treated as minor administrative matters,
depending on the circumstances (MoD 2013), and absence without leave (AWOL) of up to 48 hours
may be treated as a minor administrative issue 'if appropriate', time being deducted from the
individual's leave entitlement by way of sanction (MoD 2008), but it is also a court-martial offence
punishable by detention and/or discharge from the service (MSL 2011).
The commanding officer, then, has wide powers to determine the mode of hearing for many offences, to
hear and decide upon cases, including some criminal charges, against all ordinary ranks and many
officers, and to hand down a range of sentences. Military law has always placed the commanding
officer at the heart of the system: during the Second World War, the Royal Navy Officer's Pocket Book
stated that “as a Commanding Officer, you are an autocrat pure and simple” (cited in Lavery 2008:
267). More recently, and by way of confirming the use of discipline as a control mechanism, the former
chief of the defence staff told a House of Commons Select Committee that “it is very important that the
accused, and indeed his peer group and the whole company ... perceives that the Commanding Officer
has control” (SCAFB 2006 Q321 Ev 55). Essentially, then, and although the commanding officer is now
“in many ways detached” (Hansen 2007: 31) from the court-martial process, he or she is “not just 'judge
and jury' but boss as well” (Savage and Cumner 1999: 9).
There is also a case for arguing that aspects of the military disciplinary processes fall short in terms of
procedural justice. An individual subject to minor administrative action, which amounts to the issuing of
a punishment by anybody at least one rank above the offender, has no right to representation and
indeed no opportunity to state his or her case except by requesting a formal review, which may be
undertaken by the officer who endorsed the sanction in the first place (MoD 2008, MoD 2013).
Individuals facing a summary hearing are permitted to seek legal advice beforehand, but not to be
legally represented at the hearing. Instead, there is a system of 'assisting officers' to advise and help
the defendant with paperwork, but concerns have been raised with regard to “the impartiality, interest
and lack of training” of assisting officers (SCC 2010: 22), and about the criteria by which they are
selected and the guidance they receive (SCC 2011). Full legal representation is, however, available at
the court-martial. In similar vein, military personnel only gained full rights to appeal against court-martial
verdicts and sentences in 1996, whilst appeal against the findings of, and punishments awarded by,
summary hearings has only been possible since the inception of the Summary Appeals Court (SAC) in
2000 (AFD 2000). A review of the early workings of the SAC found that “the most startling fact is how
frequently the finding of commanding officers and/or punishment awarded has been altered by the
court” (Rowe 2003: 206).
In light of these apparent shortcomings, it is not perhaps surprising that the systems of military
discipline have been criticised from within, most notably by two serving Majors in the army, one of
whom described 'military justice' as “a contradiction in terms” (Joyce 1998: 2). In extensive written
evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee, one Major McLeod of the Royal Signals
called for 'root and branch overhaul' of the administrative action process and for the involvement of the
Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) in drawing up new procedures. He went on to
state that the administrative action procedure
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stands alone in the UK in granting an employer vast powers of sanction,
suspension and dismissal, without independent oversight, or checks and
balances ... [It] confers extensive powers to the chain of command: there are no
safeguards ... to prevent dishonest commanders from pursuing vendettas against
those over whom they exercise power. ... Service personnel are powerless,
subject to the arbitrary exercise of power by their employer (McLeod 2013: paras.
4B, 5)
Powerless they might be, but there is little evidence of widespread discontent about the control exerted
by the disciplinary processes. In the most recent annual Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey,
66% of respondents agreed with the statement “I feel that the Service discipline system is fair”, a figure
that has not changed substantially for several years (MoD 2014). One interviewee said:
You knew where you stood ... It was all part of growing up
Another expanded upon this theme:
If you did something wrong, you got punished. You were never punished if you
weren't guilty.
The employment relationship is characterised, not only by employer control, but also by employee
consent, or rather a degree of willingness on the part of employees to consent to their own
subordination (Noon et al 2013), making the relationship one of 'conflicted collaboration' (Delbridge
2007). These attitudes towards what might be considered a harsh, and in some respects unfair,
disciplinary regime reflect a degree of choice on the part of military personnel, and “it is participation in
choosing that generates consent” (Burawoy 1979: 27). Members of the British armed forces, then, are
volunteers who might choose to accept some restrictions in return for, in the words of one interviewee,
a better way of life ... [Joining the navy] was a way of getting away, expanding my
horizons, making up for the lack of opportunities where I lived ... [It was] a
positive choice. I've got no regrets.
There are, however, limits to consent: “although workers may adopt the ideologies of dominant groups
their practices may reveal at least a partial rejection of these ideologies” (Edwards and Scullion 1982:
270). In the context of the armed forces, this is illustrated not only by the fact that 34% of respondents
do not agree that the system of military discipline is fair (MoD 2014), but also by a range of behaviours
representing “the informal and recalcitrant side of employee (mis)behaviour” (Thompson and Smith
2010b: 19). Old hands openly offer advice to younger ones on the ways in which they can make life
easier for themselves, or indeed get around the rules, for instance by keeping a clean set of uniform to
one side for production on kit inspections (Hockey 1986, Navy Net 2015a), and there are a range of
other 'unofficial ways' of military life which are widespread and apparently accepted, if not condoned
(Hockey 1986). One insider study of the British Army found that rules, whether formal or informal, were
interpreted and even ignored “in a continuing social process, part of the weft and warp of everyday life”
(Kirke 2010: 359), while a study of the US Navy found that:
aspects of the informal organisation, though not explicitly sanctioned by the
formal organisation, are tacitly understood and accepted by it ... They are ,,,
'patterned evasions' – regularised ways of getting round the demands of the
formal organisation (Zurcher 1965: 393)
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This understanding and acceptance of the potential differences between theory and practice is perhaps
summed up in one former sailor's response to a question about the purpose of basic training:
I think one of the first things I remember was our New Entry Instructor saying
'This is not the Navy. This is the stuff you have to go through to get into the Navy.
Then the fun starts.' Or words to that effect.
Similarly, interviewees have indicated that there can be a distinction between the letter of the
disciplinary rules and their application; one told me that:
We all got away with stuff ... There was some indulgence. Once I turned up for
work with a hangover and fell asleep, but I just got shouted at when it could have
been more serious. I did the same with my own subordinates, later
Another former sailor told a similar story:
There was a lot of flexibility with discipline ... [One man] went off for two days
while we were alongside in [name of port]. He got no punishment at all, even
though he was a key person in [the team], because he was mates with the right
people. That was the way things were done.
In essence, then, the armed forces set very high standards, but it also appears to be understood that
living up to such high standards might not always be possible, or indeed preferable. Reflecting this, the
rules are probably “applied strictly in some cases, less strictly in others; and perhaps not even enforced
at all in some circumstances” (Rubin 2005: 19). In this respect, then, military service is not so different
from civilian employment, where “industrial discipline has never wholly conquered the working classes
[sic]” (O'Neill 1986: 49), workers 'make out' (Roy 1952), and “formal disciplinary rules interact with
informal understandings to produce sets of norms and understandings about workplace conduct”
(Edwards and Whitston 1989: 3). Perhaps, then, it is no coincidence that Taylor chose the term
'soldiering' to denote what he perceived as workers' “natural instinct and tendency ... to take it easy”
(1947: 19).
Misbehaviour has been construed as one of the ways in which workers (re-)appropriate their selves
(Thompson and Smith 2010a), a “kind of tacit disobedience that means that a managerial initiative fails
to achieve its ends” (Thompson and Smith 2010b: 39) Hence misbehaviour is one way in which
members of the armed forces resist the control imposed upon them, expressing the conflict inherent in
their employment relationship through “conscious or unconscious responses to discontents” (Hyman
1975: 187). Recent debates in industrial relations have centred on whether there has been a decline in
employee resistance or whether it has simply taken different forms (Bélanger and Thuderoz 2010), but
there are clear lines of continuity of resistance in the British armed forces, not least in two key forms of
resistance: absence and desertion.
Absence without leave (AWOL) was such a problem in the eighteenth century that rewards were
offered for the capture of 'stragglers', sailors who were “absent from their duty in culpable, suspicious
or simply unexplained circumstances” (Rodger 1986: 189). Today, a charge of AWOL, whether
'intentional or negligent' can, as discussed above, carry a sentence of up to two years' imprisonment,
often in combination with another punishment up to and including dismissal (AFA 2006). There were
some 5,430 instances of AWOL across all three services between January 2010 and October 2013
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(Hansard 2013) and at least 80 members of the Army were detained and/or dismissed for a single
offence in this period (MoD 2015). Absenteeism, of course, may be “the only means that workers [have]
of expressing dissatisfaction with a managerial regime” (Edwards and Whitson 1989: 3); it has been
argued, then, that “post-combat stress, depression and bullying are ... precipitants of AWOL” (Gee
2007: 64). Similarly, just as civilian workers might call in sick or go absent when they have personal
business to attend to (Edwards and Whitston 1989), the “impact of Service life on family and personal
life” (MoD 2014), not least the long periods of separation, is held to account for a high proportion of
AWOL (Independent 2010). Crucially, however, members of the armed forces sign up for a legally
binding fixed term of service, with little opportunity to leave, known as 'Discharge as of Right', beyond
the first few months of service; hence “an inability to leave the forces legally before several years have
elapsed almost certainly contributes to the number of personnel going absent without leave”
(ForcesWatch 2011: 3). As one poster on an army forum, who claimed to have been AWOL for some 15
months, put it: “all I want to happen is to be discharged ... at the end of the day I don't want to be there
anymore. ... I want to leave!” (ARS 2015).
If military personnel go absent with no intention of returning, they are classed as deserters and face,
amongst a range of punishments, up to two years' imprisonment, or, if desertion is with the intent of
avoiding active service, a life sentence (AFA 2006). Desertion, whether of conscripts or volunteers, has
long been a major concern (see for instance Burroughs 1985, Byrn 1989), dubbed “the wasting disease
of eighteenth century armies” (Holmes 2011: 509), and in 1803-1804 the Navy suffered over 12,300
desertions (Rodger 2004). It remains a concern today, although not on such a scale: between October
2011 and September 2013 35 soldiers and one Royal Marine were court-martialled solely for desertion,
and it is also frequently one of several charges (MoD 2015). The reasons for desertion are probably
similar to those for AWOL, and indeed the boundary between the two charges is somewhat blurred by
the concept of intent, as one interviewee told me:
I mean, what's the difference between going adrift [a term used for being in the
wrong place, or for being very briefly absent] and AWOL? And what about
desertion? How do they prove intent? I used to take my laundry home when I was
based in [name of port]. Does that mean they could have said I was a deserter?
Moreover, there is some evidence of individuals choosing to go AWOL, or to desert, as the lesser of
two evils. During the Second World War, there was a widespread and probably justified perception that
soldiers deserted, safe in the knowledge that they would be recaptured, rather than risking death on
the front line: detention and even penal servitude was viewed as the better option (Connelly and Miller
2004). Similarly, it is likely that some personnel today, perhaps regretting their decision to join up but
unable to leave immediately, will deliberately commit an offence such as desertion even though they
know they might not only be dismissed but could also face a period of detention before being
discharged. In this vein, one study noted frequent comments about “the use of AWOL as an indirect exit
strategy ... a means of exiting Service earlier than if they employed the regular process of leaving”
Edgar et al 2005: 8).
Both AWOL and desertion may be viewed, therefore, as expressions of discontent within the armed
forces' employment relationship and, therefore, as forms of informal, individual resistance similar to
those found in the civilian workplace. Individual resistance may also be expressed through the
grievance procedure, known as the Service Complaints procedure (MoD 2010); however, a number of
concerns about the effectiveness of this have been raised (Blake 2006, Defence Committee 2005,
Defence Committee 2006, McLeod 2013) and a Bill to amend it is currently before Parliament
(Parliament 2015). No details regarding the volume or nature of complaints under this procedure are
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Work in progress: please do not quote without written permission from the author
publicly available, apart from some general information about cases which were referred to the now
obsolete Service Complaints Commissioner (see for instance SCC 2013).
Formal, collective resistance is, however, more problematic. There is no trade union for members of the
British armed forces, although there are “no provisions ... that either forbid or expressly permit the
formation of a union specifically to represent service personnel” (House of Lords 2002) and military
personnel in other countries are allowed, and even encouraged, to join trade unions (Bartle 2006,
Heinecken 2009, Heinecken 2010). Further, even those, such as the British Armed Forces Federation
(BAFF), who argue for independent representation state that “trade union status would not be the right
format for a body representing British armed forces personnel, even if it was legally possible ...
[because armed forces] personnel are not 'employees'” (BAFF 2013), a reference to the registration
requirements which define a trade union as an organisation of employees. As a result, the only
collective consultation that is carried out is that undertaken by the Armed Forces Pay Review Body,
which takes evidence from a range of sources including about 1.5% of serving personnel. In effect,
then, members of the British armed forces “have no direct means of influencing policies or directives
affecting their employment” (Heinecken 2010: 406).
This was not always the case. During the seventeenth century interregnum, if a sailor was aggrieved by
the conduct of his captain, “the Admiralty was receptive to well-grounded complaints” (Rodger 2004:
60), and although this became more difficult after the restoration of the monarchy, “good captains
frequently backed their men's grievances against the Navy, especially over their pay” (Rodger 2004:
134). By the eighteenth century, “the absence of any official mechanism for complaint meant in practice
that any method was accepted as legitimate” (Rodger 1986: 229), and there were so many petitions to
the Admiralty that a man who could write made a living by posting himself at the gate to assist illiterate
petitioners (Rodger 1986). It was therefore possible for men serving in the navy to raise both individual
and collective grievances, and, if all else failed, one “deterrent to abuse of authority was the real risk of
an officer being caught ashore, especially after dark, by men with a grievance” (Rodger 2004: 403).
In 1917, the Russian navy played a key role in the Russian Revolution, sparking a similar uprising in
the German navy (Riasanovsky 1977, Epkenhans 2003). The British government feared the same
might happen in the Royal Navy, particularly given some ten years of unrest on the 'lower deck' over
pay (Carew 1981). In an attempt to stem protest and avert the very real possibility of trade union
organisation, the Jerram Committee was convened to examine naval pay: uniquely, serving ratings
acted as advisers to this committee, which also took evidence from representatives of the men. In the
same year, 1919, a biannual Welfare Committee was established to serve as “machinery for the
representation of collective demands” (Bell 2005: 79) and thus “a controlled outlet” (Carew 1981: xiii);
however, a series of delays and changes of rule made this forum unworkable after its first meeting. The
stillborn Welfare Committee, then, was an example of union avoidance by substitution (Dundon 2002),
established by the same government which not only endorsed collective bargaining in the civilian
workplace but also extended it by adopting the recommendations of the Whitley Committee (Clay 1929,
Clegg 1976, Phelps Brown 1959). No attempt has ever been made to revive the Welfare Committee.
Confronted with a lack of channels by which to express discontent, then, members of the armed forces
have resorted to individual acts of resistance as discussed above. However, and even although an
attempt to raise a collective grievance constitutes an offence punishable by life imprisonment (AFA
2006), they have also found ways to express resistance in an organised and collective way: that is,
through mutiny. Strictly speaking, mutiny is any act by two or more individuals “with the intention of
overthrowing or resisting authority” or of disobeying authority “in such circumstances as to subvert
discipline” (AFA 2006). Alternatively, one eighteenth century admiral said that “whenever I see a fellow
look as if he was thinking, I say that's mutiny” (cited in Gilmour 1992: 417). Mutiny is as old as the
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Work in progress: please do not quote without written permission from the author
armed forces themselves: there were a number of mutinies in the armies of the English Civil War (Hill
1972, Morrill 1972, Morrill 1977, Kishlansky 1979, Brailsford 1983), amongst the soldiers at Etaples
base and elsewhere in World War I (Gill and Dallas 1975, Dallas and Gill 1985) and at Salerno during
World War II (Clayton 2006, Strachan 2006), while the RAF experienced their own mutinies in 1945
(Duncan 1998). In the Navy, mutiny on individual ships was for several hundred years something of a
habit (Divine 1970, Hore 2005), but there have also been three major mutinies encompassing most or
all of the ships in a fleet: at Spithead in April-May 1797, the Nore in May 1797, and at Invergordon in
September 1931.
There is, however, a widespread reluctance on all sides to use the term mutiny (Rose 1982). When
such things occur, and if they are discussed at all, they are treated as 'incidents' and analysed in strictly
unitary terms. Hence, for instance, a mutiny on the HMS Lucia in January 1931 has been explained in
terms of 'bad management' or a 'failure in communications' (Farquharson-Roberts 2009), and it has
been argued more generally that mutiny “signifies a failure by officers to lead their men and to manage
events” (Hore 2005: 139). Strenuous attempts have also been made to blame 'troublemakers',
especially people not in the service, or isolated individual 'agitators'. Hence it was variously suggested
that the mutineers at the Nore were stirred up by Irish sailors with connections to the United Irishmen,
or by individuals who were involved in organisations influenced by the French Revolution and Tom
Paine's The Rights of Man (Brown 2006), and there were equally strenuous, and equally fruitless,
attempts to pin the Invergordon mutiny on the Communist Party (Hutt 1937, Divine 1970, Branson
1985, Bell 2005). However, there has also been some recognition that “mutiny provided a formal
system of public protest to bring grievances to the notice of authority. It was a sort of safety-valve”
(Rodger 1986: 243).
Alternatively, then, mutiny can be regarded as “collective refusal” (van der Linden 2014: 81), or, more
simply, the military version of a strike, “a temporary stoppage of work ... to express a grievance or
enforce a demand” (Hyman 1989: 17). One study of the causes of mutinies internationally identified
three 'broad categories of discontent': working conditions, demobilisation, and concepts of legitimacy, or
the belief that “an aspect of their service is unacceptable for ethical, moral, intellectual or political
reasons” (Rose 1982: 566). Hence, for instance, the three big mutinies in the Royal Navy were all
primarily about pay (Manwaring and Dobrée 1935, Divine 1970, Carew 1979, Carew 1981, Bell 2005,
Brown 2006, Whalley 2009), and there were demobilisation mutinies, or rather organised protests about
the delay in demobilisation, in the Army in both 1919 and 1945 (Rothstein 1980, Rose 1982) and the
RAF in 1945 (Duncan 1998), while the Curragh 'incident' of 1914 was a mutiny by British officers
against the prospect of taking up arms against Protestants in Ireland (O Domhnaill 2004). Similarly,
“naval mutinies usually stem from relatively minor causes relating to what might be termed conditions of
service ... [whether] 'ship-specific' grievances, such as unpleasant or dangerous working conditions, ...
or fleet or navy-wide ... problems relating to pay, food, [or] discipline” (Bell and Elleman 2003: 264).
A comparative study of twenty strikes and twenty mutinies found a series of 'common components':
both take place in formal organisational contexts, both involve 'the rulers' against 'the ruled', both use
similar tactics, such as stopping work, and both have the aim of either gaining an advantage or
preventing a disadvantage (Lammers 1969). Mutinies, like strikes, do not simply happen but come
about when individuals recognise that they share a grievance, and when, whether through a formal
organisation or not, they mobilise collectively to pursue it (Kelly 1998, Kelly 2005). There is ample
evidence of this kind of mobilisation occurring in the armed forces, from the 'Agitators' who presented
the New Model Army soldiers' demands over their massive arrears of pay during the English Civil Wars
(Hill 1972, Morrill 1977, Brailsford 1983), to the 'delegates' who pressed the claims of the Navy sailors
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Work in progress: please do not quote without written permission from the author
at Spithead and the Nore in 1797 (Divine 1970, Hore 2005), and to the Invergordon mutineers who had
some twenty years' experience of informal lower deck organisation (Carew 1979, Carew 1981).
Two recent examples serve to underline the continued existence of collective resistance in the armed
forces' employment relationship. Late last year, the BBC received a letter from a man serving at Akrotiri,
an RAF base in Cyprus which has been used to launch raids against Islamic State. The letter listed a
number of grievances: morale was low, there was no hospital despite the risk of those on missions
sustaining serious injury, the food was poor, and the chain of command on the base was “so laced with
budgetary fear … that no one knows what the plan is” (BBC 2014). His letter made the national radio
news, as well as the BBC website, and both the RAF and the Ministry of Defence leapt to deny his
claims. We will probably never know if anything changed, nor indeed what happened to him as a result
of his complaint. We do, however, know what happened to a group of sixteen soldiers who staged a sitdown protest during a 1,000-strong parade in Kenya, having had enough of being 'led by muppets'. The
protest arose from an incident when, having completed a sixteen-mile march in difficult terrain and in
full kit, the battalion found their officers sleeping off hangovers instead of, as is the custom,
ceremoniously welcoming their soldiers back to base. While some sections of the media referred to the
protest as a mutiny, and indeed their actions could be construed as such, they were all charged with
disobeying a lawful command, which carries a punishment of up to ten years' imprisonment. The
ringleader was sentenced to 60 days' detention, stripped of his rank and dismissed from the Army;
three others were demoted, one of whom was also dismissed while the other two were also sentenced
to 60 days’ detention, and the remainder were all detained for 40 days (BBC 2013, Telegraph 2013).
Service in the armed forces is not the same as working in a civilian organisation: there are any number
of differences, not least “the unlimited commitment of injury and death” (Clayton 2006: 2). However,
these differences do not preclude the study of military work within an industrial relations framework, nor
the application of labour process theory to it. In this paper, I have argued that members of the armed
forces are in an employment relationship, and that this employment relationship is, like any other,
characterised by control, consent and resistance. Control is exerted through the application process
and, in particular, by basic training, which is designed to dismantle the civilian and rebuild the military
man or woman. Control is then maintained by strict rules, which are enforced by way of disciplinary
procedures which can be held to fall short in terms of procedural and interactional justice and through
harsh punishments. These control measures elicit a remarkable degree of consent. However, and
taking a broad historical perspective, there is substantial evidence, not only of misbehaviour and other
informal forms of resistance, not least in incidences of absence without leave and desertion, but also of
formal resistance in the shape of mutiny. Military personnel, then, experience their work as an
employment relationship; this employment relationship, like any other, is one of 'structured antagonism'
(Edwards 1986), and soldiers, sailors and aircrew express that antagonism in ways which are very
similar to those found in civilian workplaces. Recognising that the promised 'life without limits' is in fact
firmly limited, and that indeed 'life without limits' might actually mean life imprisonment, members of the
British armed forces behave in the same way as other workers: they break the rules, absent
themselves, or go on strike.
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Work in progress: please do not quote without written permission from the author
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