pp 150-151
In the ensuing chapters we endeavor to place before the reader an accurate description of the
Methods and Regulations actually practised by British Trade Unionism. We shall see the Trade
Unionists, from the beginning of the eighteenth century down to the present day, enforcing their
Regulations by three distinct instruments or levers, which we distinguish as the Method of
Mutual Insurance, the Method of Collective Bargaining, and the Method of Legal Enactment.
From the Methods used to enforce the Regulations, we shall pass to the Regulations themselves.
These we shall find grouping themselves, notwithstanding an almost infinite variety of technical
detail, under seven main heads-the Standard Rate, the Normal Day, Sanitation and Safety, New
Processes and Machinery, Continuity of Employment, the Entrance into a Trade, and the Right
to a Trade-all of which we examine in separate chapters. This will lead us to the Implications of
Trade Unionism-certain practical outgrowths and necessary consequences of Trade Union
policy which require elucidation. Finally, we shall bring into light the Assumptions of Trade
Unionism-the fundamental prejudices, opinions, or judgments lying at the root of Trade Union
policy-an analysis of which will serve at once to explain and to summarise the various forms of
Trade Union action.
In the course of this comprehensive description of Trade Unionism as it is, we shall not abstain
from incidentally criticising the various Methods and Regulations, and the different types of
Trade Union policy, in respect of the success or failure of Trade Unions to apply them to the
facts of modern life. But in this part of our book we carefully avoid any discussion as to the
effects of Trade Unionism upon industry, and, above all, we make no attempt to decide whether
it has or has not resulted in effectively raising wages, or otherwise improving the conditions of
employment. We venture to think that there can be no useful discussion of the economic validity
of Trade Unionism until the student
has first surveyed its actual contents.
Our examination of the theory of trade combination-the possibility, by deliberate common
action, of altering the conditions of employment ; the effect of the various Methods and
Regulations upon the efficiency of production and the distribution of wealth ; and the ultimate
social expediency of exchanging a system of unfettered individual competition for one of
collective regulation-in a word, our judgment upon Trade Unionism as a whole-we reserve for
the third and final part of this book.
pp 178-179
Whole sections of the wage-earning class, not included in any Trade Union, habitually have their
rate of wages and often some other conditions of their employment settled by Collective
Bargaining. We do not here refer merely to such cases as the " shop-bargain," which we have just
described. The historic strikes of the London building trades in 1859, and the Newcastle
engineers in 1871, were both conducted by committees elected at mass meetings of members of
the trade, among whom the Trade Unionists formed an insignificant minority.' In the history of
the building and engineering trades there are numerous instances of agreements being
concluded, on behalf of a whole district, by temporary committees of non - unionists, and where
the Trade Unions themselves initiate and conduct the negotiations the agreements arrived at
habitually govern in these industries, not the members alone, but the great bulk of similar
workmen in the district. Here and there an eccentric employer may choose to depart from the
regular terms, but the great majority find it more convenient to comply with what becomes, in
fact, the "custom of the trade."
So thoroughly has the Collective Bargaining been recognised in the building trades, that county
court judges now usually hold that the "working rules" of the district are implied as part of the
wage-contract, if no express stipulation has been made on the points therein dealt with.
Collective Bargaining thus extends over a much larger part of the industrial field than Trade
Unionism. Precise statistics do not exist, but our impression is that, in all skilled trades, where
men work in concert, on the employers' premises, ninety per cent of the workmen find, either
their rate of wages or their hours of work, and often many other details, predetermined by a
collective bargain in which they personally have taken no part, but in which their interests have
been dealt with by representatives of their class.But though Collective Bargaining prevails over a
much larger area than Trade Unionism, it is the Trade Union alone which can provide the
machinery for any but its most casual and limited application. Without a Trade Union in the
industry, it would be almost impossible to get a Common Rule extending over a whole district,
and hopeless to attempt a national agreement. If therefore the collective bargain aims at
excluding from influence on the bargain, the exigencies of particular firms or particular districts,
and not merely those of particular workmen in a single establishment, Trade Union organisation
is indispensable.
Moreover, it is the Trade Union alone which can supply the machinery for he automatic
interpretation and the peaceful revision of the general agreement. To Collective Bargaining, the
machinery of Trade Unionism may bring, in fact, both continuity and elasticity. The
development of a definite and differentiated machinery for Collective Bargaining in the Trade
Union world coincides, as might be expected, with its enlargement m the workshop to the whole
town, and from the town to the whole industry.
As soon as a Trade Union properly so called comes into existence with a president and secretary,
becomes more and more usual for these officers to act as e workmen's representatives in trade
negotiations. This is the stage in which we find nearly all the single-branched unions such as
those of the Sheffield trades, the Dublin local societies, the Coopers, Sailmakers, and other small
and compact bodies of workmen all over the kingdom. Even here the growth of a local union
into a national society as necessitated the appointment of a salaried general secretary giving his
whole time to his duties, it is exceptional find him conducting all, or even the bulk of the
negotiation of its members with their employers. In the United Cooperative Plumbers'
Association, for instance, practically the whole of the Collective Bargaining is still conducted by
the branch officials, or by representative workmen specially selected delegates. A further stage is
marked by the creation of permanent committees, unconcerned with the ordinary branch
administration, to deal solely with local trade questions.
pp. 220-221
there is no provision for the contingency of a failure to come to an agreement. In such a
contingency the bargaining simply comes to an end, and we have that deliberate collective
refusal on the part of the employers to give work, or on the part of_ the operatives to accept
work, which is known as a " lock-out " or a "strike." These cessations of work are, in our view,
necessarily incidental to all commercial bargaining for the hire of labor, whether individual or
collective, just as the customer's walking out of the shop, if he does not consent to the
shopkeeper's price, incidental to retail trade. This, we need hardly observe, is a very different
matter from the ignorant assumption that there is some necessary connection between strikes
and Trade Unions. We have already noted the existence Trade Unions which prefer the Method
of Mutual Insurance to that of Collective Bargaining, and do not therefore engage in in strikes at
all ; and we shall elsewhere instance Trade Union organisations whose operation is confined to
the Method of Legal Enactment. On the other hand, long before a Trade Union comes into
existence in any industry Collective Bargaining, as we have already explained, prevails in a more
or less elaborate form ; and, with Collective Bargaining, the inevitable resort to concerted refusal
to work. It is a matter of simple history that strikes have been more numerous in industries
which have practised Collective Bargaining without Trade Unionism, than in those in which
durable combinations have existed. The influence of Trade Unions on strikes is indeed exactly
similar to their influence on Collective Bargaining. The
elaboration of the “shop bargain”
into the local " working rules," and of these again into the national agreement has naturally been
accompanied by a similar extension of the " shop dispute," into a local strike, and of this again
into a general stoppage of the industry. In this connection we may quote the Royal Commissionn
on Labor, "that when both sides in a trade are strngly organised and in possession of
considerable financial rcsources, a trade conflict, when it does occur, may be on a large scale,
very protracted and very costly.But just as a modern war between two great European States,
costly though it is, seems to represent a higher state of civilisation the incessant local fights and
border raids which occur in times or places where governments are less strong and centrlised,
so, on the whole, an occasional great trade conflict, breaking in upon years of peace, seems to be
preferable to continued local bickerings, stoppages of work, and petty conflicts”.
But whether or not we accept this flattering analogy, it is impossible to deny that the perpetual
liability to end in a strike or a lock-out is a grave drawback to the Method of Collective
Bargaining. So long as the parties to a bargain are free to agree or not to agree, it is inevitable
that, human nature being as it is, there should now and again come a deadlock, leading to that
trial of strength and endurance which lies behind all bargaining. We know of no device for
avoiding this trial of strength except a deliberate decision of the community expressed in
legislative enactment.
One favourite panacea, incidentally referred to in our account of the boot and shoe trade-the
reference of the the dispute an impartial arbitrator - we reserve for a separate chapter.
pp 254-257
Presently a new Factory or Mines Bill is drafted by the Home Secretary and, on the combined
advice of Government inspectors, medical experts, sympathetic employers, and, perhaps, a few
representative workmen, some kind of clause is inserted to effect, usually not what the Trade
Union has been asking for, but the minimum which, in the light of all the evidence, seems
indispensable to avert the grossest of the evil. At the committee stage in the House of Commons
the clause is pulled to pieces by the spokesmen of the employers on the one hand, and by those
of the workmen on the other. But the great majority of the members have, like the minister
himself, no direct interest on either side, and speak rather for the general public of consumers
anxious to " keep trade in the country " and foster cheapness, than with a view to secure
exceptional advantages for the particular section concerned.
Thus each step has to be gained by a process of persuasion. To win over in succession the
electors, the Members of Parliament, the Ministers of the Crown, and-most difficult task of all its permanent professional experts, requires, in the officers of a Trade Union, a large measure of
statesmanship, and, in the rank and file of the members, a combination of wise moderation,
dogged persistency, steadfast loyalty to leaders, and " sweet reasonableness " at a compromise,
not usually characteristic of popular movements.
At its best the process is a slow one. The Lancashire " Nine Hours' Movement," for instance,
attained, perhaps, a more rapid and complete success than any other agitation for factory
legislation. Yet it cost the Cotton-spinners four years' expensive and harassing work before the
bill reducing the factory day was wrung from a reluctant legislature.
On the other hand,
the "Nine Hours' Day " of the engineers, gained in 1871 by the Method of Collective Bargaining,
was won within six months of the first negotiations with the employers.
Nor is the victory ever complete. What Parliament ultimately enacts is never the full measure of
what has been asked for. The Cotton Operatives, for instance, did not get their Nine Hours' Day,
but only a 56 ½ hours' week. By the Method of Collective Bargaining, on the other hand, Trade
Unions have not infrequently gained from employers, at times of strategic advantage, not only
the whole of their demands, but also conditions so exceptional that they would never have
ventured to embody them in a legislative proposal. We shall hereafter how this consideration
deters strong Trade Unions, like the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, from
going to Parliament about such unsettled problems as Demarcation of Work or the Limitation of
Apprentices, on which they feel that they can exact better , than would be conceded to them by
the community a Whole.
But taking merely the hours of labor we may note how, whilst Parliament has not yet been
converted even aft Eight Hours' Day for Miners, the coal-hewers of Northumberland and
Durham have long since secured by Collective Bargaining a working day for themselves of less
than 7 hours, and a working week which never exceeds 37 hours.
At first sight, it may seem strange that, in face of all difficulties and disadvantages, the Trade
Unions should persistently, and even increasingly, seek for legislative regulation of their
respective industries. The explanation is that, however tedious and difficult may be the process
of obtaining it, once the Common Rule is embodied in an Act of Parliament, it satisfies more
perfectly the Trade Union aspirations of permanence and universality than any other method. It
is, as we have shown, as yet rare for a Trade Union to have been able to establish by the Method
of Collective Bargaining anything like uniform conditions throughout the whole
country.
Such prominent and wealthy unions, for instance; as the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and
the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, find themselves compelled to recognise hours of labor
varying, in different towns, from 48 to 57 hours per week in the one case, and from 41 to 60 in
the other.
But even where any Trade Union rule exists, either national or local, there are, as we have
mentioned, always some extensive districts,. and some important establishments, in which the
rule is either not recognised at all, or is systematically evaded. An Act of Parliament, on the
contrary, applies uniformly to all districts, whether the Trade Union is strong or non-existent,
and to all employers, whether or not they belong to the Employers' Association. It
corresponds, in fact, to the ideal form of Collective Bargaining, a National Agreement made
between a Trade Union including every man in the trade, and an Employers' Association from
which no firm stands aloof. Like such an agreement it excludes, from influence on the wagecontract, the exigencies, not only of particular workmen or particular establishments, but also
those of particular districts. But it goes a stage farther in this direction.
A National Agreement, however stable, is always liable to be changed, in accordance with the
relative strength of employers and employed, at each of the successive inflations and
depressions which characterise modern industry. The Cotton-spinners, for instance, whose
standard earnings are determined by an exceptionally stable National Agreement, have,
during the last twenty years, agreed to twelve alterations of this standard, five times upward
and seven downward. But once any part of the conditions of employment has been deemed of
sufficient importance to the community to be secured by law, it is beyond the reach of even the
most extreme commercial crises. In the blackest days of 1879, when many cotton
manufacturers were reduced to bankruptcy and the operatives suffered a reduction of twenty
per cent of their wages, no one ever suggested that the expensive statutory requirements as to
the sanitation of the factory, or the fencing of dangerous machinery should be relaxed. In our
History of Trade Unionism we have shown i how seriously, in these years, the Nine Hours'
Day of the engineering and building trades secured by Collective Bargaining, was nullified by
the practice of systematic overtime. But neither inflation nor depression has, as a matter of
fact, led to any alteration since 1874 in the length of the Cotton-spinners' Normal Day, which
the Factory Act in effect prescribes. The Common Rule embodied in an Act of Parliament has,
therefore, the inestimable advantage, from the Trade Union point of view, of being beyond the
influence of the exigencies of even the worst times of depression. And, if we may judge from
the history of the last fifty years, such a rule is more apt to "slide up" than to "slide down”:
Once any regulation has been adopted, it becomes practically impossible altogether to rescind
it, whilst the movement of public opinion, notably on such matters as education, sanitation,
safety, and shorter hours of labor, has been steadily in favor of increased requirements in the
normal Standard of Life. These characteristics of the Method of Legal Enactment have, as we
shall see in subsequent chapters, an important bearing on the kind of Regulations which the
Trade Unionists seek to enforce by this particular Method. But before we consider the rules
themselves, we have first to describe the nature and extent of the Trade Union machinery for
using the method.
pp. 595-600
When men believe in the Doctrine of Vested Interests, it is to the common law of the
realm that they look for the protection of their rights and possessions.
The law alone can secure to the individual, whether with regard to his right to a trade or
his right to an office, his privilege in a new process or his title to property, the
fulfillment of his "established expectation." Hence it is that we find eighteenth -century
Trade Unionism confidently taking for granted that all its regulations ought properly to
be enforced by the magistrate, and devoting a large part of its funds to political
agitations and legal proceedings. When the Doctrine of Vested Interests was replaced
by that of Supply and Demand, the Trade Unionists naturally turned to collective
Bargaining as their principal method of action. Instead of going to the State for
protection, they fiercely resented any attempt to interfere with their struggle with
employers, on the issue of which, they were told, their wages must depend. The
Common Law, once their friend, now seemed always their most dangerous enemy, as it
hampered their freedom of combination, and by its definitions of libel and conspiracy,
set arbitrary limits to their capacity of making themselves u npleasant to the employers
or the non-unionists. Hence the desire of the Trade Unionists of the middle of this
century, whilst sweeping away all laws against combinations, to keep Trade Unionism
itself absolutely out of the reach of the law-courts. The growth of the Doctrine of the
Living Wage, resting as this does on the assumption that the conditions of employment
require to be deliberately fixed, naturally puts the State in the position of arbitrator
between the workman who claims more, and the employer who offers less, than is
consistent with the welfare of other sections. But the appeal is not to the Common Law.
It is no longer a question of protecting each individual in he enjoyment of whatever
could be proved to be his customary privileges, or to flow from identical " natural
rights," but of prescribing, for the several sections, the conditions required, the
interest of the whole community, by their diverse actual needs. We therefore see the
Common Rules for each trade embodied in particular statutes, which the Trade
Unionists, far from resisting, use their money and political influence to obtain. The
double change of doctrine has its brought about a return to the attitude of the Old
Unionists of the eighteenth century, but with a significant difference. Today it is not
custom or privilege which appeals to the State, but the requirements of efficient
citizenship. Whenever a Trade Union honestly accepts as the sole and conclusive test
of any of its aspirations what we have termed the Doctrine of a Livi ng Wage, and
believes that Parliament takes the same view, we always find it, sooner or later,
attempting to embody that aspiration in the Statute law.
The political student will notice that there exists in the Trade Union world much the
same cleavage of opinion, upon what is socially expedient, as among other classes of
society. All Trade Unionists believe that the abandonment of the conditions of
employment to the chances of Individual Bargaining is disastrous, alike to the wageearners and to the community. But when, in pursuance of this assumption, they take
concerted action for the improvement of their condition, we see at once emerge among
them three distinct schools of thought. In the special issues and technical con troversies
of Trade Unionism we may trace the same broad generalisations, as to what
organisation of society is finally desirable, as lead, in the larger world of politics, to the
ultimate cleavage between Conservatives, Individualists, and Collectivists.The reader
will have seen that there is, among Trade Unionists, a great deal of what cannot be
described otherwise than as Conservatism. The abiding faith in the sanctity of vested
interests; the strong presumption in favor of the status quo; the distrust of innovation;
the liking for distinct social classes, marked off from each other by corporate privileges
and peculiar traditions ; the disgust at the modern spirit of self-seeking assertiveness; and
the deep-rooted conviction that the only stable organisation of society is that based on each
man being secured and contented in his inherited station of life-all these are characterise the
genuine Conservative, whether in the Trade Union or the State. In sharp contrast with this
character, and as we think, less congenial to the natural bent of the natural bent of the English
workman, we have, in the great modern unions, a full measure of Radical Individualism. The
conception of society as a struggle between warring interests; the feeling that every man and
every class is entitled to all that they can get and to nothing more ; the assumption that success
in the fight is an adequate test of merit, and, indeed, the only one possible; and the bounding
optimism which can confidently place the welfare of the community under the guardianship of
self-interest - these are typical of the "Manchester School," in politics and in Trade Unionism.
But in Trade Unions as in the larger sphere of politics, the facts of modern industry have led to
a reaction. As against the Conservatives, the Individualist Radical asserted that " all men are
born free equal, with equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
But it is now obvious that men are not equal, either in capacity or in opportunity. There has
accordingly arisen, in the Trade Union as in the political world, a school of thought which
asserts that a free struggle among unequal individuals, or combinations of individuals, means
the permanent oppression and degradation of who start handicapped, and inevitably results in a
tacit conspiracy among the more favored classes to maintain or improve their own positions of
vantage at the cost of the community at large. The Collectivist accordingly finds the need for a
conscious and deliberate organisation of society, based not on vested interests or the chances of
the fight, but on the scientifically ascertained needs of each section of citizens. Thus, within the
Trade Union movement, we find the Collectivist-minded working-man grounding his regulation
of the conditions of employment upon what we called the Doctrine of a Living Wage.In the wider
world of politics we see the Collectivist statesman groping his way to the similar conception of a
deliberate organisation of production, regulation of service, and apportionment of income – in a
word, to such a conscious adjustment of the resources of the community to its needs as will
result in its highest possible efficiency. In the Trade Union world the rival assumptions exist side
by side, and the actual regulation of industry is a perpetually shifting compromise between
them. The political student may infer that, in the larger organization of society, the rival
conceptions of Conservatism, Individualism, and Collectivism will long co-exist. Any
further
application of Collectivism, whether in the Trade Union or the political world, depends, it is
clear, on an increase in our scientific knowledge, no less than on the growth of
new habits of
deliberate social co-operation. Progress in this direcion must, therefore, be gradual, and will
probably be slow. And the philosophical Collectivist will, we think, foresee that, whether in the
regulation of labor, the incidence of taxation, or the administration of public services, any stable
adjustment of social resources to social needs must always take into account, not only the
scientifically ascertained conditions of efficiency, but also the "established expectation" and the "
fighting force " of all the classes concerned.