Craft Unions, Welfare Benefits, and the Case for Trade Union Law Reform, 1867–75: A Comment

Abstract

R HANSON's recent article' provides illuminating evidence on a period of history on which the Webbs' outdated views are still widely accepted. Some additional points may be made in support of his general reinterpretation, placing it in a rather broader context. He is certainly right in emphasizing the distinction between trade unions and friendly societies in that period, but, on the other hand, too much distinction has generally been made between the trade and friendly-society functions of trade unions, particularly in this misnamed New Model period. From the earliest trade clubs to the later amalgamated societies-and still today-the basic concern of trade unions has always been with trade affairs, with wages, hours, apprenticeship, entry controls, and working regulations. Friendly benefits were, of course, important in days before the Welfare State, when the doctrine of self-help was so widely accepted and the social stigma associated with poor relief stimulated respectable artisans to make provisions for unemployment, sickness, old age, and death. But as Dr Gosden has shown,2 and as Dr Hanson reiterates, pure friendly societies were much more important agencies for such benefits, with a total membership far greater than that of trade societies, extending to semi-skilled workers and labourers who did not generally succeed in forming trade organizations. At the same time, the more highly paid labour aristocracy, the skilled minority, provided themselves with the extra safeguards of trade-union benefits. Such benefits, however, had the important additional purpose of attracting members and maintaining their allegiance; this was particularly true of superannuation benefits, when they were eventually introduced, since members would be loath to sacrifice the fruits of subscriptions paid over many years, by ceasing to contribute, by blacklegging, or by ratting; this point was frequently stressed in trade-union campaigns for extending membership and in extolling the benefits of the friendlysociety side of their operations. Tramp relief and unemployment pay similarly had the very important motive of retaining trade-union loyalty in hard times, when members might otherwise be tempted to leave the union, to accept lower wages, or even to become strike-breakers; this, too, was often explicitly stated.