Het transnationale begin van de Nederlandse mijnwerkersvakbonden. Een voorbeeld van de nationalisering van arbeidersbewegingen (1907-1926)

Abstract

The Transnational Origins of Dutch Miners’ Unionism. A Case-Study in the Nationalization of Labour Movements. Several authors have argued that from the late nineteenth century onwards labour markets became increasingly organized and regulated nationally, by national social security arrangements, collective agreements, systems of labour exchange and migration control. As a consequence, members of the working classes began to consider themselves, and to be considered, as national citizens, and labour movements became nationalized. The First World War marked a watershed in this process. In this article, I want to explore to what extent this development influenced attitudes of the two Dutch miners’ unions, of which the originally inter-confessional one would become the most prominent. Until the First World War labour markets in the Limburg coalmining district and in the adjacent German Aachen district were fully integrated, and so were the nascent miners’ unions. On the eve of the First World War the Dutch inter-confessional union even became a branch of the German Christliche Gewerkverein. This all changed after the War, until in 1922 all ties with the Germans were severed, and the soon to become officially Catholic union reoriented on the Dutch state and the Limburg region. This article describes the transnational origins of the miners’ unions against the background of the cross-border labour market in the borderlands, and the effects of the territorialisation of labour markets on the originally transnational orientation of the unions after the First World War.