Protest, Acquiescence and the Unemployed: A Comparative Analysis of the 1930s and 1980s

Abstract

The political quiescence of the unemployed has provided much sustenance for social commentators. If the historical record is examined, however, quiescence is not necessarily the only response to unemployment. Widespread protests were organized by the National Unemployed Workers' Movement during the inter-war period. A comparison of the Trades Union Congress' Centres for the Unemployed of the 1980s with the NUWM reveals that changes in the forms of unemployment relief, and changes in the organizational and cultural resources of the unemployed account for these differences. The acquiescence and political fatalism of the unemployed during the 1980s derives from the state being impervious to their political protest, and the unemployed's lack of organizational and cultural resources for mobilization.