Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The 1905 bootmakers' march, industrial unrest over 1910–14, and the 1926 General Strike have been perceived as defining moments in British working-class consciousness, demonstrating labor's capacity to organize to achieve social change, with workers across various trades united in sympathy in shared battles between labor and capital. These strikes were, however, less revolutionary than many writers have recorded. In March 1905, Northamptonshire bootmakers employed by War Office contractors struck to win minimum pay. With employers holding firm, the strike's leader, Joe Gribble, organized a march to London, initially without union approval, to “intimidate” the War Office into enshrining union wages in all army contracts. On May 8, 115 bootmakers marched, prompting Secretary of State for War Arnold-Forster to promise an inquiry into army contract wages. Trade unionists and socialists supported the marchers at a demonstration in Trafalgar Square on May 14, attended by an estimated 8,000–10,000 people. Following negotiations, the bootmakers won standard rates and the establishment of a conciliation board. Gribble remedied an industrial grievance using public protest and a mass show of working-class strength against the key player: the democratic state amenable to public opinion. Although the cause was less revolutionary than some socialist demonstrators believed, the march nevertheless ... log in or subscribe to read full text