50 Years Ago: Proposal to abolish strikes

At the recent Trades Union Congress. . . a resolution was moved on the Friday severely condemning the Bill introduced into Parliament by Mr. Will Crooks to end industrial disputes. . .

Briefly, it is a bill that seeks to abolish strikes altogether. It lays it down that employers and employees should give at least thirty days’ notice of an intended change affecting conditions of employment with respect to wages and hours; that it shall be unlawful for any employer to declare or cause a lock-out, or for any employee to go on strike on account of any dispute before or during a reference of such a dispute to a board of conciliation and investigation, any employer declaring or causing a lockout being liable to a fine of not less than £20 nor more than £200 for each day or part of a day that such lock-out exists, and any employee going on strike being liable to a fine of not less than £2 nor more than £10 per day. (Why didn’t Mr. Crooks make the employees’ fine £100 or £1,000 per day while he was about it? The modesty of the bill in only claiming £10 per day from a man who is probably striking for a living wage is distinctly rich.)

A further clause in the bill declares that any person who incites, encourages, or aids in any manner any employer to declare and continue a lock-out, or any employee to go or continue on strike, shall be liable to a fine of not less than £10 nor more than £200.

From the SOCIALIST STANDARD, October 1911.

[Other Labour M.P.’s who supported the Bill, which was not passed, were Henderson, Barnes, Fenwick and Enoch Edwards; the last-named said it was “inadvertently” as he gave his name without reading the Bill and did not approve of it. The T.U.C. resolution of condemnation wits passed unanimously.]