of the competing unions. The two trades overlap in a few shipbuilding jobs, but in nine-tenths of their work it would be impossible for an engineer to take the place of the plumber, or a ship- wright that of a joiner, or vice versd. In strategic position the plumber differs fundamentally from the engineer, and the joiner from the shipwright The engineering and shipbuilding trades are subject to violent fluctuations, which depend upon the alternate inflations and depressions of the national commerce. The building trades, on the other hand, with which nine-tenths of the joiners and plumbers must be counted, vary considerably according to the season of the year, but fluctuate comparatively little from year to year ; and the general fluctuations to which they are subject do not coincide with those of the shipbuilding and engineering industries. By the time that the wave of expansion has reached the building trades, the staple industries of the country are already in the trough of the succeeding depression. It would have been difficult to have persuaded a Newcastle engineer or a shipwright in the spring of 1893, when 20 per cent of his colleagues were out of work, that the plumbers and carpenters were well advised in choosing that particular moment to press for better terms. Finally, we have the almost insuperable difficulty of securing adequate representation for the 9000 plumbers, scattered in every town amid the 87,000 engineers ; and, on the other hand, the 14,000 shipwrights concentrated in a few ports amid the 49,000 joiners spread over the whole country.
' Preface to Rules of the United Pattern-makers' Association (Manchester, 1892).
Interunion Relations 131
plaining in 1890, "of the great inconvenience and difficulty experienced in the settlement of wages and other general questions between employers and employed"; and ascribing the constant friction that prevailed to the " want of uniformity of action and similarity of demand put forward by the various societies representing the skilled engineering labor." 'Collective Bargaining becomes impracticable when different' societies are proposing new regulations on overtime in- consistent with each other, and when rival organisations, each claiming to represent the same section of the trade, are putting forward divergent claims as to the methods and| rates of remuneration. The employers were driven to insist that the " deputations meeting them to negotiate … should represent all the societies interested in the question underv consideration." ^ _\ And when the method to be employed is not Collective Bargaining but Parliamentary action, federal union is even more necessary.\ If the mechanics in the great government arsenals and factories desire modifica- tions in their conditions of employment, union of purpose among the tens of thousands of engineering electors all over
the country is indispensable for success.
>§o long, however, as the Amalgamated Society of Engineers claims to include within its own ranks every kind of engineering mechanic, and to decide by itself the. policy to be pursued, a permanent and effective federal organisation is impossible. Any attempt to combine in the same industry the mutually inconsistent schemes of amal- gamation and federation may even intensify the friction. I Thus we find, in 1888, to quote again from a report of the
1 Circular of the Iron Trades Employers' Association on the Overtime Ques- tion, October 1891. We attribute the practical failure of the Engineering operatives to check systematic overtime, an evil against which they have been striving ever since 1836, to the chaotic state of the organisation of the trade. A similar lack of federal union stood in the way of the London bookbinders in 1893, when they succeeded without great diflEculty in obtaining an Eight Hours' Day from those employers who were bookbinders only. In the great printing estab- lishments, such as Waterlow's and Spottiswoode's, they found it practically impossible to arrange an Eight Hours' Day in the binding departments, whilst the printers continued to work for longer hours.
132 Trade Union Structure
United Pattern-makers' Association, "the sectional societies (on North-east Coast), indignant at the arbitrary manner in which the Amalgamated Society of Engineers had acted, federated together with the avowed object of resisting a repetition of any such behaviour in case of further wages movements, and asserting their right to be consulted before definite action was taken. … It is impossible," continues the report, "to dissociate the action of our contemporaries (the Amalgamated Society of Engineers) from their recent unsuccessful attempt at amalgamating the various sectional societies ; and it would seem that they, finding it impossible to absorb their weaker brethren by fair means, had resolved to shatter the confidence they have in their unions by showing them their impotence to influence, of themselves, their relations between their employers and members." ^ The "Federal Board," thus formed by the smaller engineering societies on Tyneside in antagonism to their more powerful rival, lasted for three years, but failed, it is needless to say, in securing industrial peace. A more important and more promising attempt has been marred by the persistent absten- tion of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Hn 1890, Mr. Robert Knight, the able general secretary of the United Society of Boilermakersjsucceeded, after repeated failures, in drawing together in a powerful national federation the great majority of the unions connected with the engineering and shipbuilding industries. This Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades of the United Kingdom "J includes such powerful organisations as the United Society of Boilermakers, 40,776 members; the Associated Shipwrights' Society, 14,235 members ; and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, 48,631 members, who are content to meet on equal terms such smaller unions as the Steam-Engine Makers' Society, 7000 members ; the United Operative Plumbers' Society, 8758 members; the United Pattern-makers' Associa- tion, 3636 members; the National Amalgamated Society of Painters and Decorators, and half a dozen more minute 1 Monthly Report of the United Pattern-maker^ Society, January 1889.
Interunion Relations 133
sectional societies. fThis federation has now lasted over seven years, and has fulfilled a useful function in settling disputes between the different unions. \ But as an instrument for<j Collective Bargaining with me employers, or for taking^ concerted action on behalf of the whole industry, it is useless ^ so long as 'the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, with itsj 87,455 members, holds resolutely aloof. And the Amal- ; gamated Society of Engineers, still wedded to the ideal of one undivided union, cannot bring itself to accept as per- manent colleagues, the sectional societies which it regards as illegitimate combinations undermining its own position.^
' The first numbers of the Amalgamated Engineer^ Monthly Journal—an official organ started on the accession of Mr. George Barnes to the general secretaryship—shows that thinking members of the Amalgariation are coming roimd to the idea of federal union with the sectional societies, and others con- nected with the engineering and shipbuilding industry. Thus Mr. Tom Mann, in the opening number (January 1897, pp. lo-ii), declares "that the bulk of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers' men are ashamed … of their present power- lesscess. … Whence comes the weakness ? Beyond any doubt it is primarily due to the feet that no concerted action is taken by the various unions. … That is, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers has not yet learnt the necessity for forming part of a real federation of all trades connected with this particular profession. … What member can look back over the last few years and not blush with shame at what has taken place between the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and the Plumbers, and the Boilermakers and Shipbuilders ; and who can derive satisfac- tion in reflecting upon the want of friendly relations between the Amalgamated Society of Engineers … and the Pattern-makers and Shipwrights, and Steam- Engine Makers, etc. ? A fighting force is wanted … and this can only be obtained by a genuine federation of societies connected with the trades referred to. … The textile workers (cotton) have federated the various societies, and are able to secure united action on a scale distinctly in advance of that of the engineering trades." And in the succeeding issue Mr. John Bums vigorously strikes the same note. " To really prevent this internecine and disintegrating strife, the first step for the Amalgamated Engineers this year is to join at once with all the other unions in [a] federation of engineering trades." Two months later (April 1897, pp. 12–14) comes a furious denunciation of the proposal, signed "Primitive," who invokes the "shades of Allan and eloquence of Newton " against this attempted undoing of their work. "Just because a few interested labor busybodies have
