Workers movements

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The dockers demanded 6d an hour, known as 'the docker's tanner', and a minimum of four hours' work each time they were taken on.

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Source A is useful because it shows the two main aims of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. First, it wanted to unite workers of every trade in one great union: the speaker calls on 'the tailor, the shoemaker, the builder and the spinner' to join together so that 'when one trade is attacked, all will support it'. This was new, because most earlier unions were local societies of a single trade. Second, the speech shows a much bigger, long-term aim: the union would one day 'employ its own members and own the fruits of its own labour', ending 'the age of masters'. This reflects the ideas of Robert Owen, the socialist mill owner who inspired the GNCTU when it was founded in February 1834 and who wanted to replace competition between employers and workers with co-operative production.

The provenance shows both the value and the limits of the source. As a speech to delegates, it shows the ambitions of the union's leaders and the ideas that inspired them, and its claim that workers 'produce all the wealth of this country, yet we live in want' shows their sense of injustice. However, it was meant to inspire, so it is idealistic and over-confident: 'United, we cannot fail'. It does not show the practical reality. The GNCTU claimed half a million members, but only a small fraction paid subscriptions, so it had little money. Many members wanted higher wages and protection rather than a new society.

Within months the union collapsed. Employers locked out union members and forced them to sign 'the document', as in Derby; strikes failed; the sentences on the Tolpuddle Martyrs frightened workers; and its leaders quarrelled. Overall, Source A is useful for showing the ambitious aims and Owenite ideas of the GNCTU, but it is less useful for understanding what ordinary members wanted or why the union failed.

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One similarity is that both involved rural labourers protesting against low wages and conditions imposed by landowners and the laws they made. In 1381 peasants resented the Statute of Labourers of 1351, which tried to hold wages down at the levels that had existed before the Black Death, as well as serfdom and the poll taxes. In 1833 the farm labourers of Tolpuddle formed a friendly society because local farmers and landowners had cut their wages to about 7 shillings a week and threatened to cut them further. In both cases country workers believed that the landowning class was using its power to keep them poor. Both were also inspired by men of religious faith: John Ball, a priest, preached that all people were equal, and George Loveless, the Tolpuddle leader, was a Methodist preacher whose verses began 'God is our guide'.

A second similarity is that the authorities punished both harshly to deter others, but both became lasting symbols of resistance. In 1381 Wat Tyler was killed at Smithfield, Richard II revoked the charters of freedom he had promised, and John Ball and many other rebels were executed. In 1834 the authorities used the Unlawful Oaths Act of 1797 to convict six Tolpuddle labourers for swearing a secret oath, and they were sentenced to seven years' transportation; the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, supported the sentence as a warning to trade unionists. In both cases the authorities wanted to show that challenges to the social order would not be tolerated. Yet both events were remembered as examples of ordinary people standing up to injustice: the Peasants' Revolt inspired later radicals, and the Tolpuddle Martyrs became heroes of the trade union movement, celebrated at an annual festival in Tolpuddle.

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Individuals have played an important part in improving the rights of workers, as leaders, campaigners and politicians. However, they were not the main factor. Workers' rights improved mainly through collective organisation - workers acting together - and through favourable economic and political circumstances, and some powerful individuals worked to restrict workers' rights rather than improve them.

There are many examples of individuals who made a difference. Francis Place and Joseph Hume campaigned for the repeal of the Combination Acts in 1824, which made unions legal. Lord Ashley carried the Mines Act of 1842 and helped win the factory laws. William Allan and Robert Applegarth built respectable New Model Unions and impressed the Royal Commission of 1867-69, which helped to win the Trade Union Act of 1871. Annie Besant's article 'White Slavery in London' helped spark the match girls' strike of 1888, and Ben Tillett, Tom Mann and John Burns led the dockers to victory in 1889. In the 20th century Ernest Bevin, as Minister of Labour in the Second World War, gave unions a central role in government, and Barbara Castle introduced the Equal Pay Act of 1970.

However, individuals succeeded only when they had strong collective support. The dock strike was won because up to about 100,000 workers came out together and because Australian workers sent about 30,000 pounds. The Tolpuddle Martyrs were pardoned in 1836 because of a mass demonstration and a petition of about 800,000 signatures. When leaders lacked such support, they failed: Robert Owen's GNCTU collapsed in 1834, and Arthur Scargill could not unite the miners in 1984-85. Individuals in power also restricted workers' rights: Lord Melbourne supported the transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and Margaret Thatcher's governments passed laws in the 1980s that limited picketing and required ballots before strikes.

The economy was often decisive. The trade boom of 1888-89 helped the new unions win, full employment after 1945 strengthened unions, and unemployment in the 1920s and industrial decline in the 1980s weakened them. Government and the law set the framework: the Acts of 1871 and 1875 came after skilled workers in the towns gained the vote in 1867, which made politicians such as Gladstone and Disraeli want working-class support. War gave unions great influence, because governments in both world wars needed workers' cooperation, and union membership rose sharply. Ideas mattered too: socialism inspired the new unions and led to the creation of the Labour Party, which gave workers a voice in Parliament.

Overall, individuals were important in leading and publicising workers' struggles and in passing laws, but they were not the main factor. Workers' rights improved mainly because workers organised collectively and because economic conditions, the vote and war gave them bargaining power. Individuals made the most difference when they could channel that collective strength.