Britain's century of strike action

Recent months have seen thousands of workers - including nurses, railway employees and postal staff go on strike around the United Kingdom. RICHARD TOYE explores the nation's history of industrial action, and the extent to which it has been driven by political ideology or practical concerns

-  RICHARD TOYE

Radical action? Members of the National Union of Seamen at a rally in Liverpool calling for shorter hours and higher wages, May 1966. Prime minister Harold Wilson's bid to link the strike to communism sparked ridicule

The widespread disruption caused by the recent series of strikes in the UK-in which even driving test examiners have laid down their iPads has led to comparisons with the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent, when large-scale action across a range of industries contributed to the fall of the Labour government led by James Callaghan. The current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was not yet born in 1979, and memories of its events are now fading. Nevertheless, they retain a powerful hold on the political imagination, and have eclipsed other periods of disruption which were of equivalent historical significance.

With important exceptions, the British trades union movement has focused on improving pay and conditions rather than on overtly political objectives. By the turn of the 20th century, after decades of struggle, the union movement had become well established, with more than 2 million members - including many unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Moreover, the Labour Representation Committee was founded in 1900 with the purpose of providing "a distinct Labour group in parliament" in order to promote "legislation in the direct interests of labour". After a slow start, 29 Labour MPs were elected at the general election of 1906. They helped secure a Trades Disputes Act, restoring union rights that had been removed by the courts. Here was evidence that legal change could be achieved incrementally in the House of Commons; on the ground, unions could concentrate on bettering the positions of their own members via collective bargaining.