City of Stoke On Trent Branch  - What The Unions Have Done For Us

The History Of International Women's Day

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Martyrs to the cause

You’re miles away from home, friends and family; the sun is beating down on your blistered back, your shoulders throb and the only other people in sight are brutal criminals or prison officers; the view will be the same for the next seven years. Your crime? Organising a union. No, this is not an alternative 2005 where the Tory party have just won a general election, but the fate of six brave pioneers from the 1830s called the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Workers in 21st-century Britain enjoy many rights, including the right to come together in trade unions to defend their interests. And since 2000 there has been a legal right to have those unions recognised so they can bargain collectively and represent members when problems arise at work. For this, you can thank the men from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle who were transported to Australia in the early 19th century for daring to form a union to protect their wages.

George Loveless, James Loveless, James Brine, James Hammett, John Standfield and Thomas Standfield were agricultural labourers. In 1830, their work attracted a wage of nine shillings a week. But agriculture was in a state of depression and landowners increasingly offered less money for the same work. By 1833, the weekly wage had dropped to seven shillings. Worried the situation was spiralling out of control towards poverty, the Tolpuddle men founded a Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, which grew rapidly through the winter of 1833-4. So when spring 1834 came around, bringing with it the start of a new working year on Dorset's farms, they decided to make a stand.

Faced with attempts by landowners to cut the weekly wage still further to just six shillings, the men agreed they would not accept any work for less than 10 shillings a week. But this was the 1830s. Trade unions were a new concept, and a dangerous one as far as the employers were concerned. The six were arrested and charged with administering an illegal oath – under an 18th-century Act designed to quash mutinies in the navy. Tried by a jury of landowners in 1834, the six men were found guilty - even though the youngest, James Hammett hadn't even been at the meeting where the oath was sworn - and sentenced to seven years hard labour in Australia. This harsh injustice had the opposite effect from what was intended and caused an immediate outcry – the public was up in arms and England's fledgling union movement galvanised.

On 21 April, one month after the trial, a procession of 30,000 people – including members of 35 unions – marched to Whitehall  to present Home Secretary Lord Melbourne with a huge 200,000 signature petition calling for the men to be pardoned and the sentences to be quashed. He refused. But a year later the campaign had grown in support and power. Lord Melbourne became prime minister following the election of a new government, and, eventually, was obliged to sanction the move he had previously shirked.

In March 1836, two years after the trial, the new home secretary, Lord John Russell granted free pardons to all six men. That was not the end of the matter, though. There was a further delay before the government offered the men free passage back to Britain.

George Loveless arrived back in the country in the summer of 1837. James Loveless, James Brine and Thomas and John Stanfield came home the following spring and James Hammett arrived in August 1839. The Loveless family then became involved in the Chartist campaign for democracy, but the men found it difficult to settle back in society and, in 1844, all of them emigrated to Canada, except Hammett who stayed in Dorset till his death in 1891, and is buried in Tolpuddle churchyard.

The tale of the Tolpuddle Martyrs is a cautionary one: their treatment at the hands of the landowners and courts showed the risks of standing alone against powerful forces. But it is also an inspiring one. The public outcry and solidarity that saw their sentences overturned shows us what can be achieved when we are united.

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What Did The Unions Ever Do For Us

The Eight Hour Working Day The origins of May Day as an international celebration of working life lie not in communism but in Chicago, where four anarchists were executed for "incitement" following nationwide strikes for an eight hour day on 1 May 1886.  At the time, 12 hour and even longer shifts were commonplace in the US, as they remain today in many parts of the world. In France and Germany some trade unions now want to restrict the working week still further so that employment can be more evenly shared - and a less dominant feature of daily life.	A Living Wage In 1888 the activist Annie Besant wrote a newspaper article called "White Slavery in London" about the dreadful pay and dangerous conditions suffered by young women working at the Bryant and May match factory. Three girls suspected of giving her information were sacked - and 1,500 women walked out in sympathy.  The firm capitulated. Many countries now have a legal minimum wage - a formal, if minimal, recognition of union demands for human dignity.
Unite and Resist Such benefits have only been won by workers acting together through unions, and in alliance with other social movements or political parties, for the common good. In recent years, many rights have been lost or restricted - and inequality has spiralled to historically unprecedented levels as a result.	The Vote The right to vote was conceded only reluctantly. Unions played a major role in founding (and funding) the labour and progressive movements that pushed for "universal suffrage".
To Each According to Their Needs The idea that essential services, like healthcare and education, should be "public" and "free" to all at the point of delivery was first advanced by trade unions. Their members still provide many of these services, which have been starved of public funding. The sense of public service - every bit as much as self-interest - is reflected in union resistant to "structural adjustment" and privatization.	Democracy at Work Experience in Scandinavia, Germany and Japan suggests that democratic engagement at the work place promotes, rather than restricts, rewarding work. Union members have always insisted on having some influence over the decisions of management, and they have helped to generate alternative forms of ownership and control, including co-operatives and mutual societies.

Thanks to Andy Bentley for the information on this article published in the second issue of Stoke Unison International Review and also to the New Internationalist, December 01 edition.