The 1919 Railway Strike and the 1920 Mining Strike

In September 1919, the NUR went its own way. Confronted with a sharp and unexpected reduction in wages, they decided to call their men out on strike. Although instructed to do so by his Executive, J.H. Thomas refused to inform the partners in the Triple Alliance. The strength of his case lay in his insistence that it was a wage dispute pure and simple. Nothing would obscure it more darkly than the spread of the strike to other industries. Partly for this reason, and partly to avoid delay when swift action was imperative, he did not call in the Triple Alliance.

Clause 7 of the constitution granted each union the autonomy to act in isolation from its partners. Nevertheless J.H. Thomas's step caused a lot of ill-feeling among the leadership of the alliance. Soon after the settlement Robert Williams complained that the railway men had not used the machinery of the alliance, and that from ‘common courtesy standpoint' the alliance should have been informed. Despite that, the Alliance formed a committee of fourteen leading trade unionists who helped to negotiate a settlement.   In this settlement the railway unions - NUR, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) and the Railways Clerks Association (RCA) - were promised equal representation with the railway companies on central and national wages boards, which would settle wage rates and other conditions of service.

A year later in September 1920, the miners refused a court of inquiry to settle a wage dispute. They decided to strike, and to ask the Triple Alliance for support. Again a unilateral action of one of the affiliated bodies embarrassed the other partners. J.H. Thomas, who a year before did not want to appeal for assistance to the alliance because of a 'pure and simple’ wage dispute, was asked for support in another 'pure and simple  wage dispute. He stated that if it was to be a Triple Alliance fight, the railway men were as entitled to share in all the deliberations as the miners. Up to then, he argued, in accordance with the constitution, it had been a miners’ fight. However, he said, “if, on the other hand, it is going to be a Triple Alliance fight it immediately comes out of the hands of the Miners’ Federation in that sense”.

The MFGB, however, did not let it come out of their hands. They had decided to go on strike, and rejected the advice of the railway men and the transport workers to accept a court of inquiry, a course of action that earlier in 1920 was followed by the dockers, and with success. They felt they could do better by direct negotiations with the Government without the interference of their alliance partners. Lloyd George was quite determined to show that the Government still was master of the situation. In September 1920 he wrote in a letter to Bonar Law:

If the working classes are united against us, the outlook is grave and the gravity would be intensified if what I call intellectual liberalism unites with Labour against us. The great struggle which is coming must not be partisan. I have been thinking a good deal about the situation here, and I have become more and more convinced that the time has arrived for coming to grips with the conspiracy which is seeking to utilise Labour for the purpose of overthrowing the existing organisation of the time. This opportunity will show itself over the miners’ demand. I think it would be a mistake if the fight had come sooner - the nation had not settled down, and the restlessness which affected the heart, the nerve and the blood of the people, was a dangerous element which it is well we should have given time to quiet. Now is the acceptable moment for putting everything to the test. We must show Labour that the Government mean to be masters - I need hardly say this Government, but the Government of the land; but we must carry with us every phase of rational sane well-ordered opinion. To use the old phrase, we must have everyman of goodwill, without distinction of party, on our side. There must be no suspicion that we are utilizing conditions in order to carry out or to return to a reactionary regime. Hence my plea for avoiding anything in the nature of precipitancy.

Lloyd George was confident, indeed, that the Triple Alliance would fail this test, that it would appear to be nothing more than a paper tiger. Therefore he was quite taken aback when the miners went on strike on October 16th and when the NUR announced, on October 20th, that its members would follow suit four days later, if the negotiations were not resumed. His answer was the Emergency Powers Bill, which was rushed through Parliament. This Bill gave the Government certain powers if any action had been taken or was immediately threatened of such a mature and on so extensive a scale as to calculated, by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel or light, or with the means of locomotion, to deprive the community, or any substantial portion of it, of the essentials of life. A settlement was reached, however, on October 28th, preventing the railwaymen from coming out on strike. The Government avoided a direct confrontation with two of the three bodies of the Triple Alliance, and prepared itself for the next and decisive battle.