In early November 2020 a second lockdown began. At the same time, Commando was told he was under threat of redundancy. The second thing somewhat eclipsed the first, obviously. Escaping into the past was a blessing in many ways. Learning about the General Strike and the terrible depravations the strikers went through during those nine May days in 1926 put things into perspective.
The strike began with the miners. Coal prices had fallen thanks to the 1924 Dawes Plan, which allowed Germany to export free coal to France and Italy as reparations for the Great War. In 1925, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, reintroduced the gold standard (where the value of currency is based on a fixed quantity of gold). This raised interest rates and made the pound so strong it was difficult to export goods competitively. The economy became very unstable and the mine owners cut wages to maintain their profits. In the previous seven years miners’ pay had been cut from £6 to £3 18 shillings. For the mine owners it was a question of profit, for the miners, it was a matter of survival. When the mine owners decided they wanted the miners to work more hours for the same money too, it was a step too far.
The Trade Union Congress promised to support the miners. Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin tried to head off trouble by announcing a nine month subsidy to maintain the miners wages and a Royal Commission to look into the problems in the mining industry. The Commission recommended reorganisation and improvement of the mining industry, the withdrawal of the government subsidy and a reduction of miner’s wages by 13.5%. Unsurprisingly, the Miners’ Federation refused. After unsuccessful negotiations between the TUC and the government a General Strike was called beginning at one minute to midnight on 3 May.
In Southampton the main players were the dockers, transport workers and railway men. All were almost as poorly paid as the miners. The dockers, in particular, lived in poverty. They had never had guaranteed work. Each morning they would go to the stand at the docks and hope to be picked for a shift. If they weren’t lucky, they got no money. Fights often broke out. Sadly, the poor strikers with their cries of “Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day,” never really stood a chance.
Both the government and the TUC were terrified that the strike would be taken over by bolsheviks and could even provoke a revolution, similar to the one in Russia in 1917. In an effort to avoid this, the TUC limited the strike to railwaymen, transport workers, printers, dockers, ironworkers and steelworkers. Meanwhile, the government had used the nine month subsidy and the Royal Commission as a guise to secretly create the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies to minimise the impact of the strike. The OMS was made up of volunteer workers and armed forces who basically broke the strike. The strike was doomed before it even began.
The General Strike ended on 12 May 1926. The TUC presented this to the strikers as a victory. They told them that the government had offered a guarantee there would be no victimisation of strikers. What they didn’t tell them was that the government had also said it had “no power to compel employers to take back every man who had been on strike.” Many of the striking Southampton dockers found themselves consistently overlooked on the stand each morning. Some never got work at the docks again. The poor miners carried on striking alone for several months but, by November, most had been forced back to work to stop their families starving. They had no choice but to accept the longer hours and lower wages. The only winners were the mine owners.
Reading about the struggles of the strikers, especially some of the personal experiences, and walking around trying to imagine what it must have been like put my own worries into perspective. Not being able to go to a pub or a restaurant, having to wear a mask in the shops and not being able to socialise for a few weeks was not the end of the world. Even the prospect of Commando being made redundant was nothing compared to the strikers’ problems. We would not starve. We had a warm house and food in the cupboard, there would be money to see us through. It might not be quite what we’d expected at this moment in our lives but none of it was a complete disaster.
There’s nothing like a knowledge of the past to make you grateful for what we have today.
You’re right. The more you look back at how people used to live, the troubles they went through, the more you realise how easy we have it today.
Wishing you & Commando both the best in the hope that a redundancy does not transpire. Chin up girl, that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
Thank you. It did actually transpire but it’s all good. We are at an age when slowing down isn’t a bad thing and we’re surviving. He’s actually enjoying himself doing less stressful and demanding work now and I have some things in the pipeline too.
The miners were treated appallingly, as were the men in the other industries involved. I think most of our current daily problems are minor by comparison, and also pale into insignificance compared with many other countries in the world today. When I am struggling to find room in the cupboards for the latest grocery delivery I remind myself of that!
I do hope Commando wasn’t made redundant last year, as despite what you say about it not being the end of the world it must have been a very worrying time for you both.
The General Strike was a terrible time for working class people in this country. I don’t think people today can imagine the grinding poverty they lived in. My father-in-law’s father was a docker and he would tell tales of his mother pawning her shoes and walking home barefoot so she could afford food for the family. People are so lucky today. They have so much, yet often take it for granted.
Commando was made redundant but it didn’t turn out too badly. He’s actually enjoying the work he does now and spending a bit more time at home. Money isn’t everything and we have enough to get by.