“A predictable but unavoidable event”. Is this an adequate e

This brings us to the workers. It could be argued that they were the innocent party here. They were naturally against the desires of the owners. They saw the industries failure to modernize as its biggest problem. It already didn’t provide them with sufficient wages and a decent standard of living. A.J cook said on behalf on the miners, “not a penny of the pay, not a minute of the day” (A.J.P Taylor 1965:243). The miners also had demands of there own, they wanted the nationalisation of the industry alongside a return to a national minimum wage. The owners were set against this. The Trade Unions were acting on behalf of the workers, the newly reformed

The events of 1926 had left a scar on all involved. The coal owners were keen to enforce their victory. Lansbury’s Labour weekly said a week after the strike finished “the bosses in all trades felt, that now they had the Trade Union movement at their feet, all they had to do was stamp on it. (Lansbury’s Labour Weekly May 1926). The real question is to ask why did the strike fail? Referring back to the title, this conflict was a predictable event. A event the workers could have won. They was always going to be a point where the owners and workers collided. 1926 offered the circumstances that were required for it. This could be called the ‘class war’, others didn’t believe it was. Karl Radek a Russian communist said during the strike “Indeed it was not a revolutionary movement, but a strange mere wage dispute” (Mitchinson, Phil “Britain 1926 General Strike: on the Verge of Revolution”). The loss of the strike had left many workers disenchanted. Margaret Morris says the strike had no revolutionary intentions, it was a political act (M. Morris 1976:275). These opinions counteract the explanation that it was a predictable. It was not revolutionary, thus rebuking the Marxist natural revolution theory, but this had nothing to with revolution. Was the event unavoidable? It goes without saying that if some point either side had given any concessions they the strike could have been avoided. Saying that, if it had been avoided in 1926 it could have happened somewhere else in the future. Was the general strike a ‘class war’? If it was, then the aftermath saw the moment when class war ceased to shape the pattern of British industrial relations, it was the clearest display of class war in British history says A.J.P Taylor (A.J.P Taylor 1965:250). If this was indeed true the General Strike was unavoidable. The industrial situation allowed there to be conflict, unlike other areas of British society at the time. People were becoming better educated and more conscious of their rights. They wanted to be treated fairly, involved in politics and to have better standard of living . Though they were unique factors in the build up to the General strike that allowed in to take place in 1926, at the background lay the fundamental reasons of class divide which made the strike predictable and unavoidable because the hierarchy were unwilling to concede and share out the power and wealth.

1926). The Trade Unions responded with their own paper the British worker which counteracted the Gazette claims each following day. It said on the 7th May ‘the sole aim is to secure for the miners a d

Some topics in this essay:
Trade Unions, AJP Taylor, RA Florey, GW McDonald, World War, Samuel Report, Margaret Morris, Union Conservatives, Strike Industries, Fit Heroes’, trade unions, ajp taylor, coal owners, samuel report, 1926 strike, government intervention, strike ‘class, ‘class war’, trade union, owners workers, 1926 strike verge, phil “britain 1926, “britain 1926 strike, mitchinson phil “britain, coal owners believed,