A Short History of the T&G - Part 1 (1922-1969)
April 2020
This is Part 1 (of 2 Parts) of a short history of the T&G and features some of the key dates leading up to its birth and first 50 years.
In the opening years of the 1920s a series of conferences resulted in fourteen trade unions operating in the transport and general workers' sectors combining to form what was to be the largest trade union in British history. The Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU or T&G) officially came into existence on 1 January 1922. By the end of the decade it had absorbed nearly twenty further unions and it was to continue merging with smaller unions throughout its life, to a total of at least eighty. Two of its General Secretaries—Ernest Bevin and Frank Cousins—were to become Labour government ministers. In 2007 it amalgamated with another major union, Amicus (itself the product of a series of amalgamations), to form Unite.
Trade unions started with the industrialisation of the late 18th and the 19th centuries, which drew thousands of workers together in towns and cities to live and work in poverty. The success of British industry in the hundred years from 1780 was built on the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of workers who worked 14 to 18 hours a day for miserable wages in unsafe factories and lived in bare and comfortless homes.
Workers realised they could only fight ruthless employers and inhuman working conditions by banding together, and so trade unions were born - and fiercely opposed by the owners of industry. The most celebrated pioneers of British trade unionism are the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorset farm labourers deported to Australia for joining a union in 1834.
As communications improved, the influence of trade unionism grew. 1868 saw the birth of the Trades Union Congress, and the 1870s and 1880s brought organisation to a variety of key industries: gas workers, dockers, railwaymen, farm workers, builders, labourers, etc. Increasingly, trade unionists were able to apply political pressure - to give working people the vote, legalise trade unionism and bring in laws to improve conditions at work.
Key historical dates
1834 Tolpuddle Martyrs were deported to Australia for trade union activity.*
National Union of Vehicle Builders was formed. 100 years later in 1934, the union had 20,439 members which were divided into 150 branches. It merged with the T&G in 1972, forming a new automotive trade group within the TGWU.
1860 National Association of Operative Plasterers was formed as an amalgamation of three local societies. It immediately attracted a high membership for a union of the time, having 4,802 members in 1866, and although this fell to 2,400 by the end of the decade, it rose to 5,199 in 1876, representing nearly 20% of the total workforce.
1888 The “Match girl’s/women’s” strike took place.*
1889 Great strike for the “docker’s tanner” in London’s East End.*
1898 Scottish Commercial Motormen’s Union was formed.
1914-18 World War 1 During the war, union militancy was suspended. When peace came trade unions realised they had to reorganise to address a new economy in which many industries were in crisis. Two dockers' unions took the initiative in calling for the establishment of a new trade union to create "the best form of organisation to meet the new combination of capital in the shipping world."
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Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour MP. He co-founded and served as general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union in the years 1922–1940, and as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government. He succeeded in maximising the British labour supply, for both the armed services and domestic industrial production, with a minimum of strikes and disruption.
His most important role came as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour government, 1945–1951. He gained American financial support and aided in the creation of NATO. Bevin's tenure also saw the end of the Mandate of Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel. His biographer, Alan Bullock, said that Bevin "stands as the last of the line of foreign secretaries in the tradition created by Castlereagh, Canning and Palmerston in the first half of the 19th century". However, I think his finest tribute came from Clem Attlee.
Attlee had been interviewed by a BBC reporter in 1952 after the death of Stafford Cripps. After the broadcast, the reporter took Attlee to the hospitality room for a drink and in order to make conversation said:
"I suppose you will miss Sir Stafford, sir."
Attlee fixed him with his eye: "Did you know Ernie Bevin?"
"I have met him, sir," Phillips replied.
"There's the man I miss."
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1920 Docks Inquiry - As national organiser for the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union, Ernie Bevin presented the workers’ case at the Docks Inquiry. Over a two week period, the ‘Inquiry into Wages Rates and Conditions of Men Engaged in Dock and Waterside Labour’, chaired by the judge Lord Shaw, laid bare the “great human tragedy of men and women fighting year in and year out against the terrible economic conditions with which they have been surrounded”. Beyond pay and conditions, the trade unions’ call for the dignity of the working class was put “before the conscience of England”. The Inquiry published their report on 20 March 1920 and recommended a 44-hour week and national rate of 16s a day. Lord Shaw also recommended the establishment of the National Joint Council for Dock Labour as the mechanism for nation-wide collective bargaining.
1922 - The T&G was formed on 1 January 1922, with 350,000 members from 14 unions, including dockers, stevedores, lightermen, factory workers, transport workers and clerks. The union's first general secretary - and the architect of the amalgamation - was Ernie Bevin.
1924 The first minority Labour government was elected.*
1926 The General Strike. The General Strike was one of the most significant events in working-class history in the 20th century and the T&G was centrally involved. The coal owners wanted to cut the already low wages paid to miners and were supported by the government. Nearly a million miners refused to accept the demand for a longer working day and lower wages, which was recognised by the whole trade union movement as an attack on the living standards of all working people.
The TUC general council called a general strike which was supported by all the country's trade unions, including the 353,000 members of the T&G. The strike, which closed factories, transport and services throughout Britain, was called off after nine days without any concession by coal-owners or government. It was a defeat the unions did not fully recover from for a generation, as concerted government action reduced union membership and funds.*
1929 The second Labour government was elected. This government, led by Ramsay MacDonald, was engulfed by the worldwide economic crisis which began in 1929. Millions of British workers were made unemployed as factories, mills and mines closed throughout the country. Whole communities became destitute.*
1931 The Labour government fell over its failure to deal with unemployment. A National government was formed. *
1936 The Spanish Civil War between democrats and fascists began. Thousands of British workers went to fight for the Spanish republic as part of the International Brigades, convinced that unless fascism was stopped in Spain, it would advance elsewhere. The Spanish republic was defeated and it took a world war to stop fascism in the end. However, the heroism of the International Brigades, which included in their number subsequent T&G general secretary Jack Jones, is still celebrated.
1937 The unofficial “Coronation Strike” of London bus workers ended in defeat.
1940 Ernie Bevin became Minister of Labour in the wartime coalition government. Arthur Deakin was named as acting general secretary of the T&G.
1942 Joint Production Committees were set up in related industries.
T&G membership passed one million.
1945 The first majority Labour government was elected. Bevin was named as Foreign Secretary and succeeded by Deakin as T&G general secretary.
1946 -50 The Labour government formed the NHS and nationalized a large number of industries – steel, coal mines, the railways, gas and electricity. Roughly 20% of the national economy was controlled by the state employing a workforce of over two million people.
1947 The National Dock Labour Scheme was established which curbed the use of casual labour in ports.
1947 Shop stewards’ committees in engineering industries were formally recognised.
1949 In the atmosphere of the “cold war”, Communists were barred from holding office in the T&G. This ban was lifted in 1969.
1954-56. There were major disputes in the Midlands motor industry. In late June, the British Motor Corporation made six thousand workers at its Longbridge factory redundant without either pay or notice. The shop stewards' committee responded by calling a strike, which lasted for six weeks, strongly supported by Frank Cousins, despite the fact that it was the engineering union, the AEU, whose shop stewards had taken the lead.
1956 Jock Tiffin was elected as general secretary, but died shortly after taking office. Frank Cousins succeeded him.
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Frank Cousins (8 September 1904 – 11 June 1986) was a trade union leader and Labour MP. Frank was born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire. His father was a miner and Frank followed him into this industry in 1918, joining the Yorkshire miners’ Association. However, after five years he became a lorry driver, originally driving coal, and then in 1931 as a long-distance lorry driver, transporting meat between Scotland and London. He became a member of the road transport section of the T&G, of which he became a full-time official in Doncaster in July 1938. He was appointed National Secretary of Road Transport (Commercial) Group in October 1948. He was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in 1955, but resigned from this in March 1956.
Cousins was elected General Secretary in May 1956, following Jock Tiffin's death, and held the position until 1969. From 1956 to 1969, he was a member of the General Council of the TUC and was President of the International Transport Workers’ Federation from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1964.
Cousins played a significant role in helping Harold Wilson become leader of the Labour Party and served in Wilson's cabinet as Minister of Technology from October 1964 until his resignation on 11 June 1966. This was in protest against a government-backed law freezing incomes and prices.
He was elected as the MP for Nuneaton at a by-election in January 1965 and remained an MP until November 1966. During this period Harry Nicholas took over as acting general secretary of the TGWU.
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1957 Under Cousins’ leadership, the T&G began to adopt more progressive industrial and political policies, including support of nuclear disarmament.
1958 A major strike over wages occurred on London buses.
1964 A Labour government was elected with Harold Wilson as prime minister. Cousins became Minister of Technology until 1966 when he resigned. Harry Nicholas acted as general secretary in Cousins’ absence.
1969 The unions defeated Labour’s “In Place of Strife” which was a set of proposals to reduce union rights. Jack Jones succeeded Frank Cousins as general secretary.
( * More details can be found in the entries at www.madsmeds.org/trade-union-history )
If you would like more details about the history of the T&G then I would recommend reading the T&G publication “Members First – The Story of the T&G” and Andrew’ Murray’s “The T&G Story”. I have “borrowed” from both of these books in this article.
Solidarity
Brian Madican
April 2020
