The General Strike was the most significant British labour dispute of the twentieth century. It was a huge solidarity action in support of the miners' union.

The mines had been taken under government control during the First World War but were handed back to private ownership once the War ended. The miners were locked out and forced back to work after three months on strike protesting against wage cuts.

In June 1925 the mine-owners announced that they were going again to cut wages, and also to increase hours. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) offered its support to the miners' union the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, including strike action. Faced with a simultaneous mining and transport strike which it felt it could not defeat at this point, the Tory government offered a subsidy to the mining industry to maintain wages for a further nine months. It used the time gained to make extensive preparations.

Negotiations between the miners and mine-owners failed and with 800,000 coal miners locked out, the General Strike began on 3 May 1926. The TUC limited participants to railwaymen, transport workers, printers, dockers, ironworkers and steelworkers. The immediate and overwhelming response from the working class surprised both the TUC and the Government. 1.7 million workers went on strike especially in transport, bringing transport systems to a halt, and heavy industry, while newspapers were not printed.

The government had prepared for the strike over a period of nine months during which it provided a subsidy to the mine-owners. Using the Emergency Powers Act 1920 it set up the Organisation for Maintenance of Supplies. The authorities used volunteers (middle class university students etc) to run trains and buses and sent in troops to move supplies from the London docks. There were clashes between police and crowds in many areas and at least 4,000 strikers were arrested. There were attacks on buses and trains, including the derailing of the Flying Scotsman.

The strike was called off unilaterally by the TUC on 12 May with no guarantees of fair treatment for the miners - who fought on to bitter defeat in October.

Aftermath

The 1927 Trades Disputes and Trade Unions Act forbade sympathetic strikes and mass picketing. Trade union members had to contract in to the political levy. Civil Service unions were forbidden to affiliate to the TUC

The miners held out for a while but were starved back to work. Some were victimised and remained unemployed for many years.

The strike had little impact on trade union activity or industrial relations. Locally, many working people felt empowered by an experience which changed their outlook on the world and radicalised them.

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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

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  • President_Obama [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Goddamn I love r/UFOs. Not a critical thought in sight. Amazing "theories" (repeating what they heard in a SciFi film). Fully confident with their bs, and rabidly angry towards the out group.

    Just checking in twice a year and seeing a post with 14k upvotes, and this is the one guys. All of the previous ones were hoaxes, but this is it! It's [aliens/government/government aliens/multidimensional government aliens]

    • President_Obama [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      What if the paralell universes where UFOS come from are subatomic!

      Thought about this many times while on shrooms and LSD. Glad I'm not the only one to have had this exact thought!

      • President_Obama [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        [Video of "giant pyramid shaped UFO hovering in the clouds" above Shanghai]

        I sort by controversial, scroll for a bit, and finally find

        Shadow? I mean a giant UAP hovering over shanghai would have dozens of military aircraft circling it and Beijing in high alert, probably comms with Washington and Moscow blaring

        Unless they know they can't do shit to it

        Ah yes you see, this totally-a-giant-alien-spacecraft hovering above an area populated by 37 million people was just too scary, so they didn't do anything.

        Looks like an elaborate Chinese psy-op to scare Americans to me. ask yourself why a Chinese ufo video (not even a good one) is upvoted so heavily here. Put on that critical thinking cap please.

        Lot of this going on :amerikkka-clap: . There's also 3 Chinese people in the comments all saying "I work in the area, that's smog surrounding a building with a triangle roof, I see that multiple times a week". But, you know, they're disinformation agents. This is an interstellar spacecraft coming to look at some city lights and cars.

        This subreddit finds what looks like a fucking super bowl dorito ad and thinks that ET is finally coming down to suck and fuck the believers

    • THC
      ·
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator