Реферат: General Strike Of 1926 Essay Research Paper

the government refused to intervene and the TUC could not openly challenge the

government there was no chance for a successful end and the TUC had to call off

the strike.

A general confusion on the side of the trade unions and a principal lack of

communication between the different parties surrounded the circumstances of this

surrender. Sir Herbert Samuel lead the final negotiations based on his

memorandum, but he did not have any authority from the government. The

Negotiating Committee of the TUC was well aware of this fact but nonetheless it

expected Samuel to provide an accurate reflection of what the gov-ernment was

prepared to do. However, the trade union side thought that the strike was in

decline and was losing more and more of its faith in its success, and therefore

accepted the Samuel Memorandum without the miners ac-cepting, which, of course,

would have been crucial for the signing of a final agreement. Therefore neither

the government nor the miners, and of course, neither the employers were

involved in the negotiations which the Nego-tiating Committee thought to have

turned in its favour. Only after they had called off the General Strike did they

realised that they had nothing in their hands.

While the miners were left to fight alone until their humiliating defeat in

November 1926, the other workers re-turned to work where they faced their

strengthened employers. In some trades, such as railways and printing, work-ers

suffered widespread victimisation . The real extent of victimisation, however,

is very difficult to estimate be-cause besides the dismissal of militants and

the replacement of workers by volunteers, there was also an increase in

redundancy due to the reduced circumstances of many trades. Nevertheless most

employers tried to reinstate their men under new conditions which meant new

bargaining arrangements and some times substantial wage cuts. In the long term,

however, employers did not exploit their victory and showed an increasingly

moderate behaviour and the willingness to collaborate. The symbol of this new

climate became the Mond-Turner talks where the General Council together with