British Coal Mining Strikes 1893–1940: Dimensions, Distribution and Persistence
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1990.tb00999.x |
| Date | 01 November 1990 |
| Author | Quentin Outram,David N. Smith,Roy Church |
| Published date | 01 November 1990 |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
28:3
November 1990 0007-1080
$3.00
British
Coal
Mining Strikes
1893-1940:
Dimensions, Distribution and
Persistence
Roy
Church
*,
Quentin Outram
t
and David
N.
Smith#
Final version accepted
1
May 1990
ABSTRACT
Strikes in manufacturing
are
known to be highly concentrated in a small
number of plants. This study extends the analysis of strike concentration to
coal mining and
is
the first study
of
strike concentration with significant
temporal scope. The authors show that strikes were also highly concentrated
in coal mining; that the prevalence
of
recorded strike activity
was
far
from
complete; that there was
a
rapid turnover in the population of highly strike-
prone collieries and places; and that persistent strike activity was rare. These
results afford a new perspective on strike concentration, the research
implications
of
which are drawn
out
in the final section.
INTRODUCTION
The recent history
of
strikes
in
Britain has done much to confound the
analyses, explanations and predictions
of
earlier industrial relations writers.
Once confident assertions about the causes and dimensions
of
strikes, based
largely on aggregate-level studies
of
industrial and regional variations in
strike activity, have been superceded by more subtle analyses
of
strikes in
particular social settings and as manifestations
of
wider social relationships
in and, in some cases, beyond the work-place (Cronin 1987; Edwards 1983).
In particular, disaggregated analyses
of
strike activity at plant level in
manufacturing have revealed significant variations in strike experience
within industries.
Seminal in this reorientation
of
interest in strikes has been the study by
Smith et
al.
(1978), first reported anonymously in the Department of
*Professor Roy Church, University
of
East Anglia.
tDr
Quentin Outram, University
of
Leeds.
$Dr
David Smith, University
of
East Anglia and University
of
Leeds.
330
Brifih Journal
of
Industrial Relations
Employment Gazette
(November 1976), which reported that, far from being
a widespread experience, strikes were in fact concentrated in a minority
of
strike-prone plants. It was found that the majority of British manufacturing
plants-on average 98 per cent
-
were free from stoppages in any one year,
while over a three-year period only
5
per cent
of
plants experienced any
stoppages. Moreover,
of
this
5
per cent, a small proportion -just 0.25 per
cent of all manufacturing plants
-
accounted for two-thirds
of
all days lost in
manufacturing and a quarter of all recorded strikes (Smith
et al.
1978:
55).
Defining industrial conflict more broadly than recorded strikes, subse-
quent surveys of manufacturing industry (e.g. Brown 1981; Edwards 1981)
have revealed rather more widespread experience
of
industrial action than
suggested by Smith
et al.;
nevertheless, it remains the case that, in manufac-
turing at least, strikes have been concentrated in a relatively small number of
strike-prone plants. Stimulated by these findings, a number of researchers
have attempted
to
extend our understanding of why this should be the case,
and subsequent literature has focused in particular on the relationship
between plant size and the incidence of strikes (Blanchflower and Cubbin
1986; Churnside and Creigh 1981; Edwards 1981; Prais 1978), while in the
North American context recent research into strike activity has confirmed a
growing emphasis on analysis of ‘micro-data’ at the level of the firm
or
establishment (Gramm 1986; Gunderson
ef al.
1986; Jones and Walsh 1984).
While the result
of
this work has been
to
advance our understanding of
strike activity in manufacturing, the experience of other sectors has been
somewhat neglected, most notably in the so-called ‘special case’ (Turner
1963: 8) of coal mining. It is well known that British coal mining as a whole is
unusually strike-prone. The traditional bitterness of coalfield industrial
relations, the miners’ periodic clashes with governments and the industry’s
exceptional postwar strike record have reinforced the picture of coal miners
as among the most militant and strike-prone of workers. With thisexperience
in mind,
it
might be concluded, as the
Departmentof Employment Gazettedid
(1976: 1220), that Britain ‘apparently suffers from a concentration of stop-
pages in the docks, in coal mining and in a small proportion (between 2 and
5
per cent) of plants in manufacturing industry’. But how accurate a picture is
this? Can it be assumed that in coal mining, unlike manufacturing, the in-
dustry’s ‘plants’ -in this case collieries- have been uniformly strike-prone?
Surprisingly, perhaps, relatively little attention has been paid to these
important questions. Somewhat earlier than the study by Smith
et al.
into
manufacturing industry, McCormick (1969) found evidence in Yorkshire
coalfield strikes between 1949 and 1963 to indicate that there may be
substantial inter-colliery differences in strike activity. McCormick’s regional
study, however, is exceptional and has not been followed by systematic
investigation on a national scale of wider experience of strike activity in coal
mining. In the absence
of
such research, coal mining’s high profile in the
aggregate statistics of strike activity in the recent past and, not least, the
dramatic intervention of the miners’ strike
of
1984-85 have tended to
reinforce existing impressions about the industry and its strike experience.
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