SHOP STEWARD ORGANIZATION IN THE ENGINEERING INDUSTRY1
| Author | E. E. Coker,A. I. Marsh |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1963.tb00988.x |
| Date | 01 October 1963 |
| Published date | 01 October 1963 |
SHOP
STEWARD ORGANIZATION IN
THE
ENGINEERING INDUSTRY’
A.
I.
MARSH*
AND
E. E.
COKER**
The
Growth
of
Domestic
Bargaining
WHEN a comprehensive history of collective bargaining in Britain
comes to be written, there seems no doubt that it will have to recognize
three broad phases of development. Before the First World War wages
and conditions were primarily settled at a local level, with trade unions
attempting in some cases to enforce
‘
standard
’
district rates and condi-
tions, and in other cases regulating the situation by local agreements
with employers and their organizations.2 The 1914-18 war, followed
by periodic depression, government encouragement of Whitleyism and
a new pattern of general unionism, gave great impetus to the develop-
ment of national negotiations and national agreements on wages and
conditions. During and since the Second World War, the tendency has
been for national agreements to remain, but as a general framework for
the growth of a level of bargaining which in many industries is primarily
‘
domestic
’,
i.e. which primarily takes place on the factory floor, or at
works level. To an increasing extent this appears to be resulting in the
extension of
‘
works agreements
’,
but the main body of domestic nego-
tiations evidently operates in a much more informal fashion. This is the
age of negotiations between supervisors, managers and shop stewards, of
bargaining confined within the privacy of factory walls, resulting
from
the
use
of grievance procedure, and seldom recorded in formal agree-
ments of any kind.
The impact of this kind of bargaining has been felt in the
phenomenon of
‘
wage drift
’,
the growth of the short unofficial stoppage
as
a
major part of our national pattern of industrial conflict, and in the
development of personnel management. In particular we have become
increasingly conscious that it has created an unplanned and disturbing
change in trade union organization. The hey-day of the trade union
branch has passed. The predominance of the full-time official which
emerged as an important feature of trade unionism in the 1930’s is
evidently being supplemented, or in some cases challenged, by the
+
Staff Tutor in Industrial Relations, University
of
Oxford Delegacy for Extra-Mural
1
We
are indebted to the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Engineering Em-
ployers’ Federation for much
of
the data on which this study is based. Any conclusions
we may have drawn from it are, of course,
our
own and not to be associated with
either
of
these organizations.
2
See:
J.
W.
F.
Rowe:
Wages
in
Theory and Practice,
1928
and E.
H.
Phelps Brown:
The Growth
of
British Industrial Relations,
1959.
Studies.
++
Assistant Lccturcr, Slough College
of
Further Education.
170
SHOP
STEWARD ORGANIZATION IN ENGINEERING
171
developing role of the shop steward in negotiations and in the recruit-
ment and servicing of trade union membership.
From the very nature of press reporting and of the investigation
of
Courts of Inquiry into conflicts between union and employer and union
and union in the w~rkplace,~ we are very much more familiar with the
excesses of the new
'
system
'
of domestic bargaining than with its more
normal day-to-day operation. The area of acute conflict is much smaller
than is often thought. The informal adjustments made
by
trade unions
and managements have clearly been sufficient to make it work in an
orderly fashion in the vast majority of circumstances. Nevertheless, the
'
pull-down
'
of authority recognized
by
the present General Secretary
of the Trades Union Congress4 raises
a
great number of problems for
industrial relations in general and for unions in particular which we
need urgently to get into perspective.
Unfortunately, much of the information which we require in order
to readjust our thinking to the new situation is lacking. Domestic
bargaining is essentially, as we know
it,
a
'
private
'
and informal affair.
It
is easier to make a list of our needs than to clarify the position by
enquiry. Ideally, we ought to proceed along four lines
of
investigation.
In the
first
place, it is obvious that we lack the most elementary data
on numbers of shop stewards, on the way in which they are distributed
between industries,
firms
and unions, on rates and circumstances of
growth, and on the numbers of workers for whom individual stewards
are responsible. We also need, with some urgency, to understand in
greater detail the relationship between stewards and their unions, to
know how rules relating to stewards work in practice, and what their
functions and problems are in working with branches, full-time officials
and district organization. Thirdly, we need to know how stewards are
organized
in
the workplace, how and what they negotiate with indiv-
idual managements, and in what circumstances conflict arises which
results in workplace stoppages and indiscipline. Finally, it is important
that we should understand what motive force and philosophy underlines
the growth of domestic bargaining.
So
far, original inquiry along all these lines has been severely
limited.
B.
C.
Roberts attempted a summary
of
workplace organization
in
1956;5
Clegg, Killick and Adams have analysed the results of a
limited survey of stewards done in
1959-60;'
A.
J.
M.
Sykes has en-
lightened us about the regulation of domestic bargaining in the printing
industry;' Colin Chivers has made some speculatiun into what might be
3
E.g.
Dispute between the Austin Motor Company and members
of
the National Union
of
Vehicle Builders,
Cmd.
8839, 1953.
Stoppage
of
Work at Briggs Motor Bodies Ltd.,
Cmd.
131, 1957.
Stoppage
of
Work at London Airport,
Cmd.
608,
1958.
4
George
Woodcock:
reported in
the
Guardian,
May
3, 1960.
6
Trade Union Government and Administration in Great Britain,
Chap.
111.
6
Trade Union Oficers,
1961,
Chap.
9.
Trade Union Workshop Organization in the Printing Industry,
Human Relations,
February,
1960.
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