SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT AND STRIKERS*
| Author | John Gennard,Roger Lasko |
| Published date | 01 March 1974 |
| Date | 01 March 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1974.tb00001.x |
SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT AND STRIKERS*
JOHN
GENNARDt
AND
ROGER
LASKO~
FROM
the foundation of the Welfare State, governments have been faced
with the problem of how to treat people who are without work because of
strikes. The declared principle of the major political parties has always
been that of neutrality with respect to industrial disputes. The way in
which the principle has operated has been to exclude people involved in
strikes from unemployment benefit: in the past to remove any right to
support from the Poor Laws or National Assistance, and today from
Supplementary Benefit. However, the families of strikers have long had a
right to benefit and in some cases, strikers themselves have been able to
obtain support from public funds for their own needs. The rising trend of
supplementary benefit paid out in strikes in recent years has led to contro-
versy over who should be responsible for supporting strikers and their
families, and over the possible effects of Supplementary Benefit on strike
activity.l
I
FROM
THE
POOR LAW
TO
SOCIAL SECURITY
The
Poor
Law?
The Act of Elizabeth
1563
which introduced the Poor Laws provided
a
system of relief for the poor by the Parish, administered from
1834
by
Poor
Law Guardians. Relief did not always take the form of the Workhouse. By
1900,
it seems Guardians in some areas were supplementing wages while
in
the twentieth century it was normal for the Guardians to distribute food to
the poor. It is probable that relief was being provided in strikes as early as
the beginning of the last century but a striker would have had to be liable
for prosecution as 'an idle and disorderly person' under the Vagrancy
Acts before his family were deemed sufficiently destitute for the granting of
relief. Although liability to prosecution might be avoided by proving he
was on strike for
a
legitimate reason the striker would still not qualify for
relief until privation had taken its toll.
However, in many areas the normal practice was to give relief to
strikers and their families. In
1898
miners from Merthyr Tydfil struck
*
This
study forms part
of
a wider investigation which the authors are undertaking into the
t
Lecturer
in
Industrial Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science.
costs
of
strikes to the individual, financed
by
the Department of Employment.
Research Assistant, London School of Economics and Political Science.
See for examde.
Ihc
Economist.
3 Tune 1972:
Financial
Times.
9 Februarv 1971:
E.E.F.
News,
April 1973.
'Fo;
opposing points gf view
seLZRZS
News,
June 1971 and
J.
C.
Kincaid,
Pow&
and
Equali&
in
Britain,
Penguin
Books
Ltd, 1973, p. 229.
a
The
section
is
based
on
W.
I.
Jennings,
Law
Quarhrb
Remew,
Vol. XLVI,
No.
CLXXXII,
April 1930.
1
2
BRITISH JOURNAL
OF
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
against the Powell-Duffryn Coal Companies and relief was provided on
a
large scale. In their role of rate-payer, the Company challenged the
legality of this relief in the Courts, which ruled that strikers were ineligible
for support until they had been without relief for sufficient time to be no
longer able b~died.~ However relief for strikers’ dependents and those un-
employed through strikes was declared to be lawful. This judgment re-
mained in force until 1948.
The
Post-
War
Social Security Legislation
The Poor Laws were terminated by the National Assistance Act 1948
which was replaced by the Ministry
of
Social Security Act 1966. The
purpose of both Acts was ‘the assistance of persons in Great Britain who
are without resources to meet requirements or whose resources must be
supplemented in order to meet their req~irements’.~ The essential feature
of both national assistance and supplementary benefit is that unemployed
people in need receive benefit for themselves and their dependents as
a
right and unlike National Insurance benefits, it is not based on contribu-
tions to
a
fund. Since 1948 strikers’ families have been able to receive
benefit
as
of right as the dependents of an unemployed person who has
insufficient income to support them. Strikers themselves have only been
able to claim benefit in cases of urgency but have no statutory right to
assistance, which
is
discretionary. Although in 1971 the government
passed the Social Security Act designed in part to transfer the cost of sup-
porting strikers and their dependents from the Exchequer to union funds
the general principles of the 1948 and 1966 Acts were unaltered.
Under the post-war legislation,
as
under the Poor Laws, those who are
involved in disputes are disqualified from benefit. Strikers were not eligible
for relief under the Poor Law because they were able-bodied men not
seeking work. But under the National Assistance and Social Security Acts
exclusion
is
through their involvement in
a
trade dispute. The definition of
a
trade dispute contained in the Trades Disputes Act (1906), means
workers locked out are also disqualified, along with those who refuse to
cross picket lines,s and those who are indirectly involved in disputes.6
It took from 1911 to 1928 for the State to arrive at
a
definition of ‘in-
volvement in
a
trade dispute’ which would prevent National Insurance
funds being used to finance strikers but which would not be unfair to in-
direct strikers and which would not involve the State in any judgment of
This
legal logic was put to its greatest test in 1926 when it
seems
that medical certificates
were issued wholesale to miners (see Jennings
op.
cit.)
and when an estimated
E6
million was paid
out
in
relief to strikers.
Ministry
of Social Security Act (1960)
S.
4.
See
also
National Assistance Act (1948)
S.
4.
Either because they refuse to cross picket
lines
in which case they
are
in
dispute with the
employer,
or
because the pickeb keep them out, in which case they
are
in
dispute with other
workers.
The Industrial Relations Act (1971) S. 167(1) provides a narrower definition of a trade dis-
pute but for disqualification purposes the 1906 definition applies.
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