TRADE UNIONISM
By the late 19th century a significant number of
Chester workers were joining trade unions, doubtless
partly in response to the poor and often insecure
working conditions which they faced. Although Cestrians played little role in the development of the union
movement nationally before 1914, worker organization
was not absent from the city. Its origins can be traced
in the later 18th century, when workers in some of the
traditional trades were already participating in prototrade unions. In 1777 Chester hatters were involved in
a national organization of journeymen and joined with
colleagues elsewhere in unsuccessfully petitioning parliament against a Bill promoted by the employers to
remove limitations on the number of apprentices
which each master might take. (fn. 2) Craftsmen in the
city's building industry also seem to have had a
tradition of organization. There was a branch of the
Operative Stonemasons in the city in 1833, and in
1867 they were involved in a nine-month strike on the
town hall building site. (fn. 3) Chester plumbers took part in
the establishment of the United Operative Plumbers'
Association in 1865. (fn. 4) In 1894 there was a strike of
joiners and carpenters over rules of work, (fn. 5) and in 1899
bricklayers' labourers went on strike, gaining support
for their demands from the Chester Chronicle. (fn. 6) The
national explosion of industrial unrest and trade
unionism in the early 1870s also found some expression in Chester. The city's rail workers were represented at the foundation meeting of the Amalgamated
Society of Railway Servants in 1872, (fn. 7) and formed a
local branch in 1874. (fn. 8) Some Chester shoemakers
attended the meeting at which the footware riveters
seceded from the Amalgamated Cordwainers' Association in 1873 to form their own union, although the
Chester men chose to remain with the older craft
association, an indication perhaps of the technical
backwardness of the trade locally. (fn. 9) In 1874 there was
a wage strike of planters at F. & A. Dickson's nurseries. (fn. 10)
In 1871 the Chester Trades Council included bakers,
bricklayers, cabinetmakers, coachbuilders, engineers,
ironfounders, joiners, masons, plasterers, railway
servants, tailors, tobacconists, and the chain and
anchorsmiths of Saltney. The number of affiliated
members was around 600, almost 7 per cent of the
adult male labour force, (fn. 11) and including workers both
in traditional crafts and in the newer industries. Union
organization probably weakened in Chester in the later
1870s, as it did nationally, (fn. 1) and the trades council
seems to have fallen into abeyance. In 1879 wage
reductions were imposed in the Chester engineering
trade, and there was an unsuccessful strike at the
Hydraulic Engineering Co. over the introduction of
piecework. (fn. 2) The national upsurge of New Unionism in
1889 does not seem to have found any immediate local
response, but the trades council was refounded in
1894, (fn. 3) and in 1904 attempts were made to organize
tramwaymen, cabmen, and women tailors. (fn. 4) A majority
of Chester railway workers took part in the 1911
national strike even though most of the strikers still
belonged to no union, but workers at the General
passenger station mostly stayed at work. (fn. 5) In the same
year there was a strike of apprentices at the electrical
engineering firm of Brookhirst. (fn. 6)
It seems clear that trade unionism in Chester before
1914 was typical of that in many provincial market
towns. Only a minority of workers ever joined a trade
union, and union bargaining power in most sectors
was weak and fluctuating. Apart from the railways, the
service sector remained almost totally unorganized and
the weak manufacturing base meant that there was
never a significant 'labour aristocracy' in Chester to
play a formative role in developing the labour movement locally. There were, nevertheless, surges in both
militancy and union membership at favourable times,
and Chester shared, albeit rather weakly, in the trend
towards greater worker organization which characterized the years before 1914.