Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Since last Wednesday night, Leeds has been at grips with what (if bad-tempered) would have become revolutionary disorder. All the municipal employees went on strike – mostly without notice. Gas, electricity, scavenging, trams – all left. At hardly any notice, the citizens took up the job. We were in the thick of it as our men had technical skill. They rendered indispensable service at the Electricity Works and the Gas Works, which have run without interruption and with perfectly maintained efficiency. The other services have been hard hit. The spirit of our men has been splendid. No hot temper, no class feeling, and steady determination, tho’ there has been some danger and much discomfort. The young fellows of the non-wage earning sort have proved that they are not rotters and that they can be quickly mobilised. The Public School men (with some striking exceptions) were at first inert, unimaginative and critical. Now they have been drawn in… We are trying to get our minds clear on the economic problem. By this civic action, so far as it has gone, we have rendered ineffective the one economic force-weapon of the worker – viz the strike. What can we put in its place? I think a disinterested authoritative standing commission (partly Board of Trade, partly local) which will have power to inquire, take evidence and recommend to the public on the general question of wages and conditions of employment in the municipal service. To get this new idea realised, to prevent reprisals and injustice to the workers, is our chief job and preoccupation now. I am in touch with the chief Socialist leaders in Bradford and here, and they agree with us. The rank and file are against us at present. The city authorities think quite differently of the University from what they did.

Comment

Comment

Several days before he was more apocalyptic:

Leeds is on strike. Gas is giving out, trams precarious, electric light threatened. The Goya streets are full of swirling paper; the class war is preached – so far with uninterrupted kindliness of feeling in personal intercourse… I don’t think there’ll be very serious trouble, but there may be. There is no revolutionary feeling in Leeds as a whole though much of it is gathering… There are grievances which should be put right; but a lot has been done and the trouble is partly due to the Lord Mayor’s abrupt Norman Warrior manner.

Leeds’ Forgotten Dispute: The 1913-14 Corporation Strike

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Original

Since last Wednesday night, Leeds has been at grips with what (if bad-tempered) would have become revolutionary disorder. All the municipal employees went on strike – mostly without notice. Gas, electricity, scavenging, trams – all left. At hardly any notice, the citizens took up the job. We were in the thick of it as our men had technical skill. They rendered indispensable service at the Electricity Works and the Gas Works, which have run without interruption and with perfectly maintained efficiency. The other services have been hard hit.

The spirit of our men has been splendid. No hot temper, no class feeling, and steady determination, tho’ there has been some danger and much discomfort. The young fellows of the non-wage earning sort have proved that they are not rotters and that they can be quickly mobilised. The Public School men (with some striking exceptions) were at first inert, unimaginative and critical. Now they have been drawn in…

We are trying to get our minds clear on the economic problem. By this civic action, so far as it has gone, we have rendered ineffective the one economic force-weapon of the worker – viz the strike. What can we put in its place? I think a disinterested authoritative standing commission (partly Bd of Trade, partly local) which will have power to inquire, take evidence and recommend to the public on the general question of wages and conditions of employment in the municipal service. To get this new idea realised, to prevent reprisals and injustice to the workers, is our chief job and preoccupation now.

I am in touch with the chief Socialist leaders in Bradford and here, and they agree with us. The rank and file are against us at present. The city authorities think quite differently of the University from what they did.

311 words.

Tags

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• 📌Bradford (72) ·
• Class conflict (11) ·
• Great Unrest (1) ·
• J. R. Clynes (1) ·
• Labour Party (UK) (17) ·
• Labour movement (1) ·
• Labour revolt (1) ·
• Leeds City Council (32) ·
• Leeds Corporation Strike (December 1913-January 1914) (1), a dispute between the council and its employees over a decade-long decline in real earnings, part of the Great Labour Unrest (1911-14) ·
• Leeds Corporation Tramways (4) ·
• Liberal Party (UK) (10) ·
• Michael Sadler (educationist) (4) ·
• National Union of General Workers (UK) (1) ·
• Strike action (9) ·
• Strikebreaker (4) ·
• Trade union (6) ·
• University of Leeds (8) ·
• Working class (6) ·

All tags.

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