The 1937 Apprentices’ Strike

ARE there among our readers any who took part in the engineering apprentices’ strike of 1937? It would be interesting to hear from them about the lessons which they think should be learned from that experience, in relation to the struggle now developing on the same front.

Beginning on Clydeside and extending all over Britain, the 1937 strike made a great sensation in its day. Together with such other disputes around the same time as the London busmen’s strike and the miners’ strike at Harworth, and such ‘non-industrial’ incidents of workers’ struggle as the street battle fought in Bermondsey to prevent a Fascist march, and the refusal by the dockers at Southampton and other ports to load scrap-iron on Japanese ships, it marked a stirring in the British labour movement after a longish period of quiescence.

And this attracted all the more attention because it coincided with an extremely gloomy phase in Labour’ political fortunes, with a whole series of disastrous by-election results.

Some hoped (and others feared) that the revival of militancy would keep on growing and spreading into ever-fresh fields, and so in a short time transform the whole situation in Britain for the better. Had that happened, it could have produced tremendous world-wide consequences. But it did not happen: the wave of militancy broke and was not renewed. The great negative circumstance of those days made itself felt—the absence of a revolutionary Marxist leadership, of anything comparable to the Socialist Labour League.

The Clydeside apprentices came out at the beginning of April and there were soon 15,000 of them on strike. Increases of pay had recently been given to journeymen, but there was nothing for apprentices; the boys demanded an increase and also recognition of the right of the trade unions to negotiate on all matters concerning apprentice conditions. Feeling in support of the boys was very strong, and the Confederation ‘of Engineering and Shipbuilding Unions bowed to this in calling a one-day strike on April 16 of every member employed in the Clyde area. There, however, industrial action in solidarity with the boys was allowed to stop.

YCL’s ambiguous role The Young Communist League was fairly influential among engineering apprentices in those days, but the overall Stalinist policy of the time caused it to play a most ambiguous tole. The Stalinists were keen to display their power; but at the same time they were cultivating the idea of a broad alliance with Liberals and ‘patriotic’ Conservatives against the Chamberlain govenment, and this meant that naked manifestations of class struggle were embarrassing to them. Also, seeking, as they were, supporters for their international policies among trade union leaders, they had found a ‘fellow-traveller’ of sorts in Little, the then general secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union; and this meant that their criticism of his behaviour had to be blunted, to say the least.

‘Challenge’, the YCL weekly, concentrated mainly on calling for collections of cash to support the Clydeside ‘strikers, and pointing out the need for new legislation to protect young workers. When the AEU ordered the boys back, ‘Challenge’ reported (May 6) that they returned to work ‘as united in their return as they were in their strike’, but later admitted that mass meetings showed strong feeling against return. The union leaders had promised to do their best for the boys in negotiations with the employers, but weeks and months dragged by without any progress being made. Unrest grew, not only in the Clyde area but elsewhere, and there was talk —but nothing more at this stage—of setting up an unofficial organization of apprentices.

A second outbreak of apprentices’ strikes began in September, first in Manchester and Salford, then rapidly spreading throughout Lancashire and Yorkshire. Just as the Clyde boys were preparing to join in this new wave of struggle, the unions ordered the strikers in Manchester and the other North of England centres to go back-—and they went. Mounting frustration now broke through in the actual convening in Manchester (on the initiative of the Clydeside apprentices’ committee) of a conference of representatives of 84,000 engineering and shipbuilding apprentices in all parts of the country. This conference decided to call a nation-wide strike on October 18 if the employers persisted in ignoring the boys’ demands. The YCL agitatedly appealed to the union leaders to do something to prevent matters getting out of hand: ‘We call upon the leaders of the national unions . . . you will never regret it. The unions will be flooded with fresh young forces.’

The national strike threat compelled the engineering employers to agree in principle to recognize the unions’ right to negotiate on behalf of apprentices, and a number of firms granted wage increases. But the increases rarely went as far as the boys wanted, and actual negotiations were postponed and delayed again and again. In November, the apprentices came out at the big Siemens works in London, and there were signs of similar moves in Birmingham.

Alibi for third round At this moment the Stalinists, manoeuvring to avoid a third upsurge starting in London and the Midlands, were able to seize for alibi purposes upon the decisions of the trade union bureaucracy to ‘support’ the proposals for better factory legislation in relation to young workers which the Stalinists had for some time been advocating (see Gollan’s book ‘Youth In British Industry’). ‘Challenge’ of December 2, wrote, starry-eyed: ‘Now that the great TUC has entered the arena with a youth charter, and will be calling together all executives of affiliated unions, the guarantee of success has been given to the whole campaign, and by the end of next year at the latest, the position of youth in Britain will be radically improved all round.’ Not strikes, but applause for Transport House, that was to be the method!

All through 1938 reports appeared in ‘Challenge’ which reflected the discontent of the apprentices with the way they were being fobbed off by employers and union leaders—for instance, in the issue of March 10, S. Watson, chairman of the Clydeside committee, declared that not a single apprentice on the Clyde understood the new agreement which had been made on their behalf, and in that of March 31, W. Maitland, secretary of the same committee, was quoted as saying: ‘Plenty of promises have been made to us since the strikes. They’ve not been kept.’ But the editorial comment on this bitter feeling was always to the effect that the union leaders were doing their best, and the only contribution the boys could make was to step up union recruitment.

Beware of the Trots Plus, of course, the grim warning against you-know-whom, though they were at that time neither so numerous nor so well-organized as today. ‘Challenge’ of September 17, 1938, after acknowledging that the apprentices hadn’t got all they asked for, and were restive, went on: ‘But it is necessary at this stage to issue a warning against a number of individuals who are known as Trotskyists. They are attempting to put a wedge between the lads and their unions.’

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