The striking decline of labour disputes

It won’t surprise many readers that 1926, the year of the General Strike and a long-running miners’ strike, saw more working days lost to labour disputes than any other since records began. 'qually, you probably won’t be shocked to discover that a more recent peak occurred in 1984, a year that saw another high-profile miners’ strike.

You may be surprised, however, to learn exactly how much labour unrest there was before and just after the First World War: in terms of days lost, 1921 was second only to 1926, followed by 1912. This suggests that, even before the trauma of conflict, the working class were not prepared to put up uncomplainingly with their lot. In fact, it could be argued that the year in which official figures began to be collected (1891) was itself a reaction to a glut of famous disputes, among them the match girls’ strike of 1888 and the dockers’ strike the next year.

The First World War did see a reduction in unrest as the energies of the country turned to the war effort – but only up to a point. 1917, the year of Passchendaele, saw 5.6 million days lost to strikes – that’s more than 20 times the 234,000 days lost in 2019.

Since the 1970s and 1980s the labour market has been transformed in a number of ways, among them a decline in manufacturing jobs (down from 6.7 million in 1978 to 2.7 million in 2019) and in trade union membership (down from a peak of 13.2 million in 1979 to 6.4 million in 2019).

Alongside these changes, the number of days lost to strikes has fallen to a fraction of what it was three or four decades ago, with 2005 seeing a record low of just 157,000 days lost.