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Workers looked
- a. Workers looked to formation of labor organizations to gain decent wages and working conditions
- i. British government, reacting against radicalism of French revolutionary working classes, passed Combination Acts in 1799 and 1800 outlawing associations of workers
- 1. Failed to prevent formation of trade unions
- a. Formed by skilled workers in new industries, including cotton spinners, ironworkers, coal miners, and shipwrights
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Purposes of unions
- a. Unions served two purposes
- i. Preserve own workers’ position by limiting entry into their trade
- Gain benefits from employers
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Early trade unions had limited goals
i. Favored a working-class struggle against employers, but only to win improvements for members of their own trade
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The Trade union movement
- i. Some trade unions willing to strike for goals
- 1. Carried out by hand-loom weavers, cotton spinners, etc.
- 2. Caused Parliament to repeal Combination Acts in 1824, accepting argument of some members that acts themselves had alienated workers that they had formed unions
- a. Unions now tolerated, but other legislation enabled authorities to keep close watch over activities
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National Unions
- i. 1820s and ‘30s: union movement began focus on creation of national unions
- 1. Robert Owen (cotton magnate and social reformer)
- a. believed creation of voluntary associations that would demonstrate to others the benefits of cooperative rather than competitive living
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Program not specifically...
- a. Program not specifically for trade unionists, but appealed to some of his leaders
- b. Under his direction, plans formed for Grand National Consolidated Trades Union, formed in Feb 1834
- i. As a national federation of trade unions, its primary purpose was to coordinate a general strike for 8-hr working days
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Rhetoric outpaced reality
1. Rhetoric outpaced realityà by summer, lack of real working-class support led to federation’s total collapse and union movement reverted to trade unions for individual crafts
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Amalgamated Society of Engineers
- i. Largest and most successful of these unions was the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in 1850
- 1. Provision of generous unemployment benefits in return for a small weekly payment precisely the kind of practical gains these trade unions sought
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Luddites
- i. Trade unionism not only collective action by workers in early decades of Revolution
- ii. Skilled craftspeople in Midlands and northern England who in 1812 attacked machines that threatened their lives
- 1. Attacks didn’t stop industrial mechanization of Britain and viewed as naïve, as well as intense eruption of feeling against unrestrained industrial capitalism
- iii. Inability of 12000 troops to find culprits showed local support
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Chartism
- i. Attempt of Brit workers to improve their condition developed in movement called Chartism—the “first important political movement of working men organized in 19th century
- ii. Aim: to achieve political democracy
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People's Charter
- i. Took name from People’s Charter, a document drawn up in 1838 by the London Working Men’s Association
- 1. Charter demanded universal male suffrage, payment for members of Parliament, and elimination of property qualifications for members of Parliament, and annual sessions of Parliament
- 2. Women joined movement
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Female sections
- i. Chartist groups in many towns had female sections
- 1. Some women were active, but they fought to win political rights for husbands, not for selves, since Chartist platform wasn’t for rite to vote for women
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National Petitions
- i. Two national petitions incorporation the Chartist demands gained millions of signatures and were presented to Parliament in 1839 and 1842
- ii. Attempted to encourage change through peaceful, constitutional means, although underlying threat of force
- 1. Chartist activists organized a general strike for goals= fail
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Rejection
- i. Despite pressures exerted by Chartists, both national petitions rejected by Parliament, who didn’t want political democracy
- ii. After 1848, Chartism as a movement had played itself out, never really being a threat to Britain, but not a total failure either
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True Significance
- 1. True significance stemmed from its ability to arouse and organize millions of working class men and women, give them a sense of working-class consciousness never possessed before
- a. This political education of working people was important to the ultimate acceptance of all points of the People’s Charter in the future
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