General Strike of 1926

When the miners went on strike (May 4, 1926) and they were supported with sympathetic strikes in other vital industries, Baldwin proclaimed a state of emergency, organized volunteers to maintain essential services, and refused to negotiate further with labour until the strike was called off (it ended May 12, 1926).…

…British labour, however, this so-called general strike is as unimportant as it was unsuccessful. As a general strike, it lasted only 10 days, from May 3 to May 12. The miners themselves held out for nearly eight months and were finally starved into returning as winter began, at lower wages…

…strike that led to the general strike of 1926. Churchill offered no remedy except the cultivation of strict economy, extending even to the armed services. Churchill viewed the general strike as a quasi-revolutionary measure and was foremost in resisting a negotiated settlement. He leaped at the opportunity of editing the…

…of the largest of all general strikes, which was undertaken by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in support of the nation’s coal miners, who were in a bitter dispute with the mine owners. About three million of Britain’s five million trade union members joined the strike, which was intended to…

…test in 1926 when a general strike was called in support of the Miners Federation. Conflict on this scale inevitably pitted unions against state, and it was this wider aspect of the dispute that in the end caused the TUC, committed as it was to constitutional modes of action, to…

…mobilize unions during the nationwide General Strike of 1926. Under leaders such as Ernest Bevin and Walter Citrine in the 1930s and ’40s, the TUC became the unchallenged representative of industrial labour in dealings with the government, and it participated closely in the management of British industries during World War…