Remembering the 1913 lockout, 8/1913 - 1/1914 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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The State Commemoration of the 1913 Lockout has taken place in Dublin, exactly 100 years after police attacked crowds at the start of Ireland's largest-ever industrial dispute.

The Dublin Metropolitan Police baton-charged crowds along the street on 'Bloody Sunday' 100 years ago.

Four died and over 300 were injured over days at the start of the biggest industrial dispute in Irish history involving 20,000 workers.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_lockout
The Dublin Lock-out (Irish: Frithdhúnadh Mór Baile-Átha-Cliath) was a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers which took place in Ireland's capital city of Dublin. The dispute lasted from 26 August 1913 to 18 January 1914, and is often viewed as the most severe and significant industrial dispute in Irish history. Central to the dispute was the workers' right to unionize.

Dublin slums

Many Irish workers lived in terrible conditions and were paid very low wages for long hours of work. Some people wanted workers to have better conditions and more power over their lives. These socialists included Jim Larkin and James Connolly. One of the major factors which contributed to the ignition of the dispute was the dire circumstances in which the city's poor lived. In 1913, one third of Dublin's population lived in slums. 30,000 families lived in 15,000 tenements. An estimated four million pledges were taken in pawnbrokers every year. The infant mortality rate amongst the poor was 142 per 1,000 births, which was very high for a European nation. The situation was made considerably worse by the high rate of disease in the slums, which was the result of a lack of health care and cramped living conditions, among other things. The most prevalent disease in the Dublin slums at this time was tuberculosis (TB), which spread through tenements very quickly and caused many deaths amongst the poor. A report published in 1912 claimed that TB-related deaths in Ireland were fifty percent higher than in England or Scotland, and that the vast majority of TB-related deaths in Ireland occurred amongst the poorer classes.

Poverty was perpetuated in Dublin by the lack of occupational opportunities for unskilled workers. Prior to the advent of trade unionism in Ireland, unskilled workers lacked any form of representation. Furthermore, there were many more unskilled labourers in Dublin than there were jobs for them. Thus unskilled workers often had to compete with one another for work on a daily basis, the job generally going to whoever agreed to work for the lowest wages.
Jim Larkin and the formation of the ITGWU

James Larkin, the main protagonist on the side of the workers in the dispute, had a history within the trade union movement. His first experience with trade unionism in Ireland had been in 1907 when he was sent to Belfast as local leader of the British-based National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) after working as a docker in Liverpool. While in Belfast, Larkin organized a strike of dock and transport workers. It was also in Belfast that Larkin developed his tactic of the sympathetic strike, whereby workers who were not directly involved in an industrial dispute with employers would go on strike in support of other workers who were. The Belfast strike was moderately successful and boosted Larkin's standing amongst Irish workers. However, his tactics were highly controversial and as a result Larkin was transferred to Dublin. Unskilled workers in Dublin were very much at the mercy of their employers. Employers who suspected workers of trying to organize could "blacklist" them, practically destroying any chance of future employment. Nevertheless, Larkin set about trying to organize the unskilled workers of Dublin. This was a cause of concern for the NUDL, who were reluctant to engage in a full-scale industrial dispute with Dublin employers. As a result Larkin was suspended from the NUDL in 1908. Larkin then decided to leave the NUDL and set up his own union, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU).

The ITGWU was the first Irish trade union to cater for both skilled and unskilled workers. In the first few months after its establishment it quickly gained popularity, and soon it had spread to other Irish cities. The ITGWU was used as a vehicle for Larkin's syndicalist views. Larkin believed in the bringing about of a socialist revolution by way of the establishment of trade unions and the calling of general strikes. After initially losing several strikes between 1908 and 1910, the ITGWU became more successful after 1911, winning several strikes involving carters and railway workers. Between 1911 and 1913, membership of the ITGWU rose from 4,000 to 10,000. This trend did not go unnoticed by employers, who soon became alarmed by the rise in popularity of the new trade union.

Larkin had also learned much from the progress and results of the Tonypandy Riots and the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike.
Connolly and the Irish Labour Party

Another important figure, in the rise of an organized workers' movement in Ireland at this time, was James Connolly, an Edinburgh-born Marxist of Irish descent. Like Larkin, Connolly was a talented orator. He became known for his speeches on the streets of Dublin, in support of socialism and Irish nationalism. In 1896, Connolly established the Irish Socialist Republican Party, and the newspaper The Workers' Republic. In 1910, Connolly became involved with the ITGWU, and was appointed its Belfast organizer in 1911. In 1912, Connolly and Larkin formed the Irish Labour Party, intended to represent workers in the imminent Home Rule Bill debate in Parliament. Home Rule was never implemented, due to the start of World War I. It was suspended for one year, then indefinitely, after the rise of militant nationalism following the 1916 Rising.
William Martin Murphy and the employers

Foremost, among employers opposed to trade unionism in Ireland, was William Martin Murphy. Murphy was a highly successful businessman born in Castletownbere Co. Cork. In 1913, he was chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company and owned Clery's department store and the Imperial Hotel. He also controlled the Irish Independent, Evening Herald and Irish Catholic newspapers and was a major shareholder in the B&I Line. Murphy was also a prominent nationalist and a former Home Rule MP in Westminster. He was known as a kind and charitable man in his private life. He was regarded as a good employer and his workers received fair wages.[1] Conditions were poor. Employees were forced to work up to 17 hours a day. A harsh discipline regime and informer culture were pursued. Murphy was vehemently opposed to trade unions, which he saw as an attempt to impede on his business. In particular, he was opposed to Larkin, whom he saw as a dangerous revolutionary. In July 1913, Murphy presided over a meeting of 300 employers, during which a collective response to the rise of trade unionism was agreed. Murphy and the employers were determined not to allow the ITGWU to unionize the Dublin workforce. On 15 August, Murphy dismissed forty workers he suspected of ITGWU membership, followed by another 300 over the next week . . .

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