Coventry

The 1890s brought Coventry to industrial prominence as a center for the booming bicycle trade. That trade's stagnation at the end of the decade encouraged local manufacturers to convert to motorcycle and automobile production. By 1910, the city's employment and output in these industries led the country, with local car firms alone engaging seven thousand workers in 1911.^[1] Coventry also featured substantial machine tool production, including one of Britain's biggest and most progressive firms, Alfred Herbert, and a major private armaments company, the Coventry Ordnance Works. These factories tended to be quite large by British standards: in 1908, Daimler (motor cars) employed twenty-three hundred engineering workers, Humber (motorcycles and autos) and COW nearly seventeen hundred each, and Herbert's more than a thousand.^[2]

With local industry unusually advanced in terms of standardized and repetitive production, and firms already specialized in the manufacture of machine tools, engines, and motor vehicles, Coventry was well equipped to become a leading munitions center. During the war the city produced a quarter of the nation's airplanes and huge quantities of heavy armaments, army vehicles, and lighter munitions; and machine tool output increased ninefold.^[3] In-

dustrial expansion brought a corresponding boom in the local work force. Employment at Daimler and Herbert's doubled, and by the end of 1917, some thirty-two thousand men and women had been imported to meet the city's labor needs. Between 1914 and 1918, Coventry's total population increased from over 115,000 to more than 151,000.^[4] As a result transportation facilities and schools were overwhelmed, food was scarce and costly, and in housing "the grossest forms of overcrowding and profiteering" prevailed.^[5]

Unions shared in Coventry's boom. Local ASE membership increased 50 percent, to 4,000 by the end of 1916, with the Amalgamated Toolmakers' Society reaching about the same size and smaller craft societies enjoying similar growth rates. When the Amalgamated Engineering Union consolidated most of these unions in July 1920, it claimed 14,000 members in Coventry. The city's principal organization for less skilled engineering employees, the Workers' Union, experienced even more spectacular growth, swelling from less than 3,000 members before the war to 8,590 in late 1916.^[6]

The Labor Process

War production dramatically accelerated dilution and the spread of payment by results.^[7] Materials had to be manufactured quickly, in enormous quantities, and to standardized specifications. Dilution to meet these requirements had three main components: the introduction of new machinery, the subdivision of tasks, and the recruitment and upgrading of workers. Automatic machinery designed for repetitive production of specialized materials, combined with equipment to ease the handling of heavy pieces, enabled men and women with little prior engineering experience to enter munitions factories. Jobs customarily performed by craftsmen were divided into more and less skilled components. On the one side qualified engineers specialized in fabricating jigs and gauges and instructed and set up machines for less experienced operatives. On the other side green hands performed most routine production work. New machinery and the division of labor thus made it possible to use "dilutees" in large numbers.

Early in the war new employees—particularly women—were largely confined to new work (e.g., in the manufacture and filling

of shells) instead of replacing engineers directly. As the army's manpower needs increased, however, women as well as less skilled men were upgraded to skilled, "male" jobs. In Britain as a whole, female employment in private metalworking firms grew from 9.4 percent in July 1914 to 24.6 percent four years later; in government establishments (arsenals, dockyards, national shell factories) it grew from 2.6 percent to 46.7 percent over the same period. In July 1916, 22.7 percent of women in private concerns were reported as "directly replacing males"; two years later 32.7 percent were.^[8] Even where not directly replacing males, women moved into work traditionally done by men alone. In January 1918, for example, females in government-controlled firms represented 21.4 percent of employees in machine tool manufacture and 21.9 percent in ordnance.^[9]

Mechanization and subdivision of labor came less abruptly in Coventry than in more traditional engineering centers. These principles of manufacture were already well established in the city. But even here twenty thousand women were imported during the first three years of the war, while the recruitment and upgrading of unskilled men or the assignment of two or more machines to one man took place on an unprecedented scale. The character of war production also permitted a wide extension of payment by results, and increasing numbers of skilled men faced piecework and premium bonus systems by the war's end—even in such traditional bastions of craftsmanship as repair departments and tool rooms.^[10]

Occupational standards that engineers had successfully defended before 1914 now seemed at risk. New machines and reorganization appeared to threaten their craft, and the mass of dilutees threatened their jobs.^[11] Together, dilution and piecework also undermined traditional pay differentials. Dilution split off from skilled occupations those tasks requiring the least experience (and which, for engineers on piecework, allowed the highest earnings), assigning them to new hands working with modern equipment. These men and women were generally paid by output, with the government guaranteeing piece rates in the interests of maximum production. As a result many engineers earned less than the semi-skilled operatives—"till lately 'gardners and coachmen'"—who depended on them for instruction, assistance, and provision of proper tools.^[12] Dilution and piecework thus offered considerable benefits

to less skilled workers at the expense of engineering craftsmen. And if Coventry's skilled workers faced a less radical assault on their customary status and privileges, they shared with engineers in Glasgow and elsewhere the experience of their unions and their government sanctioning workshop changes and limiting their opportunities to redress consequent grievances.

Unions

The ASE and other craft societies agreed to abandon strikes and restrictive work rules on munitions production at the beginning of 1915. The March 4 "Shells and Fuses Agreement," signed (with government prodding) by the EEF and major craft unions, allowed women and semiskilled workers to perform operations customarily done by fully qualified men but not requiring their skill. The agreement applied only to shell and fuse production, was explicitly confined to the war period, and forbade employers from "making such arrangement in the shops as will effect a permanent restriction of employment of any trade in favour of semi-skilled men or female labour." The Treasury Agreement of March 17 extended these principles to all war production, adding further guarantees for customary skilled wage rates and the restoration of trade union customs after the war. Unions also agreed to suspend demarcation rules for the duration. All parties to the Treasury Agreement, finally, renounced strikes in favor of union-employer negotiations and (in the event of a deadlock) government arbitration. During separate conferences with government representatives, the ASE secured some further safeguards and a promise to limit war profits before accepting the Treasury Agreement on March 25. The Munitions of War Act made these undertakings legally binding in June.^[13]

In a small turnout ASE members approved the Shells and Fuses Agreement by a vote of 14,137 to 9,817, but many engineers felt that officials had not sufficiently protected the status of skilled men either during or after the war. The Treasury Agreement, which not only extended the scope of union concessions but also added the no-strike commitment, inspired much harsher criticism, and it confirmed the popular suspicion of trade union bureaucrats that had been evident before the war. A Sheffield shop steward noted

of union leaders, "They are not likely to be subject to the schemes they have introduced, hence they can talk glibly about safeguards." Coventry officials denounced the agreement and its successors as "contrary to the interests of our members" and "not a course that is democratic."^[14] Trade union renunciation of strikes, however, did more than heighten rank-and-file antagonism to union leaders. The Treasury Agreement and the Munitions of War Act ensured that unions would be neither useful instruments for nor effective sanctions against local militancy. Members had little use for unions that had conceded important rank-and-file claims at work and abandoned the right to strike. Union strike pay became unnecessary, for disputes did not last long; union unemployment benefits became superfluous, because jobs were easily found; union leaders' goodwill and negotiating acumen became dispensable, because the government ultimately settled disputes. Unofficial organization would fill the gap left by trade union impotence as engineers worked through shop stewards to negotiate with employers and organize strikes.

Government Intervention

World War I brought an unprecedented involvement by the British government in engineering shop conditions and industrial relations. Concessions on work rules made (more or less) voluntarily by trade unions in the Shells and Fuses and the Treasury Agreements received legal mandate in the Munitions of War Act of June 1915. Section 3 of the act required that "any rule, practice, or custom not having the force of law which tends to restrict production or employment shall be suspended." Those supporting restrictive practices risked government prosecution. By suspending trade union restraints on the manning of machines, government officials hoped to use less skilled men and women on operations previously monopolized by engineers. Government tribunals also encouraged the spread of payment by results, construing union opposition to incentive pay as "restricting production."^[15] In order to overcome employers' reluctance to antagonize their irreplaceable skilled men, the Ministry of Munitions dispatched "Dilution Commissioners" to devise plans (in consultation with employees and union representatives) for introducing new machinery, subdividing opera-

tions, and recruiting and upgrading workers. Although the details of these plans remained subject to workshop negotiation and conflict, the government also made available local Munitions Tribunals through which employers could ensure recalcitrant workers' conformity to government rules.^[16]

Government intervention extended to engineering industrial relations as well. The first stage in resolving disputes remained negotiation within the plant, followed in most cases by local conferences. Persisting disagreements went not to national bargaining between union and EEF leaders, however, but to compulsory arbitration by one or another government agency. Even when employers and labor representatives agreed on wage increases, these increases had to be approved by the Ministry of Munitions. A wide range of state regulations governed the rates paid to dilutees, and in fixing wages the general trend was to replace collective bargaining with periodic increases, awarded by the government, to compensate for inflation.^[17] Whatever the deficiencies of the prewar Procedure, at least the steps in pursuing a demand had been clear. Now engineers confronted a baffling array of government boards, tribunals, and committees with overlapping responsibilities and heavy schedules. Confusion and bureaucratic delay in hearings and decisions resulted, followed by frequent difficulties in enforcing awards.^[18] In the meantime engineers were denied recourse to strikes by the Munitions of War Act.

The government sought to manage the labor market as well as to resolve labor disputes. Skilled engineers were deemed more valuable in the shops than in the trenches and were freed from military service. As the army's need for fresh troops increased, however, the circle of exemption gradually closed, and the precise grounds for exemption and the degree of authority delegated to craft unions in protecting their members were among the most contentious issues of the war.^[19] The government further sought to ensure that scarce skilled labor would be equitably distributed and reasonably paid. To prevent large firms from bidding up the price of labor and monopolizing skilled employees, Section 7 of the Munitions of War Act prohibited giving "employment to a workman who has within the last previous six weeks ... been employed on or in connection with munitions work ... unless he holds a certificate from the employer by whom he was last so employed that he

left work with the consent of his employer." These "leaving certificates" limited both the personal freedom and the economic leverage of engineers. Skilled workers wishing to "better themselves" had to either secure their employer's permission or forgo six weeks' wages. Given the scarcity of labor, manufacturers naturally exercised restraint in issuing certificates and occasionally refused them for punitive purposes. Even when January 1916 amendments to the Munitions Act proscribed the system's worst abuses, leaving certificates remained a cause of great resentment among engineers until 1917, when the certificates were abolished.^[20]

Not all engineering workers opposed these policies. The imposition of dilution threatened skilled men, the more so because the government appeared insufficiently vigilant in protecting dilutees' wages. The suppression of union work rules naturally affected those most strongly organized and those with the most elaborate defenses before the war—craftsmen. Restrictions on the mobility of labor imposed the greatest hardships on those with the most valuable skills. Less skilled workers had no such investment in the prewar industrial status quo, and they welcomed the opportunity to do work and earn wages formerly reserved for qualified men. Less skilled workers and their union representatives also resented the preferential exemption of craftsmen from conscription, particularly after November 1916. At that time craft societies won the privilege of protecting their own members from the draft under the Trade Card scheme—a privilege subsequently denied to unions organizing less skilled workers. Exemptions were not only reserved for engineers under the Trade Card system; in addition they seemed to be based more on union membership than on any legitimate criteria of skill.^[21]

Yet government policies also imposed hardships that transcended the specific conflicts of interest among labor. Engineering workers of varied skills resented state intervention in workshop discipline. Under the Munitions of War and the Defense of the Realm Acts, behavior hindering production became a criminal offense. Employers could now take legal action in disciplinary problems for which they would otherwise have had no effective sanction. Workers faced prosecution and fines not only for opposing dilution and inciting strikes but also for failing to obey orders, poor timekeeping, gambling, reading newspapers, or possessing liquor

while at work. Between August and December of 1915, 4,166 workers were prosecuted in Munitions Tribunals, mostly for breaches of work rules.^[22] The Coventry ASE District Committee frequently denounced "the attitude of employers in using the Munitions Act to tyranise our members in the Workshops."^[23] Together with the use of leaving certificates, government intervention was widely felt to buttress employers' authority at workers' expense—the more so because labor interests were inadequately represented on Munitions Tribunals.^[24] This feeling crossed skill and craft boundaries. Late in 1916, George Morris was sentenced to three months at hard labor for initiating a strike in Coventry. Morris, local secretary of the Workers' Union, had acted to secure the proper wage rate for three semiskilled workers at COW—hardly an issue of immediate concern to skilled engineers. Yet the sight of a trade union official being tried in criminal court for performing legitimate union business led a mass meeting of ASE members in November to vote "to down tools immediately the conviction of G. Morris is confirmed at Quarter Sessions."^[25]

Engineering workers generally resented the government's apparent inability to spread the burdens of war evenly and equitably. Regardless of trade or skill, many considered that patriotic sacrifices were all on one side. Wages lagged behind the cost of living, yet landlords and food merchants prospered; wage increases were meager and delayed, yet manufacturers' profits were large and assured. There existed as well a widespread sense that collaboration between the government and national union leaders took place at the expense of the rank and file and their chosen representatives, leaving workers with nothing but a string of broken promises. The Ministry of Munitions offered a somewhat condescending retrospective of the situation by early 1917:

The workpeople, men and women, were tired. Long hours of continuous strain in the factory, overcrowded houses and lodgings devoid of every comfort, dear unpalatable food, hardly to be got by dreary waiting in the queues, the absence of amusement and recreation, bereavement ... produced a nervous irritability.... Men in such a mood distorted out of all proportion the grievances which arose from the administration of the Munitions of War and the Military Services Acts.... Nor were the grievances few. The irksomeness of the leaving certificate, the inequalities of exemption from military service, the delay in securing arbitration, the

ponderous working of the departmental machinery, the disproportion between the earnings of piece-workers and the highly skilled time-workers, who supplied their tools and maintained their machines, the rapid rise of prices and the slow increment of wages ... produced abundant material for discontent.... The suspension of the right to strike by the Munitions of War Act, depriving as it did the union executive of the one effective sanction of their will, had undermined their authority over their members.... The closer their relations with the Government, the more were they suspected of having sold their cause.... In these circumstances, power passed into the hands of the shop-stewards....^[26]