The ‘Great Unrest’

Abstract

The first main phase of the ‘Great Unrest’ began with the rapid escalation of discontent in the South Wales oalfields. In this area wages were fixed not by individual or collective bargaining but by the price of coal. From 1907 declining wages, worsening conditions and increasing difficulties in mining coal due to difficult geological conditions made the issue of ‘abnormal places’ a continuing focus of discontent for Welsh miners. Miners who worked difficult coalfaces found that price lists which were negotiated for normal conditions failed to give them a living wage, and yet in 1908 a legal decision ruled that employers need not pay special rates to men working in abnormal places. Discontent also simmered around the issue of ‘small coal’. Miners were paid for the production of ‘clean large coal’ only, although they inevitably produced a quantity of small coal — sometimes a very large quantity. Miners were not paid for the production of small coal which coal ownwers nevertheless sold in the same way as they sold the large coal. In 1908 the Coal Mines Regulation Act introduced an eight-hour day for miners. This effectively meant a cut in wages, because the reduction of hours further reduced miners’ ability, especially for men working in abnormal places, to secure a living wage. They could not work longer hours to make up the shortfall. Employers responded to the decline in productivity by exploiting loopholes in the legislation, by operating multiple shifts and attacking established work practices and custom.¹