Experience Counts: British Workers, Accident Prevention and Compensation, and the Origins of the Welfare State

Abstract

This article examines the views of Britain's organized railway, mining, and engineering workers (machinists) and their union leaders about state involvement in workplace accident prevention (1876–97), accident compensation (1876–1911), and the 1911 National Insurance Act. The miners and the railwaymen left numerous comments on these topics because they labored in unusually hazardous trades. (Their unions were large and were relatively democratic.) After 1880, leaders of the miners and railwaymen concluded that it was problematic to rely solely on trade union workplace bargaining power to protect worker life and limb and to compensate injured workers for their economic losses. Faced with what was initially seen as a Hobson's choice between employer compulsion and state compulsion, after the mid-1880s these trade unionists began to lean toward the latter. Historical experience led the trade union leaders whose views are discussed in this article to trust increasingly the Labor Department of the Board of Trade and to endorse Liberal welfare-state programs proposed in 1908 and thereafter. In 1911 the rank-and-file machinists who expressed their views about National Insurance in letters to the labor press were suspicious of augmenting the power of the state, but they were unwilling to scuttle National Insurance, preferring to agitate to expand union rights of participation. Worker opposition tosomefeatures of state-mandated income maintenance programs, especially those with compulsory payroll deductions, should not be interpreted as rejection of the welfare state in principle.

When Do Trade Unions Support Universal Demands? Organizational Context and Trade Union Strategies in the US and UK at the Turn of the 20th Century

“…The influence of the New Unionist wave on working-class attitudes toward state intervention is widely debated-while scholars like Henry Pelling have argued that British workers remained opposed to welfare provision throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, others have argued that they were divided on the question. 40 What's certain, however, is that after 1880, the leadership of the TUC as well as that of the largest trades in the United Kingdom gradually came to support state welfare provision. In 1889, TUC president R. D. B. Richie declared, "it is beginning to be apparent that the most aristocratic unionist cannot separate himself from the humblest labourer."…”

“…Members contributed a small portion of their weekly earnings toward life insurance, death benefits, healthcare, sick leave, and eventually pensions. 2 By the end of the century, however, the two movements' orientation toward benefit provision had radically diverged: whereas the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) came to advocate universal, non-contributory state pension and health benefits, 3 the American Federation of Labor (AFL) heightened its commitment to voluntary benefits, breaking with elite reformers in the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) and joining forces with private insurance providers to campaign against state initiatives for public benefits. 4 The divergence is meaningful.…”

Railway Accidents and NineteenthCentury Legislation: 'Misconduct, Want of Caution or Causes Beyond their Control?'

“…53 Although Robert Asher refers to these benefit plans as the Achilles' heel of the 1880 Act, the schemes were an efficient method by which victims could receive financial aid, and avoid litigation, some workers finding the method preferable. 54 The amounts were smaller, but benefits were received quickly and without court costs. However, the London and North Western Railway Company dismissed workers who refused to join, avoided negligence suits, and ignored many of the Board of Trade recommendations to improve safety.…”