Showing posts with label 40 hour week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 40 hour week. Show all posts

Sunday 31 January 2016

The Rent Strike To Bloody Friday, Part Of The Same Struggle.

 
     Friday, January, 1919, a date that we should never forget, that was the day that brought about the stationing of armed troops on Glasgow's streets, they were also stationed at entrances to the docks around the city. As is usual in these situations, it was the workers that had come up with the rational decision, To help alleviate the unemployment situation after WWI, the idea was to cut the working hours and try to soak up the unemployed. A 40 hour week was the suggestion, but the state and the employers would have none of that. By 30, January, 1919, 40,000 workers in the engineering and shipbuilding industries in Clydeside were out on strike, plus approximately 36,000 miners from the coalfields in Stirlingshire and Lanarkshire, who were also on strike. 
        On the Friday, January, 31, a demonstration, of an estimated 60,000 citizens, in support of the shorter working week took place on George Square. Unexpectedly and unannounced, the police attacked the demonstrators, an action that lead to all hell breaking out.

THE DEMONSTRATION, BLOODY FRIDAY.
On Friday 31 January 1919 upwards of 60,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square Glasgow in support of the 40-hours strike and to hear the Lord Provost's reply to the workers' request for a 40-hour week. Whilst the deputation was in the building the police mounted a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators, including large numbers of ex-servicemen, retaliated with whatever was available, fists, iron railings and broken bottles, and forced the police to retreat. On hearing the noise from the square the strike leaders, who were meeting with the Lord Provost, rushed outside in an attempt to restore order. One of the leaders, David Kirkwood, was felled to the ground by a police baton, and along with William Gallacher was arrested.
       The situation was volatile, and the authorities were getting very nervous indeed. Our lorda and masters in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, feared what the state always fears, that the people were taking control of their own lives. Something had to be done, and the only answer the state ever has, is violent repression, and has no qualms about turning the military on its own people.

After the initial confrontation between the demonstrators and the police in George Square, further fighting continued in and around the city centre streets for many hours afterwards. The Townhead area of the city and Glasgow Green, where many of the demonstrators had regrouped after the initial police charge, were the scenes of running battles between police and demonstrators. In the immediate aftermath of 'Bloody Friday', as it became known, other leaders of the Clyde Workers' Committee were arrested, including Emanuel Shinwell, Harry Hopkins and George Edbury.
TROOPS.
The strike and the events of January 31 1919 “Bloody Friday” raised the Government’s concerns about industrial militancy and revolutionary political activity in Glasgow. Considerable fears within government of a workers' revolution in Glasgow led to the deployment of troops and tanks in the city. A full battalion of Scottish soldiers stationed at Maryhill barracks in Glasgow at the time were locked down and confined to barracks, for fear they would side with the rioters, an estimated 10,000 English troops, along with Seaforth Highlanders from Aberdeen, who were first vetted to remove those with a Glasgow connection, and tanks were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Friday. Soldiers with fixed bayonets marched with tanks through the streets of the City. There were soldiers patrolling the streets and machine guns on the roofs in George Square. No other Scottish troops were deployed, with the government fearing fellow Scots, soldiers or otherwise, would go over to the workers if a revolutionary situation developed in the area. It was the British state’s largest military mobilisation against its own people and showed they were quite prepared to shed workers’ blood in protecting the establishment.
        Of course "Bloody Friday" should not be seen in isolation, it didn't just spring up from nowhere, it was just one flashpoint along a long road of struggle by the ordinary people for a better life.
        Like all the events in political struggle it is difficult to trace the thread back to what brought it to this stage, Bloody Friday 1919 is no different. This was not just an attack on a large demonstration in Glasgow, it was the culmination of a series of radical events in Glasgow and the Clydeside area where the state showed its brutality. Perhaps we could even take it back to the 18th century and the radicals like Thomas Muir and others. However we can certainly take it back to the rent strikes of the first world war, the forming of the Labour Withholding Committee, (LWC) The Clyde Workers Committee (CWC) and the political climate of that period. 
A warehouse in the east end of Glasgow 1919.
    All of these events are lesson for us to learn from, solidarity, organisation, co-operation across our communities and our workplaces. Something we have to get to grips with in this more fragment type of society that we find ourselves living under. 
      Something else we should never forget, this wasn't the first time that the British establishment had brought out the military to break a strike. During the 1911 dockers strike, the military shot dead two strikers on the streets on the street in Liverpool.
Liverpool during the 1911 strike.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Glasgow's Bloody Friday.


      This Friday, January 31st. marks the 95th anniversary of Glasgow's Bloody Friday. A day when the state showed its bare-knuckles and brought the military onto the streets of Glasgow, to quell what it thought were the sparks of revolution. It showed that the British state, like all states, will go to any lengths to maintain its power. Glasgow's streets saw troops with fixed bayonets, machine guns and tanks, as the state showed it willingness to crush any attempt to change the power structure of our society. 


     That event was sparked by the desire of the workers to better their conditions and bring down unemployment by introducing the 40 hour week. The state showed what it thought of that idea. From then until now the workers have continued to struggle to better their conditions. Now however, the struggle has changed and is less about bettering our conditions, and more about defending what we have.
    Since the "crisis" the state has whittled away at what conditions we had won over generations of struggle. We have seen wages frozen/cut, energy price soar, social services decimated, working conditions savaged. We have seen the widespread introduction of zero hours contracts, a system whereby the employee has no idea how much he/she will earn in any given week. You are classed as in full time employment but can be laid off without pay for days at a time.
     There have been other attacks on our standard of living with the bedroom tax, the withdrawing of disability allowance, implemented by the brutal ATOS regime, Workfare, whereby you are compelled to work for no wages, and so it goes on.

 

     What the workers of 1919 wanted was an improvement in their living conditions through the 40 hour week, and this could bring 60,000 to 70,000  to mass on George Square, to show their solidarity, and take on the brutality of the police.
    Today we are trying to defend our deteriorating conditions, our standard of living is being attack on several fronts, what our forefathers fought for is being taken from us. Where is the 60,000 to 70,000 forming up to show their solidarity, voice their anger and be prepared to defend their position?
THE DEMONSTRATION, BLOODY FRIDAY.
     On Friday 31 January 1919 upwards of 60,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square Glasgow in support of the 40-hours strike and to hear the Lord Provost's reply to the workers' request for a 40-hour week. Whilst the deputation was in the building the police mounted a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators, including large numbers of ex-servicemen, retaliated with whatever was available, fists, iron railings and broken bottles, and forced the police to retreat. On hearing the noise from the square the strike leaders, who were meeting with the Lord Provost, rushed outside in an attempt to restore order. One of the leaders, David Kirkwood, was felled to the ground by a police baton, and along with William Gallacher was arrested.
RIOTS AND ARRESTS.
     After the initial confrontation between the demonstrators and the  police in George Square, further fighting continued in and around the city centre streets for many hours afterwards. The Townhead area of the city and Glasgow Green, where many of the demonstrators had regrouped after the initial police charge, were the scenes of running battles between police and demonstrators. In the immediate aftermath of 'Bloody Friday', as it became known, other leaders of the Clyde Workers' Committee were arrested, including Emanuel Shinwell, Harry Hopkins and George Edbury.
TROOPS.
     The strike and the events of January 31 1919 “Bloody Friday” raised the Government’s concerns about industrial militancy and revolutionary political activity in Glasgow. Considerable fears within government of a workers' revolution in Glasgow led to the deployment of troops and tanks in the city. A full battalion of Scottish soldiers stationed at Maryhill barracks in Glasgow at the time were locked down and confined to barracks, for fear they would side with the rioters, an estimated 10,000 English troops, along with Seaforth Highlanders from Aberdeen, who were first vetted to remove those with a Glasgow connection, and tanks were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Friday. Soldiers with fixed bayonets marched with tanks through the streets of the City. There were soldiers patrolling the streets and machine guns on the roofs in George Square. No other Scottish troops were deployed, with the government fearing fellow Scots, soldiers or otherwise, would go over to the workers if a revolutionary situation developed in the area. It was the British state’s largest military mobilisation against its own people and showed they were quite prepared to shed workers’ blood in protecting the establishment.
Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk