Trade unions legalized in Britain

The Trade Union Act of 1871, passed under William Gladstone's Liberal government, declared that trade unions were no longer unlawful merely because they restrained trade, and let them register and protect their funds from theft by officials. It followed a Royal Commission on Trade Unions (1867 to 1869) which concluded that unions were a legitimate part of industrial life. A companion law, the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871, however, made picketing and 'molestation' criminal, which unions fiercely opposed. The Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act of 1875, passed by Disraeli's Conservatives, legalized peaceful picketing.¹²

British workers had faced the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, which banned unions, until their repeal in 1824 and 1825, and unions of skilled men, such as engineers and carpenters, had grown during the mid-Victorian boom. The Luddite machine-breaking of 1811 and the Tolpuddle Martyrs, farm laborers transported in 1834 for forming a union, showed how fiercely the state could react. A series of violent incidents in Sheffield in the 1860s led to the Royal Commission, whose supporters successfully argued that legal recognition would make unions more moderate. The Trades Union Congress began in 1868, giving the movement a national voice.³

Legal status allowed unions to build up funds, bargain collectively and eventually to form political parties. In 1901 the Taff Vale ruling made unions liable for damages during strikes, which sent workers into politics: the Labour Party gained 29 seats in 1906, and Parliament's Trade Disputes Act of that year protected union funds. Union membership in Britain rose from about 2 million in 1900 to more than 13 million by 1979. Collective bargaining won shorter hours, weekends and safer workplaces across industrial countries, and the British model influenced labor law in the Commonwealth and elsewhere.¹