Arthur McIvor

A History of Work in Britain, 1880-1950

This book discusses the extent to which work was transformed in Britain between 1880-1950. Chapters explore: the historiography and theorizing of work; the changing labor force; the debates on deskilling, and work intensification; employers and the management of labor, work conditions, and occupational health, the role of the state in the workplace; women, gender relations, and inequalities at work; trade unions, work and politics. The book emphasizes the diversity of work experience, the uneven pace of change and the weaknesses in Marxist theories of the changing nature of work. Workers emerge as both victims and active players, capable of regulating work conditions, relationships, and the labor process, with the trade unions increasingly playing a vital, protective role.

A crusade for capitalism - the economic-league, 1919-39

It has been argued elsewhere, on a number of occasions, that in stark contrast to the vast amount of research recently undertaken on labour history, the study of employers’ organizations, capitalist pressure groups and labour management strategies remains grossly neglected, a theme without literature. This paper addresses one area where perhaps historians have been particularly remiss, namely how employers responded and organized to neutralize the growing power of labour and the penetration of socialist ideas and communist influence amongst the working class in the inter-war years. Focus is placed here on the genesis, organization, financial backing, functions, orientation and strategies of one association, the Economic League (EL). The League was only one of a plethora of anti-socialist organizations in existence in the 1920s and 1930s. However, it will be argued that this organization had special significance because of its role as a systematic monitoring and labour blacklisting agency. It was also one of the most powerful, most active and most durable of anti-labour employers’ combinations in the twentieth century,This paper addresses one area where perhaps historians have been particularly remiss, namely how employers responded and organized to neutralize the growing power of labour and the penetration of socialist ideas and communist influence amongst the working class in the inter-war years.

Militant Workers : Labour and Class Conflict on the Clyde, 1900-1950

This collection of essays focuses upon the life and times of Harry McShane, one of the last of the Red Clydesiders - a lifelong labour activist and Marxist who died in April 1988. The book incorporates a short biographical introduction, some reminiscences by associates of Harry and samples of his political writing, dealing with the acute housing crisis in late 1940s Glasgow.

Miners, silica and disability: The bi‐national interplay between South Africa and the United Kingdom, c1900–1930s

This paper investigates silicosis as a disabling disease in underground mining in the United Kingdom (UK) before Second World War, exploring the important connections between South Africa and the UK and examining some of the issues raised at the 1930 International Labour Office Conference on silicosis in Johannesburg in a British context. The evidence suggests there were significant paradoxes and much contestation in medical knowledge creation, advocacy, and policy-making relating to this occupational disease. It is argued here that whilst there was an international exchange of scientific knowledge on silicosis in the early decades of the twentieth century, it was insufficient to challenge the traditional defense adopted by the British government of proven beyond all scientific doubt before effective intervention in coal mining. This circumspect approach reflected dominant business interests and despite relatively robust trade union campaigning and eventual reform, the outcome was an accumulative legacy of respiratory disease and disability that blighted coalfield communities.

Medical knowledge and the worker: Occupational lung diseases in the United Kingdom, c. 1920-1975

Focuses has been on the history of occupational health in the UK with particular reference to lung diseases and the development of medical knowledge from the nineteenth century.

Rebuilding ‘Real Men’: Work and Working-Class Male Civilian Bodies in Wartime

This chapter utilises newly conducted oral interviews as well as a range of other evidence, including archived interviews and published autobiographies, to explore how war impacted upon male civilian workers’ gender identities. Working men experienced subordination to the economic imperatives of war and degrees of emasculation associated with not being in uniform and feeling threatened by the wartime work roles of women. However, in wartime working men also found ways to express, validate and rebuild male identities after the ravages of the 1930s Depression. Moreover, masculinities were expressed through bodies and war impacted upon reserved workers’ corporeality in myriad ways. An array of evidence tells a more complex and contingent story of the agency of male workers on the home front.