Roy Church

The ‘isolated mass’ revisited: strikes in British coal mining

The authors examine how far inter-colliery variations in local strike activity in Britain between the Wars can be explained by the characteristics of their immediate localities highlighted by Kerr and Siegels ‘isolated mass’ theory. A regression analysis suggests that some of the variables indicated by Kerr and Siegel did affect strike activity but only weakly. A contingency table analysis confirms that some of the Kerr-Siegel variables serve to define groups of collieries which experienced significantly different levels of strike activity. Whilst supporting many of the criticisms levelled at the Kerr-Siegel hypothesis, the authors conclude that the empirically based rejection of the hypothesis has been too emphatic.

Mining and modernity: size, sectionalism and solidarity

Consequences of size: ideas and hypotheses The colliery-and plant-based analyses of industrial conflict, which form part of the industrial relations literature referred to in chapter 5, have been confined to a handful of studies restricted to short periods during the post-nationalization era (see Scott et al. 1963; McCormick 1969; Christine Edwards 1978; Christine Edwards and Heery 1985; Rigg 1987). While it is only relatively recently that such approaches have incorporated explicit concepts relating to size, and have involved quantification and the formal testing of hypotheses, the interest in workplace scale in relation to labour relations and human behaviour is not new. Before examining the potential of colliery size for explaining the history of strikes in the industry, therefore, we provide a context in the form of a survey of the social comment and analysis provoked by the emergence of large-scale workplaces. Three traditions are discernible in the economics and sociology of size. The first is that introduced by Charles Babbage, who in 1832 was the first to link Adam Smiths concept of the division of labour with large-scale industry. Size of factory, he thought, both facilitated and advanced the technical division of labour (Babbage 1832/1989: ch. 19, section 263; compare with Adam Smith 1776/1976: ch. 1). The economic advantages of the division of labour were stressed, but the consequences for the social relations of production were addressed only in passing, if at all.

List of references

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