The amount of time lost owing to industrial disputes varies enormously, not only from year to year, but also as between the different trades. Strikes and lock-outs are rare in agriculture, in the iron and steel trades, in the boot and shoe trade, and in the chemical industry. On the other hand, the coal mining industry and the engineering and shipbuilding trades have been much harassed by trade disputes, most of them short and involving relatively small numbers, but including also the five greatest dis putes (measured by aggregate duration) which the country has ever experienced. These (which were all in the coal mining indus try) were the prolonged stoppage of 1893, when nearly 300,000 workpeople in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the Midlands were out from early in July to the middle of November; the stoppage of 1912, when the whole coal mining industry of the country was brought to a standstill by the demand of the Miners' Federation for the payment of an individual district minimum wage for all underground workers; and the three stoppages of 192o, 1921 and 1926, also on a national scale. These five disputes resulted in the loss of 21 million, 31 million, 16 million, 72 million, and 145 million working days, respectively; a total of 285 million days, or almost exactly the same as the time lost in the whole of the remaining disputes (numbering nearly 25,000) of the entire period of 35 years covered by the table. The largest amounts of working days lost outside the coal mining industry have been the 15 mil lion working days lost in the general strike of 1926, and the 13 millions lost in the great engineering dispute of 1922. Industries occupying an intermediate position as regards frequency and extent of industrial disputes are the building trades (where dis putes, though rather numerous, have usually been small and local), and the textile trades.
The causes of disputes are of course very varied, embracing all the matters relating to conditions of employment on which differences may arise between employers and employed. Experience shows, however, that the great bulk of disputes relate to questions of wages, a much smaller propor tion to hours of labour, and the balance to a large number of miscellaneous questions, such as the employment of persons or classes obnoxious to the strikers on the ground that they do not belong to their union, or have worked against its interests, or because they are held to have no "right" to the particular occupa tion on which they are employed, either on account of not having gone through the recognized training or of belonging to another trade. Among this class of strikes are to be included the so-called "demarcation" disputes between two bodies of workmen as to the limits of their trades, which frequently cause suspension of work by both groups, to the great inconvenience of the employer. Strikes are also not uncommon on the question of trade unionism pure and simple—i.e., to obtain or defend freedom to belong to a union, or to act through its agency in negotiations with employers.
This question enters more or less as a factor into a large number of disputes, most usually, however, as a secondary cause or object, so that it does not appear prominently in the tabulation of causes in the official statistics, which is based on principal causes only. Thus the formulated demands of the strikers are usually for improved conditions of work, the question of "recognition" of the trade union only arising incidentally when the parties at tempt to negotiate as to these demands. The following table shows the percentages of workpeople directly involved in dis putes, involving stoppages of work, respecting the undermentioned causes or objects, in 1918-27 in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
table only relate to the immediate results, as determined by the relative extent to which one or other of the parties succeed in enforcing their demands. The question of the ultimate effect of the stoppages on the welfare of the parties or of the community generally is an entirely different problem.
The great majority of disputes— involving 57% of the workpeople on the average of the years 1911-27—were settled by direct negotiation between the parties or their representatives; 18% by conciliation; 8% by arbitration ; 5% by return to work on the employers' terms without negotia tion; less than I% by replacement of workpeople; and 11% by other methods. Here, again, the variations from year to year Questions of hours of labour, quite insignificant in most years, rise occasionally to importance as in 1916-19 when the great change over to the 47-48 hour week took place, and in 1927 when modifications of those hours were in question.
Statistics may have a fictitious ele ment of unknown amount in that one or both sides to a negotia tion may ask for more than they expect to get. A trade union, scenting a demand for a reduction in wages, may put in, as a first tactical move, an application for an increase. If, after a few days' strike, the men were to forego the application and return to work on the old terms the settlement would be apparently a defeat but actually a victory—provided no more were heard of the threatened reduction. The statistics of settlement must be read in the light of such possibilities. They may be summarized as follows :—About 21% of the disputes of the years 1911-27, on the average, ended in favour of the workpeople; 22% ended in favour of the employers; and 57% were compromised. The variations from year to year were not very great, if number of disputes only be considered; but, if the number of workpeople involved be considered, the variations are greater, owing to the preponderating influence of a few large disputes in many years. Thus, the percentage of workpeople directly involved in disputes which ended in favour of the workpeople was 21, on the average; but the annual percentage varied from 1.5 in 1921 to 74.5 in 1912, in both cases owing to disputes on a natiohal scale in the coal mining industry.