the Trades Union Congress

Council Activities.

The general council of the T.U.C. deals with a wide range of questions and its authority continues to increase. It has instituted a standing trade boards advisory council, composed of representatives of organizations catering for workers covered by the Trade Boards Acts. It has its education committee which has concerned itself with the problem of adult education, whose proposals, approved by the Trades Union congress in 1925, were designed to assist in the promotion of educational facilities for trade unionists, and had been arrived at in agreement with Ruskin college, the education department of the Co-operative Union, the Labour college, the Workers' Educational Association, and the National Council of Labour colleges. The object of the proposals was "to provide working-class education in order to enable the workers to develop their capacities and to equip them for their trade union, labour and co-operative activities generally, in the work of securing social and industrial emancipation." Early in 1926, the countess of Warwick handed over her estate, Easton lodge, Dunmow, in Essex to the general council of the Trades Union congress for use as a labour college and as a labour centre generally, but owing to the financial obligations involved the scheme did not materialise. In 1927 the general council inaugu rated a scholarship scheme, which provides three scholarships a year tenable at the Labour college and Ruskin college respectively.

The general council has taken an increasingly important part in large industrial disputes. At the Hull congress of 1924, its hands were strengthened in this matter. In the event of a break down of negotiations in a dispute, "the deadlock being of such a character as to directly or indirectly involve other bodies of work-people affiliated to the Trades Union congress in a stoppage of work or to imperil standard wages and hours and conditions of employment, the council may take the initiative by calling repre sentatives of the unions into consultation, and use its influence to effect a just settlement of the difference." Before this resolu tion was carried, the general council had, in fact, intervened by mediation or the granting of moral and financial support, in dis putes in which affiliated societies were concerned. In the prolonged boilermakers' dispute in 1924, in the dock workers' dispute, the tramway dispute in the London area, the Southampton shipyard dispute, and the building trade dispute in the same year, the general council used its good offices. But the adoption of the reso lution of Sept., 1924, placed greater authority in the hands of the council. On the occasion of the dispute in the coal industry in July 1925, the general council appointed a special industrial corn mittee and took a very prominent part in the negotiations which led to the temporary settlement. The industrial committee in

Aug. 1925, intervened in the dispute in the wool textile industry which had culminated in a stoppage of work. In 1927 it took a hand in the settlement of the packing-case makers' dispute in Leicester, and in 1928 it assisted in the settlement of a dispute between the National Amalgamated Union of Life Assurance Workers and the Wesleyan and General Assurance Society. The year 1928 also saw the intervention of the General Council in the dispute on the Nottinghamshire coalfield.

In conjunction with the Labour Party and the Miners' Federa tion of Great Britain the general council established a committee early in 1925 to prepare a policy for the coal industry, and the proposals of this joint committee were submitted to the royal commission on the coal industry set up by the Government after the coal settlement in July 1925. After the publication of the royal commission's report, the general council, through its indus trial committee resumed its consultations with the Miners' Fed eration and was associated closely with the federation 'during the course of negotiations. Finally, it declared a large scale sympa thetic strike (commonly called the "general strike" [q.v.] ) and for the first time in its history tried to stop all industry.

An important and developing side of the activities of the gen eral council is the forging of closer bonds with the trades and labour councils which exist in large numbers up and down the country. Before 1895 trades councils were represented at the annual Trades Union congress. But from that date until 1924 there was no direct contact between these local representative bodies of trade union branches and the T.U.C., though the trades councils (many of which are local Labour Parties) were affiliated to the Labour Party and sent delegates to its annual conferences.

After the establishment of the general council, efforts were made to remedy this defect in organization, and in 1925 a model form of constitution for trades councils was worked out, arrange ments made for the publication and circulation of special literature on trade unionism, and a regular monthly statement from the general council to the trades councils was inaugurated. At the end of 1924, there were 476 trades councils known to be in existence in Britain, including industrial sections of local Labour Parties.

In 1913 the number was 328. From 1913 to 1924 the aggregate affiliated membership rose from 1,481,00o to 2,219,00o, the latter figure representing about two-fifths of the total membership of trade unions. The general council has taken an active part in promoting federations of trades councils. Since 1927, it has refused to recognise councils which are affiliated to the National Minority Movement.