The Hidden Effects of Company Strikes: Workers Made Idle in UK Engineering and Metalworking from 1920 to 1970

Abstract

This study examines a neglected aspect of industrial relations: workplace disputes in which workers are incidentally made idle because of strike actions of others. These spillover effects have received little systematic attention despite potentially accounting for a substantial share of the employment consequences of industrial conflict. The analysis uses a comprehensive dataset of company strikes compiled by the UK Engineering Employers’ Federation (EEF) between 1920 and 1970, recording both workers directly involved in disputes and non-striking employees made idle. During the interwar and wartime periods, relatively few workers were made idle compared with those directly on strike. In contrast, the post-war period saw a substantial rise in the likelihood and scale of incidental idleness. By the late 1960s, the number of EEF workers made idle by strikes nearly matched the hundreds of thousands on strike. Incidental idleness was especially likely when strikes were caused by non-pay disputes, most notably those involving a demarcation disagreement about how workers from different unions or with different trades were assigned to tasks in the plant. These findings highlight wider employment consequences of industrial conflict, especially where there are production interdependencies.