:''This is about the Maritime Board in the United Kingdom. For the Board in the Philippines, see

National Seamen Board :''This is about the Seamen Board in the Philippines. For the Board in the United Kingdom, see National Maritime Board.'' The National Seamen Board (NSB) is the committee that was created by the Labor Code of the Philippines, through Article 20 of ...

.'' The National Maritime Board (NMB) was a bilateral board governing wages and working practices in the British shipping industry. It was founded in November 1917 against a backdrop of strike action amongst seafarers and was originally intended as a purely wartime measure to facilitate wage negotiations in a period of rapid inflation. It built upon the union-employer relationship that had emerged during the war years and brought together representatives of the

Shipping Federation {{no sources, date=August 2020 The Shipping Federation was an association of employers in the shipping industry. It was formed in 1890 in response to the London dock strike of 1889 and the successes of the National Union of Seamen The Nat ...

, the

National Union of Seamen The National Union of Seamen (NUS) was the principal trade union of merchant seafarers in the United Kingdom from the late 1880s to 1990. In 1990, the union amalgamated with the National Union of Railwaymen to form the National Union of Rail ...

and the

National Union of Ship's Stewards The National Union of Ship's Stewards, Cooks, Butchers and Bakers was the principal trade union for service personnel serving aboard British merchant ships between 1909 and 1921. It was formed in Liverpool in 1909 by Joe Cotter, a former Cunar ...

, as well as some smaller unions in the industry, but allowing the

British Seafarers' Union The British Seafarers' Union (BSU) was a trade union which organised sailors and firemen in the British ports of Southampton and Glasgow between 1911/1912 and 1922. Although of considerable local importance, the organisation remained much smal ...

only local representation. In 1919 the board was re-established as a permanent body and set about establishing national wage rates for all grades, the first time such rates had been enforced. Aylmer Vallance was appointed as the board's General Secretary.Geoffrey Cox, "The editor who made love - and great news", ''British Journalism Review'' 1996 7: 16 In the 1920s, the board imposed a series of wage reductions with the support of the National Union of Seamen. The Ship's Stewards Union opposed the first of these reductions in 1921, and its members were locked out. At this time, the board also became embroiled in controversies over the policy of Joint Control introduced by the NUS and Shipping Federation. This arrangement aimed to ensure that seafarers could only gain employment if in possession of a form endorsed by both the union and the employers' organisation. It was allegedly widely used to force out of employment members of rival unions, communists, and other 'agitators'. Later history is unclear: the University of Warwick's Modern Records Centre states that "the records of the Board currently held ..end in 1985 ..and it is not known how the organisation continued to operate after this time".

References

{{Reflist

External links

Catalogue of the NMB archives
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

Water transport in the United Kingdom 1917 establishments in the United Kingdom Shipping in the United Kingdom