The 1911 Liverpool general transport strike, also known as the great transport workers' strike, involved dockers, railway workers, sailors and other tradesmen. The strike paralysed

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, natio ...

for most of the summer of 1911. It also transformed trade unionism on

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wir ...

. For the first time, general trade unions were able to establish themselves on a permanent footing and become genuine mass organisations of the working class.

Strike action Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the ...

began on 14 June when the

National Sailors' and Firemen's Union 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, ...

announced a nationwide merchant seamen's strike. Solidarity action in support of the seamen led to other sections of workers coming out on strike. A strike committee, chaired by the

syndicalist Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of pr ...

Tom Mann Thomas Mann (15 April 1856 – 13 March 1941), was an English trade unionist and is widely recognised as a leading, pioneering figure for the early labour movement in Britain. Largely self-educated, Mann became a successful organiser and a ...

, was formed to represent all of the workers in dispute. Many meetings were held on St. George's Plateau, next to St. George’s Hall, on Lime Street, including the rally on 13 August in which police carried out a

baton charge A baton charge is a coordinated tactic for dispersing crowds of people, usually used by police or military in response to public disorder. In South Asia, a long bamboo stick, called ''lathi'' in Hindi, is used for crowd control, and the expres ...

a crowd of 85,000 people, who had gathered to hear Tom Mann speak. The event became known as "Bloody Sunday". In the police charges and subsequent unrest that carried on through the following night, over 350 people were injured. 3,500 British troops had become stationed in the city. Two days later, soldiers of the 18th Hussars opened fire on a crowd on Vauxhall Road, injuring fifteen, two fatally: John Sutcliffe, a 19-year-old Catholic carter, was shot twice in the head, and Michael Prendergast, a 30-year-old Catholic docker, was shot twice in the chest. An inquest into their deaths later brought in a verdict of "justifiable homicide".

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all nationa ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

sent in troops and positioned the cruiser in the Mersey.

References

External links

Libertarian Communist perspective on strikeFull calendar of 1911 Liverpool in issue 17 of Nerve magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike Liverpool General Transport Strike, 1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike General strikes in the United Kingdom Labour disputes in England History of Liverpool Industrial history of England Politics of Liverpool 1910s in Liverpool Transport strikes

See also

References

Further reading

External links