Labnet: Historical data on labour conflicts

[labnet at lists.labourhistory.net]

From: Sjaak van der Velden 


Dear All

This call invites interested researchers all over the world to join in a
project to assemble, discuss and analyze historical data on labour
conflicts. We feel that, to really understand the present developments
in strike activity, a long-term view is needed. To construct this view,
and to compare long-term trends by country and by economic sector, we
need to assemble and standardize data.  Thanks to the internet and to
specialized software for virtual collaboration such an enterprise is
feasible. The International Institute of Social History is willing to
support the building-up of an international research group as part of
the Global Labour History project. The short-term aims of the project
are to organize a conference on the subject, the building of a
collaboratory, and the publication of a book based on the discussions
during the conference.


Strikes matter. Despite the general drop in strike activity across a
large number of countries since the peak of the late 1960s and the early
1970s, they are still an important, and in many ways essential, feature
of the fabric of working life. As more countries have embraced free
market capitalism or ended regimes which suppressed freedom of
association, the constituency for striking openly has actually
dramatically increased across the world.  The fact that in most advanced
capitalist countries strike activity is at historically low levels, and
has been for some years, has led many commentators to speculate whether
this trend is irreversible. Nearly half a century ago a similar
discussion was taking place. In 1960, Ross and Hartman published a book
explaining the apparent decline in strike activity across a range of
countries, including India and Japan, over the period 1900-56. While
they cautioned against projecting current trends into the future, that
did not stop them speculating and they coined the term 'the withering
away of the strike', which has been quoted ever since. Their explanation
for this was mainly institutional. What is not remembered is that they
also predicted that 'the strike will not wither away in the United
States as it has done in Northern Europe' (added emphasis; Ross and
Hartman 1960: 181). 

Another American research project of the 1950s, the 'Inter-University
Study of Labor Problems in Economic Development' (Kerr et al. 1973:
307), took an even longer historical and broader geographical,
perspective on industrial conflict. One of its major outputs,
Industrialism and Industrial Man (1962), argued that there were
'universal responses of workers' to industrialization, with a 'natural
history of [worker] protest', in which the forms of protest changed as
workers became increasingly organized and institutions were created to
contain industrial conflict. According to them, over time, workers'
initial responses of absenteeism, turnover, fighting, theft and sabotage
were replaced by spontaneous stoppages and demonstrations; these in turn
led to organized strikes and political protest and activity, culminating
in the use of grievance and dispute machinery without strikes, labour
courts, and political parties and alliances. Kerr et al. concluded that
'worker protest in the course of  industrialization tends to peak
relatively early and to decline in intensity thereafter' (1973: 218).
Reinforcing this message was the authors' view that the second century
of world-wide industrialization (from 1950) would see an even less
central role for worker protest as industrialization was increasingly
embraced by new workers.

In fact, before the end of the 1960s there was the beginning of a
massive offensive-strike wave internationally, with May 1968 in France
and the hot autumn (autunno caldo) in Italy the following year probably
being the high points. This activity was recognized in a number of
academic studies such as the volume edited by Barkin (1975), entitled
Worker Militancy and its Consequences, 1965-75, covering Western Europe
and North America, and the two volumes edited by Crouch and Pizzorno
(1978), The Resurgence of Class Conflict in Western Europe since 1968.
Almost before we could digest these findings, the widespread recession
of the late 1970s and early 1980s and the rise of unemployment across
most of the western world led to 'the resurgence of labour quiescence',
to use Shalev's (1992) phrase. The pattern of very large strike waves at
periodic intervals has been the subject of much discussion and is now
generally related to Kondratieff's notion of long waves in the economy.
Kelly (1997) summarizes the main features of the literature, noting that
strike waves occur at the turning-points from economic upswing to
downswing and vice versa. Major strike waves (1870s, 1910-20 and
1968-74) are associated with the former (i.e. upswing to downswing) and
minor strike waves (early 1890s, late 1930s-early 1940s) with the
latter. Kelly (1997: 23) argues that 'it is the pattern of interactions
between workers and employers over the duration of the upswing that
seems to prepare the way for the ruptures at its peak'. The clash of
employers' declining profitability with workers' attempts to maintain
their living standards (after a long period of upswing) is shaped by
their respective levels of
confidence as much as their organizational capacity. The behaviour of
workers after a long downswing is viewed as more complex. Kelly cautions
against any mechanical application of long-wave theory. 



International comparison

The strike, or the fundamental statement of the humanity and
intelligence of the working class (Cronin 1979: 195), seems to persist.
There is, however, a statistical problem when researchers want to
compare several times and places.  In general, we have the data
published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) at our
disposal. There are quite a few problems with these data because
collectors of national data do not follow exactly the recommendations of
the ILO (1993). National Statistical bureaus collect three main
indicators: number of stoppages, workers involved, and days not worked.
It is a commonplace in research on strikes to highlight the inadequacies
of officially
collected data; sometimes alternative statistics are available, though
only for limited periods. The general consensus is that figures for days
not worked pick up the bulk of strike volume; by contrast, and hardly
surprisingly, figures for numbers of stoppages usually seriously
underestimate the actual picture. Probably uniquely, I have personally
created an alternative database for the Netherlands. This has been
possible because the Netherlands is a small country, so it was
relatively easy to search in archives, magazines, monographs, booklets
and other sources for strikes and lockouts. I have done this
single-handedly over a decade and have been able to cover the whole
period of 1830-2005 (see van der Velden (2000; 2003). Similar projects
would probably be difficult to accomplish for larger countries, although
Tilly and Shorter (1974) have done this for
France (1830-1968). The research done by the World Labor Research
Working Group (WLG) of the Fernand Braudel Center in New York also shows
that it is possible to build large databases containing labour conflicts
(see Silver et al. 1995 and Silver 2005). 
Lockouts have been and are a particularly important indicator of what
might be termed 'employer militancy'. While their incidence is generally
much less extensive today, lockouts, as with strikes, have not
disappeared and are still important in a number of countries. Their
continuing use draws attention to the power relations underlying
industrial conflict (van der Velden 2006). While there are practical
difficulties in distinguishing some lockouts and strikes (and there are
further discussions of this in van der Velden (2006), rescuing the
lockout from aggregate figures of industrial disputes is still an
important scientific duty.


An international network

So, labour conflicts are an important phenomenon in the history of
capitalism, but also in other societies in which unequal labour
relations exist. Through labour conflicts, social, economic, political
and legal relations have been greatly altered.  Researchers concerned
with social and economic history but also those involved with
institutional or political history cannot ignore labour conflicts. The
International Institute of Social History (IISH) has taken the
initiative to set up a network of scholars (a  collaboratory) working
with this kind of data, and to establish a moderated list of data files
of labour conflicts (a hub). Scholars working in this field are invited
to register their work, and to make their databases available through
the internet - either on their own web pages (which will then be made
accessible via the IISH-list) or on the web pages of the IISH. The
databases cover strikes, lock-outs and other labour conflicts. The
reason for collecting this data is, as has been said before, that the
official data of the various national statistical offices and
derivatively those of the ILO are demonstrably incomplete, often not
easily comparable, and often available only at a high level of
aggregation (annual data). 

We wish to construct this collection in a similar way to the existing
collection of data on wages and prices, of which Prof. Jan Luiten van
Zanden is the moderator. See:

http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/ 

To obtain such a list, we call on researchers who have access to digital
records of data about labour conflicts to make these available to the
IISH, or connect them to the collection via a link. We will begin with
inventorizing existing digital records and websites. Ideally, the
records should be constructed according to the following format:  

1.	Definitions. The terms, definitions and measurement as stated by
the ILO (1993) will be used.  
2.	Coverage. The statistics should cover the whole nation or any
specific region,  and go back in time as far as possible
3.	Basic data to be collected includes:
	a. Strikes, lockouts and other expressions of class struggle as
covered in 1. 
	b. The number of workers involved in these actions
	c. The duration of these actions in days regardless of year or
season
	d. The amount of time not worked by workers directly, indirectly
or secondary involved in these actions
	e. The number and names of the companies involved, including
conglomerates to which they belong
	f. The demand(s) that caused the actions
	g. The outcome of the actions and method of settlement
	h. The calendar date of the actions 
	i. The geographical position of the action (if possible the
longitude and latitude)
	j. The profession of the workers consistent with the Historical
International Classification of Occupations (HISCO)  
	k. The economic sector according to the International Standard
Industrial Classification
	l. The workers' and/or employers' organizations concerned 
	m. Was the action official or unofficial (wildcat)
	n. Special groups of workers (e.g. women, children, aliens)
	o. An account (if possible in English, otherwise in the national
language)
4.	Sources
	a. If available, the official, national statistics	
	b. Yearbooks, magazines, leaflets, books etc. issued by workers'
and/or
employers' organizations or others
	c. Newspapers, the World Wide Web

An example of records constructed according to this format is available
at: 

http://www.iisg.nl/databases/stakingen.php 

Regrettably this database is currently only available in Dutch language,
although a translation into English is being prepared.  

Many old records on labour conflicts are obviously not digitalized.
These however will also get their place in the list through a
description or reference to the source in a monograph or periodical. 

We strongly feel that this is the time to take advantage of the
possibilities the internet offers. On-line collaboration is feasible
through modern software such as Sharepoint and we will certainly use
such a system to build a virtual laboratory.  The collaboratory on
labour conflicts is part of a bigger and very ambitious project to cover
the long-term shifts in labour relations on a global scale. See:

http://www.iisg.nl/research/labourcollab/ 

We call on researchers who are interested in this project to co-operate.
First, the IISH invites you to enter into a discussion about the format,
problems, and possibilities. This discussion will start on-line, but the
group will try to reach a conclusion at a conference to be held in the
spring of 2008. The main aim of this conference will be to set the
standard for the digital data which will be published on the internet.
The results of the conference will be published in a book. Besides, the
project aims at coming to really comparative studies on a solid
statistical basis. Researchers who are already able to provide records
or who have information on digital or paper records anywhere in the
world are of course kindly requested to contact us. 

Please contact: 
Dr. Sjaak van der Velden
Cruquiusweg 31
1018 AT Amsterdam
The Netherlands
svv at iisg.nl 


References:

- Barkin, S. 1975, Worker militancy and its consequences, 1965-75: new
directions in western industrial relations, New York, Praeger.
- Cronin, J. 1979, Industrial conflict in modern Britain, London, Croom
Helm.
- Crouch, C. and Pizzorno, A. 1978, The resurgence of class conflict in
Western Europe since 1968. Volume 1, national studies, and Volume 2,
comparative analyses, London, Macmillan. 
- ILO, 1993, 'Resolution concerning statistics of strikes, lockouts and
other action due to labour disputes, adopted by the Fifteenth
International Conference of Labour Statisticians', at
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/download/res/strikes.pdf 
- Kelly, J. 1997, 'Long waves in industrial relations: mobilization and
counter-mobilization in historical perspective', Historical Studies in
Industrial Relations, no. 4, pp.3-35.
- Kerr, C. et al. 1973, Industrialism and industrial man: the problems
of labour and management in economic growth, Harmondsworth, Penguin (2nd
edn; first published in the US, 1960).
- Ross, A. M. and Hartman, P. T. (1960), Changing patterns of industrial
conflict, New York, John Wiley.
- Shalev, M. 1992, 'The resurgence of labour quiescence', in The future
of labour movements, ed. M. Regini, London, Sage, pp.102-132.
- Shorter, E. and Tilly, C. 1974, Strikes in France, 1830-1968, London,
Cambridge University Press.
- Silver, B. J. 2003, Forces of labor. Workers' movements and
globalization since 1870, New York, Cambridge University Press.
- Silver, B. J. et al.(eds.) 1995, 'Labor unrest in the world economy,
1870-1990', Review (Fernand Braudel Center), Special Issue, vol. 18, no.
1.
- Velden, S. van der 2000, Stakingen in Nederland: Arbeidersstrijd
1830-1995, Amsterdam, Stichting beheer IISG.
http://www.iisg.nl/databases/stakingen.html 
- Velden, S. van der 2003, 'Strikes in global labor history. The Dutch
case', Review (Fernand Braudel Center), vol. 26, no. 4, pp.381-405.
- Velden, S. van der 2006, 'Lockouts in the Netherlands: why statistics
on labour disputes must discriminate between strikes and lockouts, and
why new statistics need to be compiled', Historical Social Research /
Historische Sozialforschung, vol. 31, no. 4, pp.341-362.

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