Management and the Taff Vale Strike of 1900

The Taff Vale Railway strike of 1900 stands as a landmark in the history of industrial relations in Britain. There is a substantial literature dealing with the strike and resulting court case. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the underlying pressures and tensions which gave rise to the strike nor to its wider consequences: the focus hitherto has been on labour, politics and labour law rather than the dynamics of the struggle between capital and labour which raged throughout the railway industry. The strike resulted from a clash between an assertive labour movement and a beleaguered management with little financial room for manoeuvre. Victory for capital paved the way for far-reaching changes in technology and working methods without conceding the gains to labour through the agency of trade union action.