Red Clydeside: A history of the labour movement in Glasgow 1910-1932

Events

The Clydeside Engineers' Dispute 1915

During a period of sustained economic hardship for many industrial workers, Clydeside engineering employers refused workers' demands for a wage increase of two pence a week to offset the rise in the cost of living. At the same time one employer, Weir's of Cathcart, was paying workers brought over from their American plant six shillings a week more than other workers in their Glasgow factory.

The dispute between management and engineering workers at Weir's quickly escalated into strike action over management's refusal to accept workers' wage demands whilst paying American workers more than their Scottish colleagues. The strike was organised and conducted by a strike committee named the Labour Withholding Committee (LWC). This committee was made up of rank-and-file trade union members and shop stewards, and it was they, rather than officials of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), who remained in control of the strike.

The strike lasted for just under three weeks, and at its height there were 10,000 members of the ASE, in eight separate engineering works, on strike throughout the Clydeside region.

Although the demands of the workers were not met, the importance of this strike lay in the formation of the LWC, a committee made up of ordinary trade union members that determined policy in the workplace, and which refused to follow dictates from trade union officials if they conflicted with the demands of the rank-and-file members.