Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [146]
Few workers broke ranks during the Dunkirk period. But as the war news improved, they perceived less urgency about the struggle for national survival. “I gather that production535 is not nearly good enough,” wrote Tory MP Cuthbert Headlam in December 1940, “that the work people in airplane and other gov[ernment] factories are beginning to go ca’canny; that the dockers at the ports are giving trouble … communists active—I only hope that much of this gossip is exaggerated, but it is alarming nonetheless.” In September 1941, when Churchill visited the Armstrong-Siddeley factory at Coventry, where Whitley bombers were being manufactured, he was warned that the plant was “a hotbed of communism.” Jock Colville wrote: “I was disgusted to hear that their production tempo536 had not really grown until Russia came into the war.” Nine thousand men at Vickers-Armstrongs in Barrow went on unofficial strike in a dispute over piecework rates. When a tribunal found against them, the strike committee held a mass meeting at a local football ground, and put forward a motion suggesting that the men should resume work “under protest.” This was overwhelmingly defeated, and the dispute dragged on for weeks.
Of eight serious strikes in the aircraft industry537 between February and May 1943, six concerned pay, one was sparked by objections to an efficiency check on machine use, and one by refusal to allow two fitters to be transferred to different sections of the same shop. There were twenty-eight lesser stoppages prompted by disputes about canteen facilities, alleged victimisation of a shop steward, the use of women riveters, and refusal by management to allow collections for the Red Army during working hours. A report on the de Havilland factory at Castle Bromwich noted “a marked absence of discipline538 … slackness … difficulty in controlling shop stewards.” Ernest Bevin reported that the aircraft industry “had failed to improve its productivity539 in proportion to the amount of labour supplies.” A total of 1.8 million working days were lost during 1,785 disputes in 1943, a figure which rose to 3.7 million in 2,194 disputes in 1944.
“Strikes continue to cause much discussion,”540 declared a 1943 Home Intelligence report. “The majority feeling is that strike action in wartime is unjustified … Fatigue and war-weariness, combined with the belief that we are ‘out of the wood’ and victory now certain, are thought by many to account for the situation.” American seamen arriving in Britain were shocked by the attitudes they encountered among dockers. Walter Byrd, chief officer of the U.S. merchantman James W. Marshall, “made very strong criticism of the attitude of stevedores and other dockworkers in the port of Glasgow. He accused them of complete indifference to the exigencies of any situation, however urgent.” Byrd complained to harbour security officers541 that many trucks and tanks were being damaged by reckless handling during off-loading. It was decided to dispatch some shipworkers to work in U.S. yards on British vessels. At a time when passenger space was at a premium, the service chiefs were enraged when these men refused to sail without their wives—and their demand was met: “I do not see why the country sh[oul]d not be mobilized542 and equality of sacrifice demanded,” a senior army officer commented indignantly.
Of all wartime industrial disputes543, 60 percent concerned wages, 19 percent demarcation, and 11.2 percent working arrangements. A strong Communist element on Clydeside was held responsible by management for many local difficulties. Some trades unionists adopted a shameless view that there was no better time to secure higher pay than during a national emergency, when the need for continuous production was so compelling. Those who served Britain in uniform were poorly rewarded—the average private soldier received less than a pound a week—but industrial workers did well out of the war. The Cost of