Labour Insurgency

: Transnational Syndicalism and Industrial Unionism among Maritime Workers in Liverpool, 1911-1926

Abstract

Between 1911 and 1926 Liverpool, the Second City of Empire and one of the most important port cities in the world, was hit by a series of massive strikes by the city’s maritime workforce. Many of these striking workers were motivated by the revolutionary trade unionist ideology known as Syndicalism, which had started to gain a foothold among British trade unionists in the early twentieth century. Beginning during “the Great Unrest” of the pre-war years trade unionists influenced by syndicalism made their influence felt, most dramatically by inspiring a city-wide transport strike that united all workers in the transport industry together. Following the war, a new generation of syndicalist organizers inspired workers to challenge the oligarchic and right-wing leadership of the National Sailors and Firemen’s Union (NSFU).
In these years, a variety of local, national, and international factors gave rise to a particularly militant brand of syndicalism on Liverpool’s waterfront. With its back to England and its face out to sea, Liverpool was always a city defined by its port. The “Seafaring cosmopolitanism” that connected Liverpool to the broader Atlantic and global maritime world, became increasingly radicalized in the early twentieth century. Through these connections a variety of different transnational syndicalist factors would influence and radicalize the seafaring workers of Liverpool, including European anarcho-syndicalism and the radical trade union gospel of the North American Industrial Workers of the World.
This study seeks to link the history of industrial unrest in early twentieth century Britain, and especially that prevailing in the maritime industry, with economic and political developments throughout the broader British maritime world. It is the story of Liverpool, but also the story of the revolutionary global maritime world in the twentieth century.

Date of Award	30 Jul 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Edge Hill University
Supervisor	DANIEL GORDON (Director of Studies), VICTOR MERRIMAN (Supervisor) & PAUL WARD (Supervisor)