John Lewis Shop Workers Strike London 1920

John Lewish shop workers strike 1920
Hilda Canharm union leader

Shop Workers Against Fascism

The onset in 1930 of the severest recession  the world had ever  known made 20 per cent of Britain's workers unemployed.
 
The town of Jarrow in the North East of England epitomised the human misery of unemployment  in the hungry thirties.

Virtually a single-industry town, its life blood came from Palmer's shipyard. when the shipyard closed down the consequences were catastrophic. Nearly 80 per cent of the workforce was out of work. 

Malnutrition was claiming lives and the death rate from tuberculosis was double the national average.   

In 1936, with Shop Workers union sponsored MP Ellen Wilkinson at their head,  the men of Jarrow set off to march to London. Throughout the journey the march was fed.and sheltered largely by.the efforts' of trade union members  and Co-operative Societies.  


Ellen spoke nightly at public  meetings en route  and  finally led  the weary yet triumphant marchers into London's Parliament Square.  

The  march  roused  the  whole  nation, but the Tory Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, refused to see any of the marchers.

Apart from the recession, another great  shadow lay over the political scene of the thirties—the  increasing power of Fascism across Europe and the threat of a second world war.

The Shop workers union joined with other unions in highlighting the abuses of fascist regimes in Europe, while opposing fascism in Britain at a time when the ruling establishment including the Daily Mail, Conservative MP's and members of the Royal Family were embracing Hitlerism and his fascist ideology.

Union members fought the fascists on the streets of the East End and elsewhere. They died in the International Brigade defending Republican Spain against fascist enemies.

When the second World War came the union would lose over 2,000 members fighting fascism and a further 140 civilian members killed in aerial attacks  on Britain



NOTE
The Shop Workers union lost 2,047 member during World War 2 fighting fascism, to add to the 2,103 killed in World War 1

Annie Tynan - Shop Workers Union Pioneer

 Annie Tynan was appointed the Shop Workers Union NAUSAW&C's (now USDAW) first woman organiser in 1911.

Surprisingly she didn't come from a retail background but had received a firm grounding in trade unionism with the Amalgamated Society of  Telephone Employees. Working as a telephone operator in Manchester she had, at a very early age, become a branch secretary and then Executive Councillor.

She learned about the NAUSAW&C when she heard John Turner speak at the TUC and followed the Union's work through the pages of  The Shop Assistant.

Her buoyant temperament and great sense of humour attracted many other women to the movement.



The Amalgamated Society of Telephone Employees was formed in 1909 by the merger of the National Society of Telephone Employees with the National Association of Telephone Operators. In 1915 it merged with the Post Office Engineering and Stores Association to form the Post Office Amalgamated Engineering and Stores Association, the forerunner of the Post Office Engineering Union.

Mabel Talbot - Shop Workers Union Pioneer

Mabel Talbot became the Shop workers union (NAUSAW&C's now USDAW) President in 1920, the first woman to hold the position in the Union's history.

A London dressmaker, she advocated the appointment of a woman organiser in her first conference speech in 1910. Three months later she organised a conference of 100 women which led to the formation of the London Women's Council.

She represented the Union at the TUC and at the Congress of Commercial Employees at the Hague and was elected to the Executive in 1914.

A tireless worker with a clear and lucid mind, she helped consolidate the position of women in the movement.

Uxbridge Shop Workers Union 1906

UXBRIDGE
National Amalgamamted Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks Union

Meeting of the Uxbridge branch of the National Amalgamamted Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks was held at Middleton Restaurant, Uxbridge 63 St Andrew's on Tuesday evening 17th April 2oth 1906.

The Uxbridge branch being active as early as 1903.

The National Amalgamamted Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks union had been formed at a meeting held between the East London Shop Assistants Association and the Warehouse Assistant's Union and established on at a conference held in Birmingham on 29th and 30th March 1891. In 1947 the union merged tobcome USDAW.

At the 1906 Uxbridge branch meeting the speaker was Mr J, Turner organiser L.D.C (London District Committee ?) and Mr Thacker, Chairman of LDC.

Mr Turner condemed the "Living In" scandal (forced to live above the shop) and spoke of the need for better wages and improvement of the treatment.

Mr W. Watson is the Secretary of the Uxbridge Branch National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks union.


Emila Dilke was involved with the Women's Protective and Provident League, later the Women's Trade union League (WTUL), from near its inception in 1874 and she served as President of the WTUL for many years until her death.




YIEWSLEY & WEST DRAYTON CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY
UXBRIDGE STORE OPEN'S 1910


Uxbridge store of the Yiewsley and West Drayton Co-operative established 1893 opened Friday 11th March 1910 at 31 and 32 Windsor Street, Uxbridge, this was the Co-operatives second store after Yiewsley.

President: H.J. Chilton
Secretary: E.Cox