..... The earliest full trade union (combination) in Ireland was the Carpenters Society which in 1764 was recorded. It had a rule book with 32 rules it was organised to regulate wages, to control the education and training of apprentices and to raise funds to help fight the employers, usually in court. This should be taken only as an indication of the establishment of unions.

The first major strike recorded in Dublin was a strike organised by the Master Corporation of Hosiers in 1780. The strikers won, gained a pay increase as well as a full table of wage increments. In 1812, the Builders and Plasterers Guild published a report on the building trade before and after the Act of Union of 1801( The Act of Union, abolished the Irish Parliament and joined Ireland to “Great Britain”). This Act had brought misery to the Irish and completely destroyed most of Irish industry. According to this report the employers had tried to blame the poverty in Ireland on the English working class. But the Builders’ and Plasterers’ Guild called on the Irish working class that the English working class should not be blamed for the misery brought about by the English rule.

Later, in 1824, the English House of Parliament appointed a select committee of the House of Commons to investigate on the organisation of Combinations, Societies , Guilds( Trade unions)

The Lord Mayor of Dublin was a witness to the Select Committee and he stated that “ the state of Society among the working class in Dublin is truly alarming”. It was estimated that there was 25 or 26 “unions” in the city. The employers were also worried by the amount of solidarity amongst the various unions.

The next mile stone in Irish Trade Union history was the setting up of the Dublin United Trades Association, which in 1868 joined the British Trade Union Congress. This was the first  open organistion of active solidarity in Ireland. The other Irish cities were slow to follow this lead but by the late 1880’s most of the other cities and towns in the country had established a Trades Council. At the time there were 93 trade unions, with 17,476 members in Ireland.

The next major indication of the future was the establishing of an Irish TUC. This was because of the indifference of the British TUC to the problems of the Irish working class. In 1895, 119 delegates assembled in Dublin to support the move. The power of the Irish TUC in the Irish working class was so great that by 1900 the British TUC asked them to rejoin, but the request was refused. The main reason was that the Irish TUC realised that the British trade unionists still did not understand the differences between Britain and Ireland.Most of the British unions were moving towards a position where they could gain recognition of union rights. But the situation in Ireland was much more serious. So when in 1906 when Trade Union Rights were granted in England, Scotland and Wales, for the transport industry, these rights were refused in Ireland, so the National Dock Workers’ Union decided to send James Larkin to Ireland. His task to attempt to gain Union  Rights throughout the country.

This was the turning point of Irish Labour of Irish Labour history. James Larkin was to awaken the power of the Irish working class. The first main activity of Larkin was the organisation of support for a strike of Dockers in Belfast Docks. That commenced in May 1907. The original strikers were replaced by scabs from England. Larkin then organised the Carters and Coal Workers to come out in sympathy with the dockers. In a very short time over 1000 workers were involved in the dispute.

The employers replied by trying to use “the Orange Card” to divide the workers. But the tactic didn’t work. The next move from their side was to arrange for the charging of James Larkin. But this was so ridiculous that the charges were thrown out.

The use of the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C.) was stepped up both to harass the strikers and to protect the scabs.But the dockers used a series of grievences amongst the police to ferment a strike in the R.I.C.

In turn this led to the introduction of the British army into the city. Most of these were billeted in the Falls Road.  The area has always been Nationalist in nature and the presence of the army lead to riots.Again the employers tried to use “the Orange and Green card” to divide the strikers, again it didn’t work.

In August the Board of Trade stepped in to force and agreement. This succeeded and the workers returned to their jobs with wage rises, better hours and conditions.

The same scenario occured in mid 1908 in Dublin, where Larkin had increased membership to 2700, the employers locked out the Dockers in July, to be followed quickly by the Coalworkers, The headquaters of the Union negotiated a sell out over the heads of the local leaders. Larkin refused to accept the settlement, but the workers returned to work and Larkin continued to organise.

At the same time the Cork Union members went on strike. The main reason for the strike was that there had not been a wage rise for 20years. By the middle of December they had won all their demands,

Larkin then used all his power to bring the men out in Dublin. Over 2,500 workers came out including the Maltmen in Guinnesses Brewery. Again the employers tried to divide the workers on religious grounds but they failed. On 2nd December 1908 Larkin gained Union recognition though out Dublin and gained a large pay rise.

But while the Dublin strike was continuing, Larkin refused to follow the lead of London. So on 7th December 1908 Larkin was suspended from his post. He immediately formed the “Irish Transport and General Workers Union”. During his speech at the  1st. Conference in Dublin he declared that now “an end was being put to the English Trade Union Movement.”  The Union immediately called for “The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland.” This move was the most important event in Ireland since the establishment of the Dublin Trades Council. Here at last was the Irish working class raising the banner for national independence. But not the independence of Sinn Fein (at that time ) ie. the establishing of a bourgeois state but the creation of a “new democracy and a commonwealth” for all the workers and small farmers. This move ran against the standard union practise of the day, ie that Irish unions  were branches of the British one. Also it was the first major organising of the labouring masses as opposed to the craftsmen or skilled workers.These had had their own organisations or Guilds for over 150 years but they did not organise the great numbers of unskilled workers. Now Larkin was doing just that. Also Larkin was moved by a political idea which totally opposed the Capitalistic System. He was moving to a position of attempting to create a “Revolutionary Union” which could seize power.

This ideal was helped in July 1910 when James Connolly returned from the U.S.A.

He became the Secretary  of the ITGWU in Belfast in 1911. The divisions with England became more and more obvious in 1911. Through  out the spring the Irish Transport staged sympathy strikes in support of various disputes in England, Scotland and Wales. But when the cards were turned the English Unions refused to help the Irish ones.

The ideas of Larkin and Connolly were used to create the Irish Labour Party and the Congress of the Irish T.U.C.in 1912. Here was the political vehicle for the Irish working class. Also they had created a number of other unions eg. a Women Workers Union, a Foundry Workers Union, and a textile Workers Union.

The next major event in Ireland was the Dublin Lock out of 1913. This started in August 1913 and continued through to February 1914. The Lock Out gripped the whole nation for 6 months, Larkin threw the full might of the ITGWU into the battle. But the employers held out. All the  major Irish and English employers joined together in a move to destroy the ITGWU. After 6months of hard struggle the workers returned to their jobs defeated. But within a few weeks they began to organise again.

Larkin soon left for the U.S.A. and James Connolly gained control of the ITGWU and the Irish Labour Party. Connolly spent the next 2 years both rebuilding the Union and organising for a Workers Republic. Connolly used as much as he could to organise, politicise, and to drill the workers. He believed that the Irish working class could not be free until it destroyed British power in Ireland and forced the withdrawal of the British. But he wasn’t blind to the weaknesses of the Republicans he was now working with. He saw most of them as niave  and he knew that the only guarantee of freedom lay in a 32 County Workers REpublic. This he set himself the task of establishing.

Although Connolly had control of the ITGWU, he was a minority voice in the overall Irish Trade Union Movement. Many were blinded, then as now,  by a false idea of “Internationalism” . That idea is/was that nations like Scotland, Ireland, and Wales should remain in Great Britain and turn the whole entity into a Socialist State. These all frowned on nationalism and independence of small nations, they believed that that broke down the “Internanational”  states already created. Connolly on the other hand, believed that first the nation was freed, and /or a Socialist state was created. Then all free nations would reunite as brothers. Furtherhe believed that the English working class could not be free until the Irish working class was free.

(The parallel of that argument today is the one used to justify the entry of Ireland etc into the EEC.  Any more to break down false international barriers and “nationalism” was a move towards the creation of an International Workers State, or is it used against small nations, like Scotland, Brittany, the Basque Homeland etc.)

More wer blinded by the idea of Evolution towards Socialism not Revolution. Connolly’s opposition to this was illustrated in his famous debate with William Walker in 1911. Walker believed that better housing, water in the home, piped gas for cooking or lighting was the first step on the road to Socialism.  Connolly attacked the idea of evolution and fought against “Gas and water Socialism”.

He did see the importance of improving the living conditions of workers and their families and he fought for these improvements. But he knew the Capitalists would not give up power without a battle and that Revolution was the only answer. These differences were shown in 1916 just after the Easter Rising, when the I.T.U.C.conference stood for 2 minutes silence for all Irish men who had died fighting for their country either in France or in Dublin.

Those differences continued to dominate the Irish Trade Union scene for the next 70 years.

With the death of James Connolly in 1916, the ITGWU and the Irish Labour Party fell into the hands of the bureaucrats and people who did not fully grasp Connolly’s ideas. For the next 2-3 years the union was more interested in building membership up, than doing anything with that membership. In 1918 the Irish Labour Party stood aside to allow Sinn Fein a free hand in the elections. Again in the War of Independence (1919 - 1921) both  the Labour Party and the Trade Union Movement stood aside and allowed Sinn Fein and the IRA to take the lead. That is not to say that the Trade Union Movement did nothing. It was,  in fact both at a local and a nationallevel, very active. At a local level many members were involved in the IRA. The best example being Robert Byrnes, a member of the Limerick Trade and Labour Council. Byrnes was also the adjutant of the local IRA, was arrested and killed by the British Army as he lay in his hospital bed during a hunger strike. The Trade Council organised a strike against “military tyranny” and to show that “workers’ control signifies perfect order”. The strike continued for weeks with the help of the I.L.P. and the I.T.U.C.

Nationally the leaders of the ITUC and the ITGWU were in constant contact with the leadership of the Republican Movement. On many occasions they helped to draw up laws and to establish the “Labour Courts” controlled by Countess Markievicz. Constantly they were courted by DeValera. On many occasions he referred to the positive part played by Labour in the war. But they did not try to lead the struggle and apart from sections of constitutions, appeals and statements, they obtained nothing. Their attitude to the situation in fact caused a confusion between the interests of the workers and those of Ireland. Instead the leadership of the National Liberation Struggle rested with the petty bourgeois and some of the borgeois. These later split into Pro and Anti Treaty sides of the Civil War.

During the Civil War, the ITUC stood aside and declared “a plague on both their houses” . The Civil War was not in the interests of the working class and therefore thy refused to become involved. But the outcome of the struggle had a lot of interest for the working class. The Bourgeois section won and set about changing the colour of the flag and the post box, but doing nothing against British Imperialism and its interests in Ireland. The Irish Unions continued to fight on the economic front only. Politically the union movement had allowed themselves to become isolated in to the struggle for better wages and conditions. The national bourgeoisie had ensured that the basic questions of a Social Revolution were never raised in the Nation Revolution. They were “derisive” , and thus “Labour must wait”. The task of introducing Connolly’s “ New Democracy” was shelved, to be taken up on for the use of keeping the working class involved as cannon fodder.

DeValera realised this and on many occasions made direct appeals to the Labour Movement stating on one occasion:

“In the Labour world the Irish Patriot James Connolly was known as a Socialist. There was nothing inconsistent with his economic idea to his life and fight, and death as an Irish Republican. His position is very much our position.”

Of course the important words are “very much” DeValera being a radical petty bourgeois could not fully support Connolly but he could use his name. This section of Dev’s popularism has lead to much confusion in the Trade Unions in Ireland. For many of the active members of Irish Unions are members of Dev’s F. F.