Talk:1919 United Kingdom railway strike

Planned Expansion

Hi all! Since this article is currently categorized as a stub, I will be working on expanding it for the next few days/weeks. Some broad topics I would like to cover include:

• First World War, initial rate negotiations with the government
• Post-war industrial boom, effect on industrial and railway workers
• Activity during the strike, government response
• Impact and legacy of the strike

In addition to the sources currently employed, I am looking at using some of the following:

• "The 1919 Railway Strike: the Government’s Response" by Joshua Edgcombe, Master’s Thesis, published by the University of Hertfordshire
• Engines and Men by J.R. Raynes, available on Wikisource
• The Long Weekend: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-1939 by Robert Graves, published by Penguin Books
• "The National Railway Strike, October 1919" by Clemmie Butler-Brown, published by the Hornsey Historical Society
• "Post-war Societies (Great Britain and Ireland)" by Caitríona Beaumont, published by the International Encyclopedia of the First World War
• "Raikeswood POW Camp and the 1919 National Railway Strike" by Alan Roberts, published by the Craven Herald & Pioneer
• The Railwaymen. Volume 1, The History of the National Union of Railwaymen by Philip Sidney Bagwell, published by Routledge
• "The Railway Strike," published in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs

If you have any objections to me working on this article, topics you’d like me to cover, objections to the sources I’ve chosen, or sources you’d recommend, please let me know! Spookyaki (talk) 20:33, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Reasons for Strike and Eight-Hour Day

I believe that the source The National Union of Railwaymen, 1913-2013 isn't quite right about the reasons for the strike. I found one source that corroborates it (The National Railway Strike, October 1919), but several that contradict it (The Railwaymen by Philip Sidney Bagwell and The Railway Strike published in the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs).

Both indicate that what happened in March was not an announcement that wages would be cut, but in fact, the opposite. It was an agreement that there would be no wage cuts until the end of the year, pending negotiation. The former seems to be the most commonly cited mongoraph on the activities of NUR and the latter includes an excerpt of the agreement itself, which says the following:

The present wages to be stabilised till December 31, 1919, and any reduction of the war wage under the agreement of November, 1918, to be waived... At the end of the year the whole situation will be reviewed.

These latter two sources strike me as having greater weight and as being more reliable than the former two, so for now I have changed the section about the March announcement to reflect this. However, if you think this was done in error, feel free to let me know.

In addition, there's the issue of the eight-hour workday. Again, both The National Union of Railwaymen, 1913-2013 and The Railway Strike agree that this happened after the end of the strike. However, both The Railwaymen and The Railway Strike, as well as Engines and Men, another commonly cited (if somewhat old) history of the NUR, all say that the eight-hour day was achieved before the strike, providing specific dates and circumstances for when and how it was achieved.

Again, I'm inclined to view the latter claim as being more reliable and weighty than the former and will be expanding the article under the assumption that it is true. However, I'd like to know what other people think. Spookyaki (talk) 22:52, 17 September 2024 (UTC)