| Founded | 1831 |
|---|---|
| Date dissolved | 1834 |
| Members | 40,000 (1833) [1] |
| Journal | Pioneer |
| Affiliation | GNCTU |
| Key people | John Embleton (Gen Sec) [1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
The Operative Builders' Union was an early trade union federation representing construction and maintenance workers in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom (UK), officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
The union dated its formation to 1831, although it is not known to have existed with certainty until 1833. By then, it consisted of seven craft unions: the Operative Society of Bricklayers, Friendly Society of Operative House Carpenters and Joiners, Operative United Painters, Operative Federal Plasterers, Operative Plumbers' and Glaziers' Society, Slaters Society and Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons. Each affiliate was organised in several districts, which had a central lodge. Each year, one of these affiliate's lodges would provide the Grand Lodge Committee, which arranged co-ordination between the affiliates. The location was decided at an twice annual conference, which was known as the "Builders' Parliament". [2] The headquarters of the union moved each year: it was in Huddersfield in 1832, Birmingham in 1833, and Manchester in 1834.
The union grew rapidly, with 6,000 members at the start of 1833, but 40,000 later in the year; it was particularly strong in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle. The growth was primarily due to its opposition to the contracting out of work. It also campaigned against mechanisation, piecework, and the recruitment of too many apprentices, and in favour of a set wage scale for each job role. This was strongly opposed by masters in the trades, and in both Birmingham and Manchester, union members were denied work. [2]
In the hope of gaining broader support, the union affiliated to Robert Owen's Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. In 1834, it became an integral part of the Grand National, renaming itself as the National Building Guild. However, the Grand National soon collapsed, and the guild similarly dissolved around the turn of 1834 and 1835. Despite this, several of the guild's affiliates survived. [2]
Robert Owen was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropic social reformer, and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. Owen is best known for his efforts to improve the working conditions of his factory workers and his promotion of experimental socialistic communities. In the early 1800s Owen became wealthy as an investor and eventual manager of a large textile mill at New Lanark, Scotland. He initially trained as a draper in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and worked in London before relocating at the age of 18 to Manchester and going into business as a textile manufacturer. In 1824, Owen travelled to America, where he invested the bulk of his fortune in an experimental socialistic community at New Harmony, Indiana, the preliminary model for Owen's utopian society. The experiment was short-lived, lasting about two years. Other Owenite utopian communities met a similar fate. In 1828, Owen returned to the United Kingdom and settled in London, where he continued to be an advocate for the working class. In addition to his leadership in the development of cooperatives and the trade union movement, he also supported passage of child labour laws and free, co-educational schools.
The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union of 1834 was an early attempt to form a national union confederation in the United Kingdom.
