The Industrial Revolution and the Labor Movement
by The onset of the industrial revolution completely altered the relationship between the capitalist owners and the workers or laborers especially in Great Britain. Arguably the industrial revolution and the labor movement were strongly connected with each other. How strong the subsequent labor movements proved to be depends on which country is being examined to judge the consequences of the industrial revolution.
Perhaps it is no accident that the industrial revolution started in Great Britain, a country in which trade guilds and associations of artisans had never been particularly strong or well developed. In the late eighteenth century European countries such as France, Spain, and Prussia had stronger trade guilds and associations of artisans than Great Britain, and thus stronger barriers to resist the process of industrialisation.
The industrial revolution and the labor movement were linked yet the industrial revolution made the greatest initial impact in Great Britain because the labor movement was weak over all. However it was in Great Britain that the first modern trade unions were formed in the most industrial areas such as Northern England, Northern Wales, as well as Western Scotland in Glasgow and its surrounding districts. In Great Britain the most militant labor movements were involved in the coal mining, railway, and shipbuilding industries. By 1914 the British trade unions were very powerful, and usually from legal penalties if they went on strike.
On mainland Europe the labor movements and trade unions generally started off stronger than they had been in Great Britain. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain all had strong labor movements and trade unions before the beginning of the First World War. In Germany the world’s first universal social security system had been established to placate that country’s labor movements and trade unions.
In European countries labor movements and trade unions founded political parties that attempted or actually introduced legislation that improved working conditions and levels of pay. In Great Britain it was the Labour party, in Germany it was the Social Democrats (SPD), in France and Spain the Socialist parties.
One country in which labor movements and trade unions failed to make any notable gains as a consequence of the industrial revolution was the United States of America. The widespread availability of cheap labor as well as a complete lack of a socialist political party weakened American labor movements and trade unions.
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