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Interviewed c.1978 by Janet Druker, then a PhD student at the University of WarwickInterview – Richard MilesTranscribed by Alison McPherson, [email protected], www.premiertyping.com

Interviewer – italic textInterviewee – normal text Transcription problem (inaudible/unclear) – text within [] is my guess of what was said in the context of the conversation or “?”.

…your name and your date of birth and personal details, just to start off with…

Well, Richard Miles, born on the 10th of the 11th [1925]. I was a bricklayer.

Was your father in the trade?

Yep, yep, my father was…father was a joiner, and two…two brothers who were joiners. I’m the odd one out.

How did you get to be a bricklayer then when everyone else is a joiner?

Em, I went into it actually after the War, [volunteered to go into] the Services, took a Government training course, [must have been in] 1946, [or ‘47?], and em, I’ve been involved in the industry and the union ever since. I joined the union in ’48 and became a branch official in… I was a foundation member actually of the branch in [?], which was set up in ’53, and I became a branch official in ’56, and I remained one up until December of last year.

Were you working in this area, because there must have been a fair bit of building going on…?

Yes, I worked mainly in this…mainly in this area, until I was [of course] on the blacklist, and then I worked [?].

Yes. So then you had to shift to North London…

Well, I ended up in North London, yes. I worked in London, the London area, for quite a while, over a longish period, about [?] years.

So what would have been the procedure? You stood for a managing…management committee before you would stand for the Executive, would you?

Well, I originally served on the District Committee of the…going back to the AUBTW, the District Committee of the AUBTW. I was then subsequently elected onto the Divisional Council in the AUBTW and in fact served on that from 1958, I was elected onto the Divisional Council, and I held that post on the Divisional Council concurrent with being ex officio on the District Committee, [by reason of being] a Divisional Council member, and then I was on that until 1969, when I was elected to the Executive Committee of the AUBTW.

19…?

’69, yes, January ’69, [was elected to the] AUBTW Executive, and the I gave up of course the Divisional Council seat, but continued to be a branch officer, and I’ve never ceased to be a branch officer until this last December, either Chairman or Secretary. I was Secretary for some eight years [?]. We in fact merged the three branches in [?], the woodworkers, the painters and [?] all merged and… That was about 19…72, we merged, and I remained as…I carried on from being Secretary of the AUBTW at that time, and became Chairman of the branch, [?] branch, and was Chairman until [this last December].

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With the old AUBTW and your branch work, did you find that you’d still got the different groups, you know - were the masons, in particular, and the bricklayers separate, or had they really merged by that time?

Well, there was never – perhaps because we were a new town, that might have made a slight difference because we formed a new branch in the town and we had [?], which is seven miles away which is [?], and there wasn’t any great problem between the crafts or, in fact, as far as the labourers were concerned, because we were all very much in the same sort of boat. It was like…we wouldn’t be...we…a similar situation to a traditionally formed [one] at the time.

It’s, I don’t know, your involvement with the Executive of the AUBTW was really only – you really only came in just at the point when amalgamation was being discussed.

Well, yes. It had already been…the discussion had started a long time ago, yes, that’s true, yeah.

What sort of things were being discussed at this point in time, in ’69?

Em, to the best of my recollection, and I was looking for documents [?] but they’re long since gone, em, at that time, there was a working party of members of the EC, I think about four or maybe five, and a number of the National Officers, in joint discussions with the ASW, at that stage, [just having] discussions with them [inaudible].

I suppose, by that stage, the Plasterers had already gone into the Transport & General, hadn’t they?

As far as I remember, yes, they had, yes. They’d had discussions before within the EC with the AUBTW and I’ve never [got to] what went wrong, but something upset them because they decided to go into the T&G.

You’ve got no idea what the “something” was?

No, no, no. Bill Smart would be better placed [?]. He was on the EC. He would know all the history of that. He was on the team involved, and he would know.

What do you think people’s attitudes were after the Plasterers went into the T&G? Was there any feeling of, well, maybe that’s [wasn’t] such a bad idea, you know, that T&G were…?

Well, no. I think it would be fair to say that there was a feeling really of disappointment that they had in fact gone into the T&G, and, you know, the same applied with the Plumbers going into the ETU, because there was a feeling that the possibility, the [historical] possibility of having one union for the construction industry was obviously now nye on impossible.

You were in a different position from the other craft unions though, weren’t you, in the sense that the AUBTW had labourers in membership?

That’s right. That’s right. They’d merged with us, I think about…can’t remember…in ’58, the National Builders’ Labourers merged, [and then] the Street Paving [and] Masons merged, and the Roof Tilers merged.

Yes, they came in later, didn’t they?

Yes, they came in around…

[?].




Yes, yes.

So there wasn’t a sense in which people thought perhaps the general union would be…

No, no, the concept, no, the concept of a general union was already in the thinking of the AUBTW. There was no sort of – the craft, the very strict craft attitude which was [more prominent] than in the other two merged unions of UCATT, wasn’t…wasn’t there to the same degree. It didn’t, you know, impose any constraints on growth and so on.

How important do you think the decline in membership was, you know, that all of the unions were losing membership at that time?

Yeah.

The AUBTW seemed to be particularly keen on merger throughout the period when it was being discussed. I mean, the idea of one big union really does seem to have carried some weight.

Yeah.

And I wondered if…it it was the pressure of falling membership and whether bricklayers were maybe more affected by, I don’t know, factors like these concrete tower blocks – you know, were they actually being done out of a job?

No, no, I think it was the – there were two points really. There was the rather historical one of one union, which had quite a strong…strong hold, you know, ideological hold within the AUBTW, certainly. I don’t think it was so much a problem as far as new methods of construction, [?] materials, but the effect of subcontracting, the lump, was one of the things which made it necessary. Basically, it was the historical one, the historical concept, which had gone back [oh, to about 1918], when it was first [deal with] by [the corporation].

Yeah. When you say it was an ideological factor, were some members more influenced than others? I mean, I know, for example, the Communist Party had the rank and file organisation in the building industry in the ‘30s and 40s.

It may well have been that, yeah.

Yeah. Would it be that Communist Party people were perhaps more aware of the…if you like, the ideological implications of one union?

[?, but I wouldn’t…] - I can [see that actually]. [I’m a member] of the Party [laughing]. No, I don’t think so, no. It would be nice to think that the Party had got that all organised, but they hadn’t [laughing]. Eh, no, em…no, it was… I think it was an attitude which em…I wouldn’t say it was non-political, but…it cut across some…cut across political - you know, the Labour, em, Labour Party eh…people who were right-wing could see the viability of it.

Yeah. No, it’s just that the idea does seem to be carried through, in some ways, by the New Builders’ Leader – and I’ve had a look at the paper, and, in the ‘30s, when, I mean, no one was discussing amalgamation in the ‘30s, no one was suggesting that one big union would be useful, and the Party seems to somehow keep that idea going through that period.

Yeah.

And I wondered if there was any sense in which maybe Party members on the Executive or…I don’t know maybe within the union generally…




Well, no, I wouldn’t think so because… Perhaps [this is] jumping a bit, but at one stage, the Party members were against the merger, in the sense that they were unhappy with the… There were some doubts as to whether going in with George Smith was a good thing for all, you know [laughing], so there was a conflict, in a sense.

Yeah.

[Laughter]

Did that come later in the discussions or…you know, was it a sort of getting cold feet later on?

I think…well, it was certainly in the discussions, eh, not in that form, but certainly the feeling was there that… There were grave doubts amongst certain people as to…as to whether it would be a good thing to go [into a merger], not [?].

What was his attitude to…to the AUBTW, in that sense, because he must have had the same feelings about you really?

Well, George Smith was very hostile to the AUBTW, I think it’s fair to say, with the whole piece, right the way through it, partly because the policies of the AUBTW were, particularly as expressed at Federation level, were em…to the left of the thinking of the other unions, and they tended, in the AUBTW, tended to [fall] on the side of the less…the…the more conventional [?] in the other trade unions and the [whole] industry.

Why is it that the AUBTW is actually more left-wing? It’s just something I can’t work out, and that also is…has a very long history – I mean, it goes back to George Hicks and sort of…pre-World War I actually.

I don’t really know why…why particularly, em… I think maybe it may… It would be interesting, in fact, to ask some of the older members, you know, their views, but my feeling is possibly that the…the bricklayers, in a sense, although they had, and stonemasons, although they had a strong craft…they was conscious of craft, as the others, they tended, I think, to be…in a sense, much more affected by the conditions in the industry, more than carpenters or painters. They were more exposed to the elements, in general terms, and I think that’s possibly… I’m not saying it’s the only cause, but I would have thought that would have been one of the main causes for [why you see that].

Yeah, there is a sort of tradition about the joiners as well, isn’t there, of them being…perhaps the key…?

Well, they are, yeah, they are the aristocrat, yeah. It’s a standing joke, but I think there’s an element of truth in it, which is…which, strangely enough, in a sense, they’ve lost more in the changing pattern of work than the rest. In fact, their craft has been more decimated than the craft of a bricklayer, I would say, in reality, except for that section which actually works in joiners’ shops. The actual craft has been more diluted. I mean, they work now without labourers, at all, on any sites now – they don’t have labourers bringing materials to them, they have to do it themselves. Whereas, the bricklayers have always…have always had labourers with them, and still have.

When did that happen? I mean, I know it’s difficult to say precisely…

It’s only happened…it’s only happened – well, it…I think the start of it was [?], and it’s gradually crept in, and certainly over the last, well, 10…10 years, over the last 10 years, there’s been a marked dilution in…in the labourer content of carpenters’ work, certainly – I’m talking about




housing sites, which is where I’ve mainly worked. I mean, it’s very…very occasionally now, you find… You might have one labourer who will take material round for carpenters, and there might be 20 or 30 carpenters, but that’s about all.

Was it consciously priced out in these [PBR] systems – in other words, people were perhaps given a bonus for not having a labourer working with them or is it simply…?

Well, I don’t know. You see, the…bricklayers – I can only talk of my own experience. Bricklayers, the pattern of bonus went…was, firstly, in the early days, was in a collective sense, but they moved into a gang sense, as you probably know. But with carpenters, normally em…working perhaps in pairs, at the most, to have a labourer of course meant that there was more inducement for them to lose the labourer content and do it themselves than there was for bricklayers, where it’s not possible to lose them, and therefore I think this may have had some effect on it. It’s interesting of course that the bricklayers, generally, and this I think has been a pattern, still is the pattern, in general terms, that the bricklayers have always had the highest earnings too I think.

Is that because it’s easier from…from, say, your point of view, if you’re a steward or something on a site, to look at the number of bricks you’re getting out in an hour or in a day or something and to quantify it and [know what you’d go for]? Is that kind of…?

No, no, I wouldn’t say it was that. I would say it was more the attitude of the men themselves, you know, that they probably, in a sense, accepted bonus more readily than the other…than the other trades, and having accepted it, they would then organise themselves to get the maximum [out of it]. This was in fact eh…my experience. Certainly the fact that you can…you can actually count up the number of bricks in a day, I mean, obviously is… On the other hand, if a carpenter is second-fixing, or putting a roof on a house or…or whatever, I mean, again, he’s got [as much] opportunity, as indeed the painter has. It might have some marginal effect, but not a great effect, I wouldn’t have thought.

You’re probably too young to remember actually, but I mean, going back to when you first came into the trade, do you get the feeling then that there was a lot of resistance amongst men to bonus, or do you think they were actually glad to have it in the first place?

Oh no. I think it’s fair to say there was a terrific resentment to the imposition of bonus. It’s still – that is still there, despite the fact that they em…amongst the older, I say the older ones, those under, what, 40, who are over 40 rather, I would say there’s still a resentment about the imposition that people still…that’s still expressed from time to time.

Yeah. And about…was it ’59 or ’60, thereabouts, there was a unified payment system introduced, wasn’t there, for the bricklayers and the carpenters and all building workers, three rates? There was a Liverpool one and then the…then the general…

Oh yes, yes, when we did away with the…with all the…the different rates. There were about 15 or 20, yeah, that’s right, yes.

Do you think that change in payment structure in itself could have induced people to see their interests as being more in common? In other words, the fact that bricklayers and carpenters were getting the same money, could people…it becomes a bit obvious then that you’ve got the same kinds of thing to organise, the same problems. Or do you think that the complexities of bonus meant that that…that wasn’t really relevant to people?

I don’t think so. There was always a resentment of the difference in rates anyway. I mean, it [didn’t] certainly do away with the resentment. I don’t think that really had anything to do with bonus. I wouldn’t identify that with bonus. There was a resentment about the difference in rates.




For instance, if you went from Crawley, 20 miles out, you got half a penny less than you got in Crawley, or if you went up the road towards London or [?], you got another half-penny on the top, you know. But it was a resentment of difference in rates, and in fact, that’s still expressed today in that London and Liverpool get a higher rate than [?]. It’s only…it’s a matter of pence, you know. But I don’t think you could say that has anything to do with bonus.

No, I was thinking really as opposing factors, in that perhaps the introduction of the unified rate, a simpler sort of system of payment, would lead people to see their interests as being in common. But then, on the other hand, and at the same time, or rather earlier, you’ve got the introduction of bonus, and that might encourage to think, well, our area sort of works on its own, it’s getting its own bonus, not to look so much to the national rate as being an important factor - so that the bonus, say, for bricklayers and carpenters would be different, although they got the same basic…

Yeah. I think, certainly, the…the higher…you know, as the bonus scheme came more accepted – well, “accepted” isn’t the right word – I think the actual national rate or the local rate became less and less [for everybody], because in… For instance, I think, here in Crawley, we could earn on bonus, often, double the rate, on top of the rate, on bonus.

So, for the blokes on site-

Particularly, you know, on the well-organised sites, you know, really, the rate really wasn’t relevant anymore. Of course, this, I think, had some effect on…did have some effect on relevance of the union. The union was not seen from the point of view of raising wages or… It was merely the vehicle through which you were able to negotiate the local wage rates. [You might] have a bonus on top of that [?].

The local rates being the bonus rate…?

No, the local rate being the – well, you’d have your national rate, and then the local rate is what you could negotiate on a bonus scheme in a given area.

So that it’s the local rate really that counts?

It was – yeah, absolutely. I mean, you couldn’t live on…you couldn’t really live on the national rate.

I remember the ’72 Strike when they were going for something – was it..?

We haven’t got it yet, a pound an hour – we still haven’t got it [laughing]!

Yeah.

[We’ve got all the] supplements, but we haven’t got that.

But presumably, the local rate is related to the national rate in some way, is it?

Oh yes, because they – the national rate was always used as the bonus calculator, for calculating the earnings on bonus.

And things like holiday pay…?

Well, holiday pay, of course, was separate, wasn’t it?

You got your stamps, yeah…




You got your stamps, you know, yeah.

It’s complex, because I can’t think of another union where you do get this problem of – [well, maybe] engineering [in some ways] – but where you do get the problem of national negotiations being so irrelevant to the pay that people take home at the end of the week. And I mean, given that the building industry is unusual because of declining trade union membership, you know, that’s clearly…

Well, I think the Cameron Report made the same point, didn’t it, that there was no relevance really to that national negotiation because of the…it’s… Well, you can pick up any evening newspaper and you see the rates offered for…for directly employed. I’m not talking now of… So, they bear no relation, even in a time of slump, they still bear no relation to the national negotiated rate.

On top of all this, in the period we’re talking about, we’ve got two other complicating factors that I’ve thought about. One is the sliding scale, and that’s something I want to talk to you on, because that came in, again, about ’47, didn’t it?

Em…I thought it was in before ‘47, but em…

It could well have been. I associate it with [?].

I’m almost sure it was there before. I wouldn’t swear to that… But certainly, it was done away with of course, among a lot of disappointment [laughing], to put it mildly! It was considered, you know, a retrograde step, [?] in today’s, you know, and in an inflationary period of course, it’s…even more [?].

When did it go?

I’m trying to think what year it did go now… I can’t remember, to be honest. I think it must have been in the ‘60s. I could be wrong, but…

And people were unhappy with it at the time?

Oh, they weren’t at all happy about it, no. Even those who were on good earnings still weren’t happy with it because of… There are always the times when you go back onto the basic rate that, obviously, eh… Because the important thing was, periodically, that sliding scale payment was consolidated in…into the rate, so it was very important, from an overtime point of view, bonus calculation point view, and…

But that didn’t preclude your re-negotiation of the national rate separate from that?

No, no.

I mean, the sliding scale, as far as I understood, was simply…

That’s right. That was automatic.

…to compensate for price increases.

That was it, yeah. It was based on…on the…the Government index – what’s the name of the index..?

Yeah, I mean, it seemed to me like you were getting two bites of the cherry. It’s like, you know, looking back two or three years to these threshold payments, [?], isn’t it?




Yeah.

I mean I was getting threshold payments and I thought they were great [laughing]!

Yeah, that’s right.

Because it’s, you know, 40p for every 1% - you were away!

Yeah.

And it’s hard for me to understand why people didn’t…didn’t think the sliding scale was much use. I mean…unless the employers were turning round and saying, well, you know, you’ve had your cost of living increase, so we’re not going to give you a very good pay increase…?

Well, this was one, this was one, this was one factor that came into it, of course, but at the same time, em, there was…you see, there was no…they never…it [is only in] the last very short period that we’ve had any consultation of ownership [of wage] negotiations anyway, and whilst it’s true to say that eh… You see…how do I put it…? The effect of the sliding scale, em…sort of had…there were positive and negative features to it. It was…it was…it was negative in the sense that it reduced the amount that employers would be prepared to pay, but, you know, it had the positive feature that you knew that if the cost of living went up, you got extra money, and it was really a balance of, you know, of which was the better of the two. I don’t…I can’t remember – I should do I suppose… I can’t really remember precisely the period when it was discontinued, but eh, I know it caused quite a…quite a bit of feeling amongst the lads, but how far it expressed itself, I [couldn’t remember that].

I wondered if it was affected by the statutory incomes policy – ’66 that would have been – because that would have… I mean, that did allow existing agreements very often to carry on.

Yes. I don’t think it…I don’t think it did, not to best of my recollection. I may be wrong, but I don’t think it did.

I’ll have to try and check that through the documents because it’s obviously, you know, quite an important feature of…how discussions were going, yeah. Can we come back then to this question of the lump because it’s obvious that, at the same time as the bonus system and so on was changing things and decreasing the role of the union, the lump is also sort of increasing kind of in terms of, you know, overall numbers of people in the industry and in terms of its effect, you know, on union membership again.

Yeah.

…obviously get much more. I mean, from your experience on the sites, which obviously [is good] for this area, you know, how far would people go on the lump, perhaps if they were union members anyway and they know that they’re only going to get [?] – do you think it was…? You know, I know people who are good union members but they’ve worked on the lump.

Yeah.

And they say, well, sort of…it’s no good trying to separate out and say that you’ve got trade union people on one side and lump labour on the other. Quite often, it wasn’t bound-

Oh, there was a cross-fertilisation, very much so, yeah. I think, partly, this was caused by…by the fact that, in particular times, in particular areas, so this area, there was a shortage of skilled crafts, and therefore it was possible to…to go as an individual or as a group of individuals and




argue, you know, for a rate of wage which, providing you did it on a lump basis, would in fact work out better than if you worked directly for a firm, although, even then, your earnings were high. A lot of people got in on the bandwagon for that. On the other hand, there were a lot of devious characters moving into the area, really seeing it as a way of getting – you know, it was a way of, because of the shortage of labour and the sort of level of building, to move in on the industry. So you had both those things happening at the same time, and possibly, I think eh…and certainly I know in some areas, there was no choice: you either worked on the lump – certainly, if you took the Sussex scene, lump labour was known…it’s not a new phenomenon, it was there, always known as piecework, but it was there before [?]. It was not at all uncommon in the country areas and certainly in Sussex, where I was [born]. I mean, relatives of mine who were in the building industry worked on piecework before the [War]. It was a recognised way of living.

You mean working totally on piecework?

Yep, yep. They had so much for the…

In other words, they’d work only by the piecework basis.

Yeah, so much for the…yeah. It wasn’t quite so sophisticated. It was so much for the job and that was it, and there was no money at all other than that.

Mm, that’s interesting. Do you get the impression that was more widespread than just Sussex or…?

I think it…well, it would be wrong for me to sort of make assumptions about other parts of the country, but certainly for the Sussex…certainly Sussex/Surrey, it wasn’t an uncommon feature before the War, and it continued after the War.

What kinds of firms would you say are employing lump labour? Would it be the very big firms…?

[Telephone rings – recording cuts]

You were telling me a bit about the lump because I was curious as to whether the smaller firms were employing more lump labour or the larger ones, or whether there just wasn’t that sort of trend, do you think? You know, is it Wimpey and [Costain], or is it your little local companies?

Well, in the…in the earlier period – I say “the earlier period”, up to the ‘60s I suppose, it was generally the smaller firm who had the lump, who, you know, had…any particular trade, and then they’d call in, you know, a lumper that was on that. But I think from the ‘60s onwards, then it began to move into larger companies, in my experience anyway, and it’s continued ever since. Of course, there was a problem with the AUBTW, where they issued a circular saying that anybody who worked on the lump would be excluded from membership, and this had a devastating effect [in that there was a whole number of men], never to return. It wasn’t uncommon to have [that waved under your face on sites] when you asked people to join the union, because they’d had to work on the lump at a particular time, in particular circumstances.

Yeah, I heard somebody say that there’d been a suggestion from the Federation that there should be like registration, same as with the…rather similar to the American system, where the union actually registers people and sends them [out for] jobs.

Yeah.

But I suppose it’s the sort of thing…just it would a massive change actually…




Well, historically of course, there was a period when that happened, not perhaps quite in the American sense, but there was a period when, if you were unemployed, you…you registered with your secretary and em…there was this, you know, contact with the employment exchanges, you know.

Yeah, that was when the unions were administering the [unemployment issue], wasn’t it?

That’s right. That’s right, yeah. But the idea of having a register is one that’s come and gone [over] quite a considerable period. Every so often, it comes up again, and it’s, you know, it’s talked of in the…in the context of having em…subcontractors on that basis, so that they’re all registered and regulated by the union.

Yeah, I suppose it’s who do you register, the employer or the…?

Yeah.

When you said there was a trend for the lump to move into the larger firms, later on, when you were negotiating at sort of national level with the Employers’ Federation, was it possible then to raise the question of lump and say, you know, it’s not just…just [at the] local firm, it’s your firm in, you know, all these different areas – was it possible to get them on that sort of basis?

Well, I was never involved in wage negotiations at national level, I mean, so…but certainly, I know this was a running, and still is a running, running sore, that many of the companies who are negotiating at national level – well, perhaps it would be wrong to say the companies, but the representatives of the employers’ side, many of them are in fact, to this day, breaking the rules on labour-only. That’s always been the [argument]. Whether or not they still raise it, [our negotiators] raise it or not, I don’t know, unfortunately. It was certainly always a constant argument, and certainly arose at local level [?] and things of that sort.

Yeah. So you’d be raising it all the time at local level…

And still do. At this moment in time, we’re still raising it with the employers who are sitting there as representatives of, you know, the NFBTE, who are in fact employing lump labour – by lump labour, I mean self-employed.

Someone said to me recently that it’s actually in decline, that the Labour Government have changed the system of registration of self-employed people for taxation purposes and so on.

Yeah. That’s, yeah, that’s true. They altered the actual…they’ve tightened up – in fact, just a year ago, and they’re now asking for comments at this moment in time. A year ago, they tightened up very, very much on tax evasion [?] to make it much more difficult for people to be…to have eh…to continue em…and the effect of that was it did do away with a lot of the…a lot of the more devious side of the…of the industry. It still – providing they were… The regulation is laid down that anybody who came up for re-registration last March, March of last year, had to have three years’ record of income tax returns and were able to provide certain guarantees as to their financial liability and so on, and providing they could meet that criteria, they were given [an exemption] certificate. That has reduced the number, so that, when we talk about the lump, you’ve got to be very careful what you’re talking about, because there’s the two distinct… Although the word, the term “lump” is used in a general way, there are two distinct parts to it: there’s one where the lump is referred to which deals specifically with people who are working on exemption certificates; and there is the lump, also commonly called the lump, where they are labour-only, labour-only subcontractor, employing men on a proper basis, and that is also considered to be the lump. The reason, as I’ve explained, why is because, in the eyes of most union members, they don’t see any difference between the two. They feel…the general feeling is




that the men employed by a company should be employed by the company and not by an individual who’s hiring out labour to do a specific operation.

Yeah. It indicates that the people who are hired out as employees on labour-only, em, it would still be possible for them to observe, well, at least the trade union [rate] – I mean, it would be almost impossible not to observe the trade union [rate].

Oh yes, yes, yes. I mean, a lot…I mean, the fact is that UCATT has…has check-off agreements with a lot of these labour-only firms. I mean, it’s completely regularised. That’s why you have to be very careful, when you talk of the lump, what the lump means to some is not necessarily what it means to others, and it’s an overall term, whereas there are two specific parts to that term.

I generally tend to think of it actually – I hadn’t made that distinction, actually, and I generally tend to think of it as operating, as being that section of the industry, and I’d included both labour-only and self-employed people, who are operating to the detriment of union agreements, sort of as and when they occur, as and when it…

Well…yeah, yeah. Well, you see, there are differing points of view on that. I mean, I think, if you took the general…the ordinary members’ point of view, they would say that the lump is both sections and it’s detrimental to the industry. But you will get a difference of opinion, I think, amongst officials and the…and the Executives of the unions involved. They would probably tell you a slightly different view: that providing it was controlled and there was a degree of organisation, they weren’t particularly worried, providing they were meeting the conditions of the industry. So, there is, you know, there is [this] difference of opinion. The effect, the main effect, of course, the detrimental effect is that they don’t normally employ apprentices, so this is the…this is the…

But don’t the employers, generally speaking, pay into a scheme, don’t they, which is a scheme for sort of training apprentices? I mean, they…I suppose they may employ less than the…or they may not employ apprentices, but aren’t they anyway required to pay into the training scheme?

[No.] They receive grants. [They have a] scheme, but as far as I know, they don’t pay in.

Oh, I see.

They just don’t – if they don’t take apprentices, they don’t have to pay anything. Most apprentices taken on would be in the smaller firms. Very few large firms [do it].

And I suppose Direct Labour, the local authorities, [play a part in] taking on apprentices, don’t they?

Yeah, I expect, yes, yes, they take a number, and also em, occasionally [a hospital], the [health works]. But CITB of course has…sort of pushed the…they sponsor…sponsor youngsters for it, and in the course of their first year, obtain an employer for them to complete their apprenticeship with.

Is that really a big problem, the question of people getting…having access to apprenticeships, because, throughout the ‘60s, when you look at the documents, you’ve got Government and employers screaming, especially with bricklayers, about the lack of trained bricklayers and lack of skilled lads coming out? I wonder if it’s simply that they’re finding that the…you know, perhaps the shortage, but not a serious shortage, is putting up the price of labour, so that they’re screaming for more apprentices to bring this down again?

Em… It’s still a problem now. Obviously, I mean, if there is a shortage, it does put up the price of the product, you know, working in the system that we work in, but that problem is still here even




with high employment. Certainly, I know, in this area, there’s a shortage of skilled craftsmen anyway – can’t get them, [?].

Because, what, they can get better rates working [?]?

Get better rates elsewhere, yeah.

It seemed to me odd though, in the context of the 1960s, that precisely because you get this trend to using concrete, you know, concrete blocks, and technological changes, which I suppose mean that the craftsman, in some ways, becomes obsolete, and it wasn’t so much that there were slight changes but seemed like the bricklayer was just phased out on certain kinds of buildings, you know.

Yeah, that’s true.

If you think over your period, when you’ve worked, you know, working at the trade, I wonder if you can just give me a rough indication of the sorts of technological changes and innovations that you were getting on the site – I mean, especially for bricklayers, but just generally as you remember it.

Em…well, first of all, the design of…the design of buildings changed. It became very, very much more simplified. I think the very sort of straight line simplified structure was partly to reduce costs but I think partly due to the…to the lowering or the lack of skilled labour, and I suppose the…apart from the changing – and the changing design led to…the use of feature, brickwork as a feature in a building became less and less, less and less a part of the industry. It became very much a question of just putting one brick on top of another and they were just used mainly for…for cladding, straightforward cladding, and no feature at all. So, in that sense, the craft, the artistic, for want of a better word, the artistic side of the industry, for the bricklayer, was taken away.

And em…this applied, for instance, in em…in the…work below ground, where the brick manhole disappeared quite rapidly and was replaced by the concrete manhole, and now the glass, fibreglass and concrete manhole.

Drain-laying, which was…it varied among various parts of the country, drain-laying, which was always a part of the bricklayer’s work at one stage, certainly in this area, disappeared, and there’s now…there’s virtually never [done now].

The innovation of things… There was a lot of attempts made to introduce various forms of mechanisation into brickwork, in particular the use of tower cranes and so on, but it never really, to my knowledge, it’s never really got off the ground because…I never really understood why, em, all number of things…well, apart from tower cranes, there were special trolleys for stacking bricks and types of scaffold [?] and created [?] step-scaffolding and so on, but none of this really has ever caught on, and in fact, even such things as the double-skin brick, which was introduced as a…[that you laid your] inside and your outside wall in one go, they came and they went. The use of profiles… Instead of building corners, you had these metal gadgets to build up all your external profile on an external wall [for cornice]. They were introduced, but never…never seem to have caught on.

That’s strange. I’ve seen pictures of some of the things that were coming in – I mean, probably only a small section, but, for example, blocks of brickwork where, instead of somebody laying the one brick, they laid sections of brickwork which would have been prefabricated, factory-made, and brought onto site like that.

Yeah, that’s right, yeah.

And that’s presumably where the frame came in…




That’s right.

Because I guess they could just [?] those on. Why didn’t they catch on?

I think…

…good ideas?

Oh, they were. I mean, we were shown films, you know, in school, to build chimney stacks on the ground and then lifting them up with the tower crane and placing them in position. I think part of the reason is that the…that the industry, as a whole, is under-capitalised, in the sense that they’re not able to buy the equipment in the first place, in the vast majority of firms, and the larger firms, I’ve never really understood why they never got into it in a serious way. Certainly, the larger firms use tower cranes, but tower cranes have never been utilised in the…to the extent that one would have imagined they could have been, em…how to get the full potential out of them.

It could be the big firms just didn’t need to do it because the smaller ones weren’t… I mean, they could try minimum changes I guess, then…

Well, there was always a question on the tower cranes of… I worked on Gatwick Airport. We did the [first terminal building] [?], but the tower, they had two tower cranes there, but of course you had to…you had your time allocated and so that it wasn’t - you know, it really needed for one craft or one… The concreting needed a crane, the bricklaying needed a crane, and other trades also needed a crane, and it was never possible to knit them all in in a proper programmed way, so, even with a large firm, they weren’t really able to utilise it to the fullest extent.

Whereas, with the concrete slab technique, you know, the high-rise, well, there, you’ve only got one – all you basically needed was one…just the erection of the shell, and it’s really only one trade or skill is involved, and that is placing the concrete slabs and just building the super-structure of the building, so that the use of the crane, they can be utilised solely for one particular trade, and the others are not interrupting its use, so you get the maximum use [of it].

Yeah. So, in a sense, the kind of… I would have thought this kind of area, actually, would open up a lot of scope for industrialisation, in spite of the things you’re saying, just because there must have been an intensive spate of building in a limited area.

Yeah.

And because of the sort of local nature of [?] firms…

Mm. Well, the only…the only…the first industrialised building, and I think [would still be], would be [no-fines] – I don’t know if you’ve come across…where they shutter, then pour. They do what looks like a traditional house, or a terrace of houses, and [then] pebble-dash on the outside, but they’re in fact made of these very large shutters, and they pour a concrete which is very…very coarse aggregate, and they render it inside and out, [?]. Now, they introduced – they had one contract in Crawley, and that was the only one they ever had, and the reason for it was that the local builders were determined, the traditional builders that is, the…I’m trying to think of the name of some of the firms involved, [Crouches and Gleason’s], em…[half the names that I’ve forgotten]… Anyway, the main firms – [Carlton’s was another] – they got together and they said we’re going to [?], they said, “We can build houses quicker than they can build by those methods.” In fact, they had an exercise where they produced…they built a block of 10 in a fortnight, by traditional methods, but of course, where they cheated, the place was…the scaffolding was literally shoulder to shoulder with each trade, and they were…but they proved their point, that they could build quicker than by using the new methods, and that kept all the…any innovation




really in Crawley out, until em…it would be about…about ‘67/’68, when they started to use… They used a wood structure, with a brick cladding, and on that one, they ran into terrific problems of damp penetration and so on. Since then, they’ve now gone over to a type of industrial building – again, it’s a wooden structure which is clad with either [?] or brick, so that there is now in Crawley, there is a degree of industrialisation, but not a high degree. Even there, you see, although there’s a…it’s a basically wood structure which is made up in factories, brought by lorries to site and erected, the actual skill content is very low indeed. [It illustrates] the [poor woodworkers] again, but em…it’s em…

Yeah, someone said to me you still have to have one or two good woodworkers around the site because you find that…

To put the work right.

Yeah, it’s never just…

That’s right – rectification, that’s right, yeah.

Yes. But I guess that’s one or two instead of dozens or…

Oh yes, yes, yes, because they…the type of building I would think of, Llewellyn’s, which is a fairly large company, have got a factory in Eastbourne, haven’t they, [?], [Milton Keynes], and all over the country, and they have very, very few skilled people and it’s all done by… Even the, you know, the window frames are in place, and, in many cases, the doors are hung and everything.

You’ve talked mostly about housebuilding methods, and it’s perhaps unfair to ask you about civil engineering as well, but I mean, would there be changes in technique in civil engineering to the same extent, or was the skill content that much lower anyway?

Well, the skill content mainly in civil engineering was on the woodworking side, more than…to some extent, on the brickwork side, below ground, with the brickwork for the very large structures below ground, you know, for drainage and things of that sort, but the…the main effect, I would have thought, what I’ve seen of it, is that there’s a much higher degree of mechanisation was possible with civil engineering, particularly in roads and [?]. They could use machines much more than they ever could in the skills. And, of course, the content then… Carpenters, of course, were involved, particularly with the shuttering [and so on], but shuttering carpenters, if you talk to a carpenter, they consider them as…the shuttering carpenters are the lowest of the low in…in the eyes of the fully-qualified carpenter, although in fact there is a degree of skill which many joiners would have to learn and would take them some time to learn that. But a lot of that, of course, even in civil engineering, a lot of the…for instance, bridges and…in some ways, in fact, a lot of the components can be made in factories and are a standardised size, mind you, and then brought on site and put in place insitu.

Who was recruiting these [workers]? I mean, where you talked about breakdowns in the skill, you’ve talked either about increasing use of cranes or about certain kinds of new skill, which…I mean, these sort of steel-fixers and benders and so on…

Yeah.

Scaffolding, I suppose, changed quite dramatically as well…

Well, it’s a strange thing, scaffolding. Scaffolding has changed. I mean, scaffolding now is…it was recognised as a skill…both that and steel-fixing were both recognised as, you know, worthy of the craft rate, em, not many years ago – I’m just trying to think how many… I can’t give a particularly precise date, but they were recognised as skills. In fact, I would say that steel-fixing




certainly has become recognised as a skill because of the use of concrete and so on, and the ability to [read drawings]. But scaffolding, certainly, has now become even more crucial, and what surprises me is that they’re able to build these…some of these buildings with such a low level of training, because the actual amount of training that’s given to scaffolders is very poor indeed, compared with what they have to do.

And also the health and safety, the safety issues involved…

Exactly. It will be interesting to see what the implications are on scaffolding, because most scaffolders have picked it up while watching, being a scaffolder’s labourer and then gradually working their way into it, a “watching Nellie” sort of a process, which is...although there are stringent regulations, of course, over is it three…over five metres now [?], it will be certificated, [?].

Who was actually [?]? You gave – I mean, was the AUBTW..?

What, in terms of scaffolders?

Organising them, yeah.

I would that, in general terms, it would be UCATT and the T&G.

Yeah, sorry, prior to the formation of UCATT?

Well then, it would have been the AUBTW and the T&G, and to a lesser extent, the Municipal & General. I say “to a lesser extent” because in some…you know, they are still involved in construction, but they’ve never sort of…sort of really got off the ground in the same as the T&G have.

Yeah, I thought they just had local authorities in some places, where the authority perhaps has a closed shop or something.

Yeah, well, it depends who gets in first, you know [laughing]! Same old story!

Yeah. It’s intriguing because I suppose there must have been new grades of people to be recruited, and I get, certainly looking at the Woodworkers’ records, I get the impression they were a bit slow starting, you know, and stood around and watched what everyone else did then.

Yeah, they did, yeah.

But the AUBTW didn’t, to the same extent, did it?

No.

Who would it have got in…?

In terms of recruitment?

Yeah. It had scaffolders?

Yeah. You see, what happened, up until the National Builders’ Labourers [went in] of course, it was a craft.

Sure, yes.




But then, after that, we took in scaffolders and we took in steel-fixers and we took in street masons pavers, and we took in, after the merger, roof tilers, and we took in glaze tilers. We were a multi – and of course we took the pavers. We were a multi-craft union in that sense.

Yes, I just wondered if you were running into demarcation problems with the T&G over these people because they would presumably have been concerned to establish-

No, I think…I think, if I remember rightly, most of the… We had demarcation problems with the carpenters’ side on one occasion over the use of…what was it called…gyp-rock partitioning, which was a method of [doing] partitioning, which was [arguably], its work content, because it was a wall, that the work content was a carpenter or a bricklayer. There were demarcation disputes with plumbers over the use of glass bricks, on the basis that plumbers did glazing and therefore [they claimed] glass bricks, made of glass, were glazing.

Glass bricks…

You’ve probably seen them. They’re very, very – well, you see them…I don’t think you see them so much now. They’re usually nine inches cube, and they let the light through but you can’t see through them. You’ve probably seen, I’m sure you’ve seen – well, I know you’ve seen them because they’re about. They usually have a…they’re not a clear glass. They allow a certain amount of light through and they provide protection, in the sense that you couldn’t throw a brick at them and the place would fall down.

Yeah. I‘ll keep a lookout.

Yeah. If you look at King’s Street, [?], you’ll see the whole of that…

Ah, I know, yes, I do know, yeah.

That’s glass bricks.

Yeah. Yes, so-

[End of Recording 1]

[Recording 2]

…continues to this day. In certain areas, depending who got in first – in the Crawley area, the T&G never got into the area. Well, they had a full-time official down here, but he never got off the ground as far as recruitment was concerned because the bricklayers automatically put…labourers, recruited labourers into the…into…the Builders’ Labourers, and then into AUBTW.

Carpenters, and I’ve noticed this even talking to organisers now, that [?] carpenters, they tended to pass any labourers they came across over to the T&G. In fact, there is still a tendency in some [parts] to this day, despite the fact there’s been a merger, for them still to automatically…not consider labourers as a part of the union itself, so as far as they’re concerned, pass them over to the T&G. So that is…is, you know, certainly a [fact].

Tell me a little bit, perhaps, about how you organise a site when you go onto it – and I know it probably varies from one to another, but when you go onto a site, who’s the first person on? Who’d be likely to start organising, pre-UCATT?

Pre-UCATT, well, usually the bricklayers, bricklayers and labourers.

And then the carpenters come on for…the interior…?




Yeah. The carpenters come on, and then the painters. Now, of course, that is one of the…one of the changes that have taken place, that there is a tendency now for carpenters, very often, to get onto sites first, because a lot of the foundation work now, whereas it would be done in brick foundations, is now done in concrete, and then they use industrial, you know, industrial types of building. So, there’s a tendency of carpenters and labourers to be the first on, and steel-fixers to be one of the first on-site. So they don’t get organised so well [laughing]…!

Because they’re not used to doing it, yeah.

Yeah. But, that used to be the case anyway, certainly. The bricklayers were normally the ones who…bricklayers and labourers were the ones who organised sites, [in general].

There’s obviously a big regional variation in the building trade, so it’s perhaps difficult to get a sense of union density over the regions.

Yeah.

But is it, generally speaking, is it your impression that bricklayers are better organised, they’ve got a higher union density, I mean just speaking for your own area if you can’t generalise more than that?

I would say we did have, but there has been a dropping off [?], and I think, in fact, in one sense, it’s partly, partly to do with the merger – no, no, not to do with the merger. It coincided with the merger. I think the…in my own experience, bricklayers felt they lost their identity in the merger, always blame the merger for it, but they – and there has been a lower degree of organisation than there was before, before the merger. But I think that would be fair to say of…really of all…of all the trades, really. There’s a tendency to harp back to “When I was in the ASW”, “When I was in the AUBTW”, or the ASP&D.

Yeah, and people still talk about…

Yeah, there’s still the…the old history to be forgotten and then the new… I wouldn’t say that’s… I’m talking now of this area. I wouldn’t say that was true of all areas, plainly. I [wouldn’t say that], because working in London is a different…different scene altogether, [in that respect]. Although they’re the same, it’s the same background, I think they’ve [sheared] off, in that sense, although they still talk about how they did things in their own individual unions, [it doesn’t matter, they’re in] UCATT.

Coming back to London for a moment, because there’s a question I meant to ask you about the T&G and organising on-site, thinking back to the ‘60s, there was…well, first of all, there were a number of big disputes. I mean, there was…the Barbican was the biggest one, I suppose.

Yeah.

And the T&G seemed to get into that in a way that the ASW and the AUBTW didn’t, in that…my impression of what’s happened, and I haven’t found any, you know, I haven’t really looked at the dispute [really], is that the organiser who went into that site and who kept in touch with the blokes was the T&G organiser. Now, I could be wrong there.

[You ain’t] – he’s a guy named Lou Lewis [laughing].

Perhaps I should be careful.

And Jack Henry [laughing].




Yeah.

I don’t think [?]. They were expelled from the ASW for their involvement in those [disputes].

They were working on the sites?

Yeah. Yeah, and they were expelled from the ASW for it.

I’ll have to have a look at that because it’s em…

Yeah. No, I think it would be wrong that I… I wouldn’t…you know, I think…I think you’re wrong to say that the T&G were… I wouldn’t… No, it was more…very much a rank and file involvement, [?], yeah, it was very much the grassroots who were involved and developed the organisation, rather than the official machinery of any particular union.

That’s right – there was a London Joint Sites’ Shop Stewards’ Committee, wasn’t there?

The stewards…

Yeah. But it seemed to really get…

Yeah. There was Shell House, was another one, Shell-Mex. That was another very big dispute.

Was…I mean, the people involved in that were much broader than just Party people, but obviously I think Party people were key in organising, in the sense that they got the commitment to…to organising.

That’s right, yeah.

At that point in time, there was no paper or anything, was there, because…?

The New Builders’ Leader had gone, and the Charter hadn’t started, that’s right.

Yeah. And yet, it seemed to be an especially active period…

Yeah.

I’m not certain what was happening in that period…

I [couldn’t] tell you why it was [laughing]…why there…?

Do you think it was just with a lot of big sites opening up, people felt the…?

I think possibly, yeah. Yeah, I think the opportunity for organisation, you know, and the…you know, the elements that happened to be there at a particular time. I mean, the Barbican was a very, very big project, wasn’t it, which made itself open to…be open to em…organisation.

London does seem anyway to have been different, I think, [partly] the thing about London I think from sort of the 1914 Lockout in London, I mean, right the way through. Probably the sites were larger and perhaps people were employed on them longer, and so, you know, there was that kind of prospect for organisation.

Yeah.




You get Earl’s Court, in the ‘30s, you know, people like Harry Weaver [?] on those kinds of problems…

Yeah, that’s right, yeah.

So, in a way, I think you can perhaps put the ‘60s and the development of organisation then into that [craft] industry…

[?] held in the, you know, the sort of office, [old] office block, and so on?

Yeah, a lot of speculative building, certainly.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

And in the London scene, of course, which is…I mean, it’s a totally different scene to anything else in the country, [I would say]. You know, you had to be very [careful], and certainly I was surprised [?] elections there. It’s different - you couldn’t use that as a [?] for any other part of the country, not even Liverpool. It’s a different…it’s very much a special area of its own.

Yeah. I suppose, as well, most people, at some time or another – I mean, you’ve worked in London, and most people from around [the globe have looked to] work in London because of working in London [?], so that [just about everybody gets there]. Yeah.

Perhaps you could say a little bit about the role of the Federation and…not so much at national level but in your locality, as an example, em, in bringing trades together, because I guess, before there was a branch in this area – it would be before your time here – would there have been a composite Federation branch?

No, there wasn’t a composite – no, there never was a composite Federation branch in Crawley, no. There were in the surrounding areas, but never in Crawley itself. But the Federation, the local Federation branches, which was at [Poole] and [Horsham], em, played a very important part. You see, the… I was born in Crawley, so I didn’t…wasn’t [?] [laughing]. There was only – the ASW were already here. They’d been here since before…I think about 1920…the early 1920s, because there was [an effective] ASW branch before [?]. So there was in fact an ASW branch, but that was the only branch. There was no Painters or… But there was a Federation branch which was based at Horsham, which was a sort of…which was made up…and that became, certainly up until the merger, it was a very important, you know, considered very important by the constituent [?], as a sort of em…a forum to discuss problems, [?] organisation on a joint basis. It was very important, played a very important role, and of course, that then took quite a considerable – there was a considerable amount of cooperation between unions, and I’m talking now not only at grassroots’ level but amongst the officials. For instance, to give you an example of the site [?] in Crawley, and I was elected Federation Steward, and the [men there accepted me] as the Federation Steward, and eh…in fact, the Southern Counties’ Federation [Operatives’ Side], the Federation Secretary came down, and I think [?] – there was one from every trade, and they all turned up, and eh, we [?], they had to recognise me, because I [was] constitutionally elected as far as the Federation were concerned. But it provided a…there was a great, em…there wasn’t em…even with the T&G, there wasn’t the conflict of identity or fields of influence – none of that at all. [It’s] very interesting, [when I think back], that they would give each other a hand at organising, and often carried around, in this area anyway, the organiser would carry around recruitment material for other unions, and if he came across someone who wasn’t in the appropriate union, he would take their money and [talk to them] and pass it on to his… So, that, in that sense, that of course went out with the bath when the merger took place, you know,




because that was the end of it, because the main constituent bodies now are UCATT and T&G and of course [?] [laughing], there’s a degree of animosity between the two now.

And I suppose, as well, the number of organisers was reduced. I mean, you didn’t have [six or seven] organisers and [?].

No, no, that’s correct, that’s true.

Bu the time you lost your plasterers and your painters and plumbers…

That’s right, yeah. It didn’t…it worked out that eh… I think we had something like six organisers in Sussex, whereas now there’s…because I don’t cover Sussex, I just cover Crawley. I think there were six organisers altogether in Sussex alone, covering the various trades.

So there were just obvious problems of rationalisation. I mean, did people feel that, in a sense, that there were too many of us on the ground, or was it that there was always enough work to keep people going really [laughing]?

Well, if you put it round the other way, the feeling is there aren’t enough organisers to cover everything now, you know, in one sense, although of course the actual ratio of officials to members is the highest of any trade union, in UCATT, as George constantly reminds us.

But then you’ve got the particular problems of the mobile membership…

Well, exactly. I mean, the character of the industry itself tends to require…

I mean, I don’t know, but I would imagine that a lot of your problems are dealing solely with the question of organising rather than perhaps with assisting stewards with problems or, you know, the more detailed kind of negotiations you might get [involved in].

Well, actually, one of the things that… An official will never organise a job.

No, but there are ways of obviously perhaps having people go in and…

Unless you’ve got the people to go in and act as the stewards, an official will never organise a job.

No, but presumably you-

No, that’s a – when you’re an organiser, you’re not an organiser in that sense.

But isn’t there a situation that you might, for example, have people who are good organisers on-site and you might say to people-

Oh yes, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah. That was one of the things that [I will] say about the demise of the Federation, before the mergers [rather], the em…there was… I mean, I was asked by the Federation Secretary, [of the region], to go to Gatwick Airport, for an example, where I was asked to go there and organise it. But of course that…that tendency has disappeared. It’s gradually coming back, but there’s not the tradition of it. It seems to have died out. There are certain…certain organisers who will even dream of asking individuals to give up the job they’re doing to go and be placed on a site which then lasts for up to two or three years and organise, you know, solely for purpose of organisation.

Why is that? Is that because times are a bit harder to ask people to give up a job [?]?




Well, I think there are a number of factors. I mean, a lot of em… I think there are number now who would never…never worked, have never even conceived of using that type of approach. There’s also the question of course, the fact that em…there are – I know it’s a relatively small number, but there are very good site organisers, shop stewards, who, because they’re good, in some firms anyway, they keep them on [laughing], despite [their]…and of course the question of redundancy comes in. If you’re on a site for three years, you know, and they offer you a job for [another contract that’s going to] last another two years, they start thinking of the… This is the invidious side of redundancy payments, you know, that they tend to…not to be so mobile as they were before. On the other hand, of course, the old problems exist of placing people and, if you’re an organiser, [if the] local firm will accept you or not. And with the lump of course, it can be even more difficult.

Well, and also [?], I suppose…

Yeah, that’s right, that’s right, yeah. In fact, if you work for a subcontractor, [they’ll remove] the subcontractor to [get rid of you].

They had Pete Carter talking in the University, just in fact as I started doing this, you know the bloke who’s in Birmingham who’s done a lot of organising, and he said he was blacked in the area, and he went into one site and he said he put a turban on, because he’s got quite a sort of suntanned face, so he wore a turban to get in on this site, and then when he got in, he took it off, which I thought was a great way of getting round it [laughing]. But obviously, that must be a serious problem to get over, in organising terms.

With the way the Federation was operating, do you think there was opposition…some people have said, from George Smith, to the Federation, at national level? I don’t know if it was just George Smith [or] maybe that the [Woodworkers] were not feeling the Federation as very useful to them…

Em…well, I think, personally, you know, and it’s purely a personal point of view, [when] I attended Federation, the National Federation meetings and conferences and so on, and I saw some of these things [?] in the AUBTW, but em…it was very much motivated by George Smith, I don’t’ think there’s any doubt about that.

Do you think he was very keen to see UCATT established, to see one – I mean, did he have the idea of one big union?

Oh, I think he was very keen on that. I think he was very keen on that. I don’t think there’s any doubt at all about that. I think mainly, one of his main motivations was to get rid of the AUBTW, because it was very much a thorn in the side of the ASW, [because it was the largest, you know, single] union, because eh…as I say, there was this conflict of…of the policies, between the left policies of the AUBTW and the right policies of the ASW. It was an antipathy, a personal antipathy I think. I don’t know, don’t know quite what the grounds were…

Where did the Painters fit into this? Because he…seemed to make a point of getting them first…

Well, the Painters of course were…to my point of view, were a much more pliable…pliable body, insofar as they…they merged easily, and eh, in fact, if you study the history of the merging of the bodies, it was only after…after the Painters go in, you know, that…that the… [When I think] of what happened now, [it was] they used the painting vote to get other…other votes through, [?] before [?]. If I remember rightly, the ASW [turned]…or the Woodworkers…the woodworking membership turned down the question of regionalisation, but when the Painters came in, they took the vote again, and the Painters swung the vote the other way. So, the structure, the structure was changed, but [there’s not]…I don’t… The Painters didn’t, to my recollection, never




played a prominent part in the same way as the ASW or the AUBTW in the overall affairs of the industry. They didn’t have the same impact – I think partly the character of their work. I mean, they tend to be the last on and the last off, you know…

And the lowest in the craft hierarchy…

That’s right, yeah, and they tended to have less impact [?].

Yet they must have presented certain kinds of practical problems though, I mean just things like they had a full-time Executive, which you didn’t, which meant that there’s a lot of individuals whose jobs are…you know, in the balance.

Yeah.

Whereas, my impression is that the AUBTW, having a lay Executive, was easy to incorporate in a practical way, and, you know, people like you went back and carried on working in the trade really.

Yeah.

And that wasn’t a problem for you – you didn’t sort of feel that your situation had been changed [?]…

No, no, no. I mean, the only…the only controversy…wouldn’t even say “controversy”, only question was who was going to go full-time, you know, and that was done on a – as you know, it wasn’t done on a ballot. It was the EC determined who…

Yeah, it was an EC election of…

EC election of, that’s right. No, there was no…there was no…there was never any conflict on that [relation] at all.

There must have been a lot of toing and froing on that election, because Lowthian was…actually stood out, didn’t he?

That’s right.

He said he [?] to keep a place on…

Oh, there was a lot of…there was a lot of lobbying, to say the least, and eh…in hindsight, you know, it would be interesting to see what [would have happened]… Anyhow! Seeing the situation as it is today, that… You see, there are only two of these, two are still on the EC, and the other one, Doug Sanderson, of course is now a National Officer.

Who was it retired in December?

Oh no, that was em…well, there were two actually retired, [Wilkinson and Ebbie], two retired, [because of the] reduction in the size of the EC. At the time of the merger, there was em…Bill Lewis and Johnny Leonard, because Bill Lewis was the AGS, and Johnny Leonard was the President, plus three, Sanderson, Williams and Darcy, of which Williams and Darcy are the only two left on the EC. Leonard retired. Bill Lewis became the National Officer.

What about the…I mean, there must have been certain other kinds of straight practical problems. One that’s been mentioned to me is sort of the level of pay for some [?] people was much lower,




and the ASW officials, from what I heard, were a bit worried that their, you know, their level was going to be debased by the AUBTW coming in.

Oh, I think, yeah. Well, from the AUBTW officials’ point of view, I mean, they were…I think it would be fair to say that the full-time officials wanted to get in because the terms, obviously, were much more attractive than the ones that they were receiving. I wasn’t aware that the ASW were worried about [?] because, if they read the Transfer of Engagements, I mean, the AUBTW would have to come in on terms not less favourable, and therefore it wouldn’t be possible to reduce the ASW terms.

Yes. Where it came up, I think it was on a pensions’ issue, where the pensions for full-time officials of the ASW were being the same for quite a long period, and I think they thought they were due an increase, but no one was going to go handing out increases on pensions at that point in time.

Oh yeah, yeah, that could well have been….yeah.

They’re obviously sort of small practical issues which I think [are why] the individual would think about-

Yeah. I know the ASW didn’t have a properly funded pension scheme, whereas the AUBTW did.

That was actually at the time you were going in?

Yeah. If you study the records, they didn’t have a…what do they call it, an actuarially sound funded scheme, whereas the AUBTW had one which was actuarially sound, but of course, in order to be actuarially sound, you can’t afford to pay as much money [?], you know what I mean?!

Yeah.

If you bring the experts in, you’ve got [?].

Yeah. They sorted that problem out though, didn’t they, before…?

Em, I’m not quite sure. I think the final…I think it’s been tinkered about with since, since the merger took place, which they went on the – well, the AUBTW officials went on the same terms as those being paid to the ASW at that time.

Yeah. Can you think of any other practical sort of problems that came up at the point that amalgamation was being discussed? I mean, that would be very shortly after you were…went into the Executive…

I can’t think of any practical problems that came up really… The em…there were certainly arguments about who went onto the regional councils on each [?], em represented. We had a divisional structure which more or less covered – the divisions in the AUBTW more or less coincided, in broad terms, with the ASW anyway, [so that was solved]. [I don’t think there were any great problems], not of a serious [kind]. It was really a question of who was…who was going on what [?]. I think, in general terms, the members of the EC who didn’t go on to the full-time positions, in many, in a lot of the cases, in fact were co-opted onto regional councils. I know that’s how [?] followed on from the EC onto the Southern Regional Council, so there’d be continuity through the piece.

Presumably for the rest of your period in office?




No, no, until the next election of the Regional Council. I think it was a period of about two and a half years, might have been three years, I think it would be…yeah, six months…may have been a little bit more than that, but certainly not [much]. They left us…left a seat, two seats, in the Southern Region [?].

It seemed, from the documents, that some people in the AUBTW were very much against the merger at the last minute. I don’t know, there seemed to be em…considerable vocal opposition to the merger being carried through. One branch I noticed, because it’s the area I come from, Barking & Dagenham branch, em…

Sid [?]’s branch [laughing], yeah, that’s right.

They were very opposed. I mean, were there specific reasons for this, why sort of, if you like, ordinary members aren’t happy with the deal?

Yeah, yes, there were. There were certain, certain…certain branches and certain individuals who, you know, sort of built a…a [?], the way these things do, which cut across… You know, it wasn’t a political thing. It was more based on what was felt to be a loss of identity. This was the main…the main… And the feeling that the structure of the AUBTW was much more democratic than the ASW as it was at that time, you know. I think, to a very large extent, you know, to quite a considerable extent, that [has] changed, you know, [?] if the structure that’s currently [?] had been imposed at that particular time, that that would have taken the…the argument away.

There wasn’t the feeling then that people would perhaps like to go into the T&G, say, [?] the T&G…?

Em…well, there were some, certainly some who felt that discussions ought to take place with other unions. Even during the time that I was on the EC, certainly, it was posed, the question as to whether or not we should…we should perhaps hold our horses and [consider] another alternative. Certainly, one that was suggested at that time was the [AUBW], because of the length of their…

Ah, because they’ve got construction engineers, yes.

Yes, that’s right.

Yes.

And that was…that was sort of pushed, pushed out as a… It didn’t get off the ground, but it was certainly pushed out as a possibility. And the other one of course that was discussed, em, was the General Municipal, as another… These were sort of thrown out as alternatives to the…to the one that actually took place.

I was thinking of the T&G partly because it’s clear that, immediately prior to the merger, the T&G made a formal approach to you – [if not] a formal, it’s actually a minuted approach to the AUBTW.


Whereas, I guess that most approaches on these things are friendly, sort of informal…

Yeah.

And that made me wonder if it was…if it was a question of people [?] on the T&G. The other thing is that it’s clear that the T&G itself was changing, because it’s the period when…just after Jones gets in.





And so, you know, I can understand that people’s view of the situation would change.

Yeah. It was a…there was a smallish…not on the EC itself, but within the union certainly, there were some who felt that the T&G was a viable proposition, eh, because…and in fact, overtures were sort of made in an indirect way via the Plasterers, you know, who said, well, we haven’t lost anything, you know, we haven’t lost our identity and so on, which I don’t think they would say today [laughing]. But I don’t think the…certainly, the T&G was never…never really [a main target], I think partly because of the…well, as these things, you know, go, the relationship between George Smith and George Lowthian, the sort of personal relationships, were…were a determining factor in the…

I don’t really know anything about [that].

Well, I mean, they were on good personal terms, you know, and I think this often is a…is a deciding factor. Alright, the ECs, you know, of the unions decide, but the attitude of the General Secretary is, you know, it can have a very strong influence in determining, you know, [the thing].

And of course Lowthian was due to go, wasn’t he?

Lowthian was due to go, that’s right, yeah. One of the arguments that came into it, which I think was rather a [?] one, I feel – I’ve never seen [?] anything else, but the argument, the strong argument that was used for the merger was that the AUBTW would disappear within five years without [?] membership and, oh, there would be no money, and so on, which actually had a…wasn’t a very good argument to use because it got people’s backs up, you know - the suggestion that the AUBTW would disappear, you know, was…sacrilege. And in fact, I would think that possibly the em…the merging of the AUBTW and the ASW was more in the interests of the ASW than it was in the interests of the AUBTW, from a financial point of view, because the ASW in fact was, em, two or three years [after] the merger, are very [tight] financially. It wasn’t the effect – although it was claimed to be the effect of a bankrupt organisation being taken over [by the] ASW, I think it was very much the reverse. You know…the financial problems in the ASW were much more real than were shown on the balance sheets or known to the general membership.

Well, certainly, the discussions which took place prior to the ASW talking to the AUBTW, they were involved with discussions both with NAFTO and with the Woodcutting Machinists, and the Woodcutting Machinists especially were quite nicely off financially, you know, satisfactory little union.

Yeah, oh yes, very, very, yeah. [One of them had a go at me, had a go at me, in a bank, every so often].

Yeah.

There was an attempt, incidentally, on that, within the Executive, to get NAFTO involved, but of course NAFTO wouldn’t be involved because of the structure – it was a question of structure. That was where the thing fell by the wayside, I think. I’m trying to think of his name now…he’s died…

Tomkins?

Tomkins, that’s right. Well, he produced a…a formal – I don’t know, well, it should be available. But he in fact produced a formal organisation under which [his/each] union felt they could come in, which allowed for [?] but again for the unified structure, and eh…that was, you know,




[inaudible], at the time. But that was certainly discussed, but, you know, there – I’m trying to think whether in fact there wasn’t a suggestion that we should go in with NAFTO… I’ve got a feeling there was. Certainly, in the corridors anyway, it was discussed as a possibility, you know, rather than go in with the ASW.

I suppose that would have been a trades’ group structure because that’s what they had already.

That’s right. That’s right, yeah.

What kind of – I mean, I’ve done all this work on the period before UCATT. What actually came after the merger? What sort of structure was established in the period ’71, ’72…how did that come out of the merger?

Well, the structure was there when we went in, the regional structure.

Yeah. It was the ASW&P?

That’s right, and the structure was there. It’s changed since then, [but the essence has never been changed]. We have a region and nothing below that, at all. It’s [one of the] weaknesses [?]. I can see the logic because the…the logic really arose out of the old em…well, out of ASW particularly, where the district or management committee structure, em, would tend to overrule the authority of the Executive, you know. The power was…wasn’t coming from the top, in all cases, and it was to cut across that that the concept of regionalisation was evolved. But what was missing, and is still missing, is having a level below the regional level, for want of a better word, a district level, which…so that the member is not…doesn’t feel isolated from the…from the region, but how you do that without running into the dangers of empire-building at the lower level is a very difficult one. This is why there’s been the continued opposition to setting up district offices and things of that sort.

That it would be an alternative powerbase?

That’s right, would start to develop into a local powerbase.

How did the management committees in the old structure relate to the General Council?

What, the ASW?

In the ASW, yes.

Well, I’m not quite clear because, talking to ASW members who worked on the General…were on the general management committees, they seemed to have very much their own, you know, it was very much they did their own thing, to a very large extent. I mean, they bought their own premises, they belonged – I mean, a regional office belonged…the Hants & Dorset Management Committee, they’d actually bought it, the members in that area bought it. It was their building and it wasn’t anything to do with the EC.

They had separate funds…

They had separate funds, yeah, yeah.

Just that people have often said there’s a conflict, I mean within both unions, I think, between General Council and Executive Council, or at least there’s a sort of potential for…for conflict [?].

The General Council? Well, the General Council, that was…almost a nonentity, because its powers were taken away, what powers it had were literally taken. [Only appeals] probably now,




whereas, at one stage, in the ASW, and for a period of time within UCATT, it was very powerful. They overturned the EC, overturned EC decisions.

And you say at one time in UCATT it was still very powerful, the General Council?

Yeah, until the change of rule.

That was, what…?

About two years ago, three years ago…three years ago.

And [maybe] the Rules Revision Committee, which is elected from the Dover Conference, or is it elected by…?

No, it’s elected by the [?], two from each region, plus members from the EC [?].

And who actually put the proposal [?]?

That arose…that particular one arose out of a recommendation of the…the EC and the GC, because they…they were the rules, they were the sort of standing rules or…at that time.

Yeah. So the GC was actually party to its own demise, in a sense?!

In a sense it was, yeah, yeah. It was…yeah, there was sufficient [?] to bring about its own demise. There was a feeling that, you know, that there should be a different form of rules revision structure. I wouldn’t say we’ve got [a good one], by any means, not if you can compare with the AUBTW, which had a…had a full conference once every six years, [?] change its rules and delegates.

I might have another look at the Rule Book – I’m not really…

Well, you’ll have to look at all the Rule Books really, haven’t you?

Yeah. My problem is I’m covering not just this merger but the previous mergers which established the [new ones], you know, the 1919, 1921 period.

OBS…

Yeah. So it’s actually quite complex because I start from a wide range of unions and I also have to look at the formation of the Federation. I mean, if ever an industry has produced a complex structure in terms of the trade union organisation…

You’ve got plenty of documentation on it, have you?

It’s pretty good actually. The…UCATT is the best union I’ve encountered for preserving its records. I’ve never had any dealings with the AEU, who I think are a similar kind of organisation – I mean, they’ve got [?] material.

How about the AUBTW material – you’ve actually got that?

Oh yeah, terrific [stuff]. It goes – I mean, I’ll never get to look at all of it – there’s too much there, but it’s…well, I mean, Operative Stonemasons from the 1830s through to the merger into the AUBTW, Manchester Union to the Operative Bricklayers, Operative Bricklayers Society – they’re the sort of three major constituents.




That’s right.

Then you get the AUBTW Executive Committee minutes, number one, number two, and a bit of number three, not complete, but district committee minutes. Em…not very much correspondence – there’s correspondence on sort of things like the silicosis scheme, you know, stuff mostly [perhaps for the masons], and then printed reports, monthly, quarterly, annual reports, em, circulars to branches – a good run of stuff actually. I mean, I don’t know, it would keep about two dozen historians going for the next 20 years [laughing].

I picked up an old OBS one [?] report the other day.

Really?

Mm.

Is that in your district office – sorry, your regional office?

That’s right, down [from] my predecessors, [?].

One of the things actually, I mean, if I can nag you to do, is that most regional officials don’t worry about their records, and obviously regional records are, in a way, just as important as the stuff that we’ve got from headquarters, so, if you do find you’ve got documents around your office, the place they should really go, I suppose, would be…what, Hampshire would be your local record office, em, [?]. But I mean, if you do find any, you can always drop me a line and I’ll find out for you.

There’s the Labour History Museum in… Don’t know what sort of facilities they’ve got, quite honestly.

Well, they’re not really into – they do take documents. They’ve got some from the Socialist Sunday School and so on.

I’m trying to remember his name now because I know the chap who’s…the curator…

Oh, Terry McCarthy?

Terry, I know Terry. I’m not quite sure how deeply they report, you know, at the individual or whether they take the sort of general…

I think they – well, being a museum, they take things, obviously.

That’s right, objects and…

Yes. But then they do also take documents, but I think they’ve been pushed for space and, as far as I know, they’ve moved recently. They were planning to move building. I don’t know what they’ve got now – I haven’t been there for ages. But they’re not really so much the place for documents, especially if they’re local, you see, because you’ve got, I don’t know, people doing work perhaps on the local labour movement generally would want to use this stuff as well, so it’s good to keep that locally if you can.

Mm. Does Warwick…does Warwick run…? Is this a speciality of…?

Well, what happened, you see, George Bain, I don’t know – you probably don’t know him. He’s one of the blokes who’s on the Bullock Commission, you know, one of the academics. He was involved in, you know, looking around and saying there’s 200 years of labour history going to




waste – someone ought to be doing something about it. Ideally the TUC would do it, but they’ve got no money and all those problems – they’re right in the middle of London, which is not the place to do it anyway because what it really means is having a [barn] in which you put…a sort of decent building in which you just store documents. So, they set up a project in ’73 to collect or otherwise to ensure the preservation of documents. In other words, you know, I started working on that project, and we weren’t just there to take in records for ourselves, we were also there to sort of say, look, if you don’t give them to us, please keep them properly, you know, to nag unions on that. I mean, it’s amazing – I mean, we just took in, I guess, well, you know, a good few dozen major union records, and then, within each one, you’ll find like maybe sort of two dozen constituents, so it runs into hundreds of unions.

Yeah.

But then we worked out there were 5,000 unions between 1892 and 1970 so [laughing]…!

As many as that?! Yeah, well, there would be too… Some have disappeared and others have merged and…

Yeah, so we only scratch the surface really in terms of what must have been around, and that’s national, not local or regional.

No, no.

Still, it was worth doing – did need doing!

[End of recording]



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