Industrial Action
He moved to Jarrow Colliery, and then Hetton Colliery before forming the Northern Union of Pitmen around 1830/31, which was colloquially known as Hepburn's Union. Some of the first industrial action undertaken by this union, under Hepburn's guidance was to go on strike to seek improved conditions. In this aim the strike was largely successful, with working hours being reduced from around 18 hours a day to a 12 hour shift, and ensuring that payment for labour was always in money, ending the system of "Tommy Shops" whereby the miners had to purchase provisions from a shop either owned or preferred by the colliery owner, with wages being confiscated to pay off the shop owner before the employee could directly receive them.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Hepburn
Famous quotes containing the words industrial and/or action:
“We agree fully that the mother and unborn child demand special consideration. But so does the soldier and the man maimed in industry. Industrial conditions that are suitable for a stalwart, young, unmarried woman are certainly not equally suitable to the pregnant woman or the mother of young children. Yet “welfare” laws apply to all women alike. Such blanket legislation is as absurd as fixing industrial conditions for men on a basis of their all being wounded soldiers would be.”
—National Woman’s Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he a contemplative purely, he would not write.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)