Sheffield Trades and Labour Council - UK Alliance and The Sheffield Outrages

UK Alliance and The Sheffield Outrages

In 1864, the grinders' union issued a wage claim. This was ignored, and when a new claim the following year was also passed over, they joined with the smiths' union, the largest in the town, in calling a strike in February 1866. Some large employers retaliated by installing file cutting machines. The Association's attempt to mediate failed, and the employers rejected a compromise. In order to bolster the strike, the Association appealed for funds from trades in other areas of the country, and having received some, it agreed a proposal from the Wolverhampton Trades Council to hold a national conference. The strike was lost in June, but the conference went ahead.

Dronfield invited delegates from across Britain to Sheffield on 17 July 1866. 138 attended, representing around 200,000 members. The meeting resolved to found a national organisation of trade unions, the United Kingdom Alliance of Organised Trades. Most of its Executive Council came from the Sheffield area, and its executive was the same as that of the Sheffield Association.

A series of violent attacks on non-trade unionists by a small minority of unionist, the "Sheffield Outrages", ran through 1866, so in November, the trades council joined with the London Trades Council to call for a government enquiry. The Association formed a Trade Union Defence Committee, led by George Austin.

At the 1868 UK general election, Dronfield had on behalf of the trades council persuaded Anthony John Mundella to stand in the Sheffield constituency, believing that the Liberal would act in the interests of Labour. However, some dissident trade unionists, including Broadhead, supported John Arthur Roebuck and the Conservative E. P. Price instead, on the grounds that they claimed to support a closed shop policy backed by law. Mundella and George Hadfield, the other official Liberal candidate, proved successful.