unless some elements of socialstatuswent with religion (as they often do) so
that, as for example in parts of the USA at times, Protestants were in some ways
socially superior to the more recently arrived Catholic population. However,
as such evaluations tend to be derived from income and employment attri-
butes, stratification often collapses back into a crude class system. This is only
untrue where the overall culture positively elevates some values associated with
the stratification over and above socio-economic matters.
Strike
Trade unionorganization developed in many countries during the 19th
century in an attempt to achieve better terms and conditions for industrial and
agricultural workers. They were successors to, rather than developments from,
thecorporatismof the medieval craft guilds, as the agrarian and industrial
revolutions led to the creation of much larger bodies of subservient labourers.
The ultimate weapon of these workers when bargaining with employers was to
withdraw their labour—to go on strike. For two main reasons this weapon was
not immediately an easy one to use. Firstly, the legal position of a group
collectively refusing to work for an employer was very dubious in most
countries, and even where it was not illegal employers could often use threats
and coercion to break strikes with impunity. Secondly, the existingsocialist
doctrine on strikes was far too radical to suit the pragmatic needs of workers
simply trying to improve their working conditions. This doctrine, usually
calledsyndicalism, called for a general strike to destroy the capitalist
economy and replace it with a form of worker control. Not only did ordinary
trade unionists not want this, but when they did go on strike it was easy to
portray them as having revolutionary intent. Although unions had been
organized and carried out small strikes for some time, the first mass strike in
the United Kingdom was the 1889 dock workers strike. Although the law
oscillated in many countries, especially over the right of strikers to picket their
place of work (indeed the details of the right to picket remain controversial in
the UK to this day), gradually the right to strike was granted in most
jurisdictions. The key date in the UK was 1906 when the Trades Disputes
Act was passed by a Liberal government, taking away the legal liability that
strike leaders had previously risked. By the inter-war years the basic idea that a
union could call a strike, and could unite with other unions to extend the
strike, was accepted in most of the Western world.
In practice the use of the strike as a weapon in industrial disputes has varied
widely. In the USA major unions tend to negotiate contracts lasting for several
years, during which no strikes are called, though there is frequently a lengthy
strike during the renegotiating phase of each contract. In much of Europe,
Strike