Arthur Horner (trade unionist)
Arthur Horner | |
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ILP (until 1921) CPGB |
Arthur Lewis Horner (5 April 1894 – 4 September 1968) was a
Early career
Arthur Horner was born in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, the eldest surviving son of a family of seventeen children only six of whom lived past infancy. Horner's father was a chargehand porter in the railway goods station. His maternal grandfather and two maternal uncles were miners. His earliest employment was as a grocer's assistant and delivery boy in the coalfield communities around Merthyr. After a short spell in Merthyr railway goods station he was drawn into coalmining employment in 1915 due to his growing interest in the political radicalism of trade union activists in the nearby Rhondda coalfield.[2]
Early political allegiances
Horner's first political affiliation was
Opposing the
Member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and Trade Union leader
Horner became a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1921. He was part of the nucleus of Communists who founded the National Minority Movement in August 1924. Elected to the executive committee of the SWMF in 1926, he played a leading role in the ten-month-long countrywide lockout of coalminers in 1926, following the General Strike.[1]
During the early years of the 1930s Horner's disaffection with the CPGB's policy towards trade unions was such that he faced expulsion from the party. "Hornerism" was denounced by the CPGB Executive as a deviation from the
In 1932, imprisoned on trumped-up charges of unlawful assembly, Horner took the opportunity availed to him as Cardiff prison librarian to study The Art of War by Carl von Clausewitz,[9] a work which would significantly influence his future approach to formulating Union strategy and class politics in general – often leading to further conflict with the CPGB Executive. His increased strategic awareness would leave him strongly inclined against indiscriminate outbreaks of industrial action jeopardising the Union's strength and ability to win concessions for its members.
Having stood unsuccessfully as a CPGB Parliamentary candidate in the 1933 Rhondda East by-election, Horner was elected President of the South Wales Miners' Federation in 1936. He served until 1946 and was instrumental in effecting a series of compromise settlements with the coal owners that rationalized industrial relations and improved wages and conditions.[10]
During the
In August 1946, Horner was elected General Secretary of the unified National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) into which the coalfield unions had merged. Horner's reputation was such that he was in a commanding position to direct the union's strategy on the nationalisation of the industry and thereafter during the period of post-war reconstruction. This strategy linked a commitment to increased productivity to a series of demands set out in the 1946 Miners' Charter.[13] These included: a five-day working week without loss of pay; a guaranteed weekly wage average wage not to fall below that of any other sector of British industry; two weeks paid holiday; adequate pensions at the age of fifty five; modernisation at existing pits together with the sinking of new ones; adequate training for young people; new safety laws; proper compensation payments for industrial injury and disease; the construction of new towns and villages with good housing in mining areas.
The early agreement in principle to the terms of the Charter by the newly elected Labour government reflected its urgent desire to have the NUM's full support for the newly nationalised industry.[14] It was also an acknowledgement that Horner's expertise and influence was indispensable to delivering much needed increases in coal production.[15] Nationalisation took effect from 1 January 1947 and The National Agreement of the same year delivered the five-day working week. By 1955 all 12 points of the Charter had been implemented.[16]
By the time he retired from office in 1959, the NUM had secured on behalf of its membership some of the best terms and conditions of employment of any sector of British industry.[17]
In 1959 he was made a Freeman of the County Borough of Merthyr Tydfil.
Horner died in 1968 at the age of 74. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.
References
- ^ a b Fishman 2010 Vol 1 p. 19
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 1 p. 34-35, 45
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 1 p. 21
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 1 p. 39-45
- ^ British labour and the Easter Rising IrishDemocrat.co.uk; Horner 1960: 23–30
- ^ De Barra (2018), page 260
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 1 p. 66-7
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 1 p. 226-27
- ^ Hobsbawm (1964), p. 221.
- ^ Fishman 1996 p. 105
- ^ The Greene Commission awards, implemented in June 1942, raised miners from 59th to 23rd in the wages league. (Arnot 1961 p. 350)
- ^ "Temporarily there was a unity of purpose between the employers and the workers and so it was possible for the two sides to combine in increasing production" (Horner 1960 p. 166).
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 2 p. 662
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 2 p. 665
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 2 p. 656
- ^ Fishman 2010 Vol 2 p. 888
- ^ L.J. Handy (1981)Wages Policy in the British Coalmining Industry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Table 8.1, p. 172.
Bibliography
- R. Page Arnot, (1961) The Miners in Crisis and War. London: Allen and Unwin.
- Nina Fishman, (1996) "Heroes and anti-heroes: communists in the coalfields" in Campbell, Alan, Fishman, Nina, and Howell, David (eds). Miners, Unions and Politics 1910–1947. Aldershot: Scolar Press.
- Nina Fishman, (2001) "Horner and Hornerism" in McIlroy, J, Morgan, K, Campbell, A (eds). Party People, Communist Lives. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
- Nina Fishman, (2010) Arthur Horner: A Political Biography. Volume 1 1894–1944, Volume 2 1944–1968. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
- Arthur Horner, (1960) Incorrigible Rebel. London: MacGibbon and Kee.
- E. J. Hobsbawm (1964). Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-76402-0.
External links
- Arthur Horner Archive Marxists Internet Archive
- Newspaper clippings about Arthur Horner in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW