Ulster Unionist Labour Association
The Ulster Unionist Labour Association (UULA) was an association of trade unionists founded by
Founding
The Ulster Unionist Labour Association was made up of trade unionists and
The grouping adopted as formal policy an opposition to socialism, but was seen by many as an attempt to convince people that the Unionist Party had the interests of the working class at heart.[4] Members included Tommy Henderson, later an independent Unionist member of parliament.[citation needed]
1918 General Election
During the 1918 general election the aims of the UULA were set out by Bates. In a letter to Carson he stated that they would be used as a means of distracting younger members of the working class from the Independent Labour Party, who held views which were very different from their own organisation, i.e. socialism.[5]
The Belfast Labour Party put four candidates forward, but they lost out to two UULA and two Unionist candidates.[5]
The UULA had three members returned, all of them in Belfast.[6]
Workers' strike
Predominantly Protestant, Belfast engineering and shipyard workers, traditionally well organised, staged a three-week strike demanding a 10-hour reduction in the working week. This was done in defiance of the national leadership of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. The strike was extended to include electricity and municipal gas workers, causing large sections of industry and commerce to close down. They began to publish a daily newspaper and a General Strike Committee was formed and began to issue permits allowing only "necessary" production.[1]
Sectarianism
By 1920 growing unemployment in the linen industries and engineering sector were creating tension within the "Protestant bloc". Large numbers of well organised ex-servicemen were still out of work and a cause of concern to the local middle class. It was the local middle class who alleged that "peaceful penetration" of Belfast industry during the war by thousands of Catholics created the unemployment problem, especially that of the ex-servicemen. It would be the local middle class who succeeded in giving the conflict its sectarian twist.[1]
In the spring and summer of 1920 "indignation" meetings were held in Belfast by working-class members of Carson’s “Old Town Hall circle” to attack the British unions for their "Bolshevism" and "pro-republicanism". Leading Unionists and employers went along in these events and even justified them, as they were perceiving themselves to be vulnerable. After one meeting held in the shipyards in July, attacks began on workers identified as Belfast Labour members, socialists and Catholics. This then spread to some sections of the linen industry and the engineering industry, resulting in over "8,000 expulsions within a week."[7]
Paul Collins suggests that the expulsions were partly the result of a speech made by Carson on 12 July,
Collins however suggests that the direct cause of the expulsions was the killing of Banbridge RIC man Colonel Smyth on 7 July in Cork. Rail Union members in the south of Ireland refused to allow his body to travel home by train, leading many Loyalists to then identify the Labour movement with his assassins. It was on the day of his funeral, Collins says, that the expulsions began, resulting in ten thousand Catholics and so-called "Rotten Prods" with connections to Labour.[8]
Most Protestant employers looked on with tacit approval as "Vigilance Committees" were established to prevent "disloyalist" workers from being re-employed. Protestant domination of the Belfast industries was celebrated with Union Jack unfurlings and addressed by members of the UULA.[7]
B Specials established
Catholic retaliation and reprisals were inevitable, with gun and bomb attacks on trains carrying shipyard workers. This resulted in yet more reprisals, with widespread looting and burning of Catholic owned businesses. The British army while guarding Catholic properties clashed with Protestant crowds with fatal consequences. This resulted in UULA creating an "unofficial special constabulary", with members drawn chiefly from the shipyards, tasked with "policing" Protestant areas. Carson and Craig need to establish a militant basis for resistance to republicanism, wished to reconstitute the UVF which could operate independently of the British. They then set about securing British government approval and funds for the UULA constabularies in Belfast, along with the UVF.[7]
While
Other activities
Besides its opposition to a united Ireland and to socialism, the association did not make serious attempts to speak on behalf of loyalist workers. However, it did organise some limited
Decline
The organisation was never able to attract leading trade unionists, and soon declined in importance. While Andrews and
The Great Depression saw many workers look instead to the official trade union movement and the Northern Ireland Labour Party, and many branches of the UULA became moribund. A drive to reinvigorate the UULA was launched in the 1950s, although only one new branch was formed, in Derry.[10]
In the 1970s, its role as a movement for the mobilisation of the
Already by the early 1970s, the association's primary role was organising the wreath-laying at the annual memorial service for Carson, and today it exists solely to perform this ceremonial role.[10][11]
References
- ^ ISBN 1-897959-38-9, pp. 16–17.
- ^ J. M. Andrews chaired UULA meetings later becoming a Minister of Labour from 1921 to 1937. He was Minister of Finance from 1937 to 1940, when on the death of Lord Craigavon, he became the second Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
- ISBN 0-7171-3000-2, pp. 23–24
- ^ John F. Harbinson, The Ulster Unionist Party, 1882–1973, p. 67.
- ^ ISBN 3-515-06102-9, p. 93.
- ISBN 978-0-7190-6109-7, p. 44.
- ^ a b c d Bew, Gibbon and Patterson, Northern Ireland (2002), pp. 18–19.
- ^ a b Elvert, Northern Ireland, past and present (1994), p. 94.
- ^ Harbinson, The Ulster Unionist Party, 1882–1973, p. 185.
- ^ a b c Harbinson, The Ulster Unionist Party, 1882–1973, p. 68.
- ^ Peter Barberis et al., Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations, p. 255.
Bibliography
- Peter Barberis, John McHugh and Mike Tyldesley, Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations
- Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, Northern Ireland: 1921 / 2001 Political Forces and Social Classes, ISBN 1-897959-38-9
- Jurgen Elvert, Northern Ireland, past and present (Nordirland in Geschichte und Gegenwart), Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1994. ISBN 978-3-515-06102-5.
- Graham S. Walker, A History of the Ulster Unionist Party: Protest, pragmatism and pessimism, Manchester University Press (2004), ISBN 978-0-7190-6109-7
- Brian Lalor, The Encyclopaedia of Ireland, Gill & Macmillan (Ireland 2003), ISBN 0-7171-3000-2