ONCE THE nature of the la movement which emerged fr World War II is understood il the nature of the transformati which have taken place since ‹ also be clearly seen. They are marised in Table 1.
The labour movement as it emer War Il still showed t same basic teatures as it naa Dos since the wave of unionisation follo ing 1889, and as that had progresse to World War I. It was massively m and massively manual working clas composition. It was also, althougt does not show in these figures, whelmingly white In 1948 white collar workers only 23 per cent of trade union women onlv o per cent. in the: election only 45 per cent of women. voted Labour compared to 54 per c of men - nine percent more men th voting structurally the labour movement ing from the unionisation of male skilled workers after 1889.
By 1979 the transformation is vious. The percentage of women in trade unions had increased to 30 cent. The percentage of white a workers mute lions dockil The male manual trade union movement of 1948 become by 1979 one with almost third of its members women and i per cent of its members white c workers These shifts, as may be seen the figures for earlier years, rep the greatest change in the compos of the labour movement since the of unionisation from 1889 to the a math of World War I. On the pol field by the 1979 election the diffe tial in voting Labour between men women decreased to 4 per cent - an fell to 2 per cent in 1983 are taken then development is clear. The first wave labour movement from 1850
Key symbols of the three great waves of the British workers movement: Henry Broadhurst, secretary of the TUC in 1875 and Liberal Party member; an 1889 demonstration during the dockers strike of that year; black women workers on strike at Grunwick in 1976. selling the In land. i The causes of thisidewelopment ate the also clear - and are exactly parallel to earlier destruction of the rural population during the industrial revolution. What took place following 1951 was a process of the proletarianisation of society on a massive scale.
A woman doing domestic labour in proletariat liket The process re their drawing mared wrocess of the aristin process of proletarianisation position of Shift The reasons for this social revolution, for that is what it is, are also clear.
its previous waves of expansion capitalism created force driving the population, including self-employed farmers and peasants, off the But in Britain the proportion of the mover as gree the cr the The logic clear.
movement develo the wo Th privile society. organi will S worke wome The War and di by to org on a large scale.
Th the de the ' unskilled male either. white The second after based on the development has male, unskilled, collar women, - anc