Ulster Unionist Labour Association
Encyclopedia
The Ulster Unionist Labour Association was an association of trade union
ists founded by Edward Carson in June 1918, aligned with the Ulster Unionists
in Northern Ireland
. Members were known as Labour Unionists. 1918 and 1919 were the years of intense class conflict
throughout Britain. This period also saw a large increase in trade union membership and a series of strikes. These union activities raised fears in a section of the Ulster Unionist leadership, principally Edward Carson and R. Dawson Bates
. Carson at this time was president of the British Empire Union
, and had been predisposed to amplify the danger of a Bolshevik
outbreak in Britain.
ists and Ulster Unionists and was founded by Carson along with John Miller Andrews as a means of instigating a purge from the local trade union movement of ‘Bolsheviks’ and republicans
. Both Carson and Bates
feared this class conflict and the development of a militant Sinn Féin
would threaten the class alliance with dissolution which had been embodied in the old Ulster Volunteer Force. By sounding the counter-revolutionary alarm, it would be a call to ‘loyal workers’ against the twin threats of socialism
and republicanism
.
The grouping adopted as formal policy an opposition to socialism
, but was seen by many as an attempt to show that the Unionist Party had the interests of the working class
at heart. Members included Tommy Henderson
, later an independent Unionist MP.
, who held views which were very different to their own organisation, i.e. socialism
.
The Belfast Labour Party
put four candidates forward but the results were disappointing. They lost out to two UULA and two Unionist candidates.
The UULA had five members returned altogether, including John M. Andrews. The Orange Order in the selection of Unionist Party candidates and election work had be written into the Associations set of rules prior to the election.
engineering and shipyard workers traditionally well organised, staged a three-week strike demanding a ten-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.
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 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.”
Paul Collins suggests that the expulsions were partly the result of a speech made by Carson on the 12 July Orange Order celebrations linking Labour with Sinn Féin: “…These men who come forward as the friends of Labour care no more about Labour than does the man in the moon. Their real object, and the real insidious nature of their propaganda is that they mislead and bring about disunity amongst our own people and in the end before we know where we are, we may find ourselves in the same bondage and slavery as is the rest of Ireland in the South and West.”
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 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.
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.
While Sir Neville Macready
commander-in-chief of the British army in Ireland withheld his approval, he and his supporters in the Irish administration were overridden; Lloyd George
’s approved from the beginning and granted official status in the form of the B Specials in November 1920. This official endorsement would shape both the formation of the state of Northern Ireland and Catholic feelings to it.
in its early days, and opened two working men's club
s in East and North Belfast. The Association was also able to appoint twenty delegates to the Ulster Unionist Council as late as the early 1970s.
were initially able to speak on its behalf in the Parliament of Northern Ireland
, in later years only the less prominent William Kennedy and occasional Senators sat in the Stormont Parliament.
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 Londonderry.
In the 1970s, its role as a movement for the mobilisation of the loyalist
working classes was taken over by more militant groups such as the Loyalist Association of Workers
and the Ulster Workers Council
.
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.
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ists founded by Edward Carson in June 1918, aligned with the Ulster Unionists
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. Members were known as Labour Unionists. 1918 and 1919 were the years of intense class conflict
Class conflict
Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....
throughout Britain. This period also saw a large increase in trade union membership and a series of strikes. These union activities raised fears in a section of the Ulster Unionist leadership, principally Edward Carson and R. Dawson Bates
Dawson Bates
Sir Richard Dawson Bates, 1st Baronet, OBE, PC, JP, DL , also known as Sir Dawson Bates , was an Ulster Unionist Party member of the Northern Ireland House of Commons....
. Carson at this time was president of the British Empire Union
British Empire Union
The British Empire Union was created in the United Kingdom during World War I, in 1916, after changing its name from the Anti-German Union, which had been founded in 1915...
, and had been predisposed to amplify the danger of a Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
outbreak in Britain.
Founding
The Ulster Unionist Labour Association was made up of trade unionTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ists and Ulster Unionists and was founded by Carson along with John Miller Andrews as a means of instigating a purge from the local trade union movement of ‘Bolsheviks’ and republicans
Irish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
. Both Carson and Bates
Dawson Bates
Sir Richard Dawson Bates, 1st Baronet, OBE, PC, JP, DL , also known as Sir Dawson Bates , was an Ulster Unionist Party member of the Northern Ireland House of Commons....
feared this class conflict and the development of a militant Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
would threaten the class alliance with dissolution which had been embodied in the old Ulster Volunteer Force. By sounding the counter-revolutionary alarm, it would be a call to ‘loyal workers’ against the twin threats of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and republicanism
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
.
The grouping adopted as formal policy an opposition to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, but was seen by many as an attempt to show that the Unionist Party had the interests of the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
at heart. Members included Tommy Henderson
Tommy Henderson
Thomas Gibson Henderson was an Ulster independent Unionist politician. He served in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland from 1925 to 1953 in vigorous opposition to the Unionist governments on all issues other than the partition of Ireland, and is famous for having at one stage spoken for...
, later an independent Unionist MP.
1918 General Election
During the 1918 General Election the aims of the UULA were set out by R. Dawson 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 PartyIndependent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
, who held views which were very different to their own organisation, i.e. socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
.
The Belfast Labour Party
Belfast Labour Party
The Belfast Labour Party was a political party in Belfast, Ireland from 1892 until 1924.The first socialist party in Ireland, it was founded in 1892, affiliated to the British Labour Representation Committee in 1900 and remained attached to the UK Labour Party which subsequently evolved.Labour ran...
put four candidates forward but the results were disappointing. They lost out to two UULA and two Unionist candidates.
The UULA had five members returned altogether, including John M. Andrews. The Orange Order in the selection of Unionist Party candidates and election work had be written into the Associations set of rules prior to the election.
Workers Strike
Predominantly Protestant, BelfastBelfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
engineering and shipyard workers traditionally well organised, staged a three-week strike demanding a ten-hour reduction in the working week. This was done in defiance of the national leadership of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions
Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions
The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions is a trade union confederation in the United Kingdom.-History:The confederation was founded in December 1890 as the Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades by small craft unions, on the initiative of Robert Knight of the United...
. 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.
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.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 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.”
Paul Collins suggests that the expulsions were partly the result of a speech made by Carson on the 12 July Orange Order celebrations linking Labour with Sinn Féin: “…These men who come forward as the friends of Labour care no more about Labour than does the man in the moon. Their real object, and the real insidious nature of their propaganda is that they mislead and bring about disunity amongst our own people and in the end before we know where we are, we may find ourselves in the same bondage and slavery as is the rest of Ireland in the South and West.”
Collins however suggests that the direct cause of the expulsions was the killing of Banbridge
Banbridge
Banbridge is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Bann and the A1 road. It was named after a bridge built over the Bann in 1712. The town grew as a coaching stop on the road from Belfast to Dublin and thrived from Irish linen manufacturing...
RIC man Colonel Smyth on 7 July in Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
. Rail Union members in the south of Ireland refused to allow his body 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.
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.
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.While Sir Neville Macready
Nevil Macready
General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, 1st Baronet, GCMG, KCB, PC , known as Sir Nevil Macready and affectionately as Make-Ready , was a British Army officer...
commander-in-chief of the British army in Ireland withheld his approval, he and his supporters in the Irish administration were overridden; Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
’s approved from the beginning and granted official status in the form of the B Specials in November 1920. This official endorsement would shape both the formation of the state of Northern Ireland and Catholic feelings to it.
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 adult educationAdult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
in its early days, and opened two working men's club
Working men's club
Working men's clubs are a type of private social club founded in the 19th century in industrial areas of the United Kingdom, particularly the North of England, the Midlands and many parts of the South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class men and their families.-...
s in East and North Belfast. The Association was also able to appoint twenty delegates to the Ulster Unionist Council as late as the early 1970s.
Decline
The organisation was never able to attract leading trade unionists, and soon declined in importance. While Andrews and William GrantWilliam Grant (Northern Ireland politician)
Rt. Hon. William Grant was a Unionist politician in Northern Ireland.Born in Belfast, Grant worked as a shipwright and was a founder member of the Ulster Unionist Labour Association. He was also a founder member of the Ulster Volunteer Force...
were initially able to speak on its behalf in the Parliament of Northern Ireland
Parliament of Northern Ireland
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended...
, in later years only the less prominent William Kennedy and occasional Senators sat in the Stormont Parliament.
The Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
saw many workers look instead to the official trade union movement and the Northern Ireland Labour Party
Northern Ireland Labour Party
The Northern Ireland Labour Party was an Irish political party which operated from 1924 until 1987.In 1913 the British Labour Party resolved to give the recently formed Irish Labour Party exclusive organising rights in Ireland...
, 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 Londonderry.
In the 1970s, its role as a movement for the mobilisation of the loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
working classes was taken over by more militant groups such as the Loyalist Association of Workers
Loyalist Association of Workers
The Loyalist Association of Workers was a militant unionist organisation in Northern Ireland that sought to mobilise trade union members in support of the loyalist cause...
and the Ulster Workers Council
Ulster Workers Council
The Ulster Workers Council was a loyalist workers' organisation set up in Northern Ireland in 1974 as a more formalised successor to the Loyalist Association of Workers . It was formed by shipyard union leader Harry Murray and initially failed to gain much attention...
.
Already by the early 1970s, the Association's primary role was organising the wreath
Wreath
A wreath is an assortment of flowers, leaves, fruits, twigs and/or various materials that is constructed to resemble a ring. They are used typically as Christmas decorations to symbolize the coming of Christ, also known as the Advent season in Christianity. They are also used as festive headdresses...
laying at the annual memorial service for Carson, and today it exists solely to perform this ceremonial role.