Shop Steward Movement Originates
Great Britain 1898-1900
Synopsis
Shop stewards, or workshop-based union representatives, originated among skilled male workers in the shipbuilding and engineering industries at the end of the nineteenth century. Their functions gradually developed from dues collectors and union representatives to workers' direct representatives who handled a wide range of concerns with employers, who increasingly officially recognized them for that purpose.
Steward organization mushroomed during the World Wars, when stewards built their own independent organizations to challenge official union policy. Their initial concern was the defense of skilled workers, but technological change rendered arguments based on skill increasingly untenable. This circumstance produced increasing steward organization among less skilled workers and women. World War I saw the election of the first women shop stewards.
The steward system spread into many other industries, especially after 1945. Dockers and later public sector stewards led many important disputes in the postwar period. Starting in the early 1980s, many large workplaces closed, which left public sector stewards in the majority. Nevertheless, the steward tradition of direct representation at the point of production was sustained. During the twentieth century the use of the term shop steward moved from an obscure description understood only by skilled engineers into common English usage.
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