The sad tale of the boilermakers' strike is not yet
ended. It may be remembered that the strike, which began over five months ago, was occasioned not by the usual breakdown in negotiations between employers and employed, but by the refusal of the Boilermakers' Union to abide by the agreement which the Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades Unions (of which the Boilermakers' Society is one of the chief members) had come to with the employers. The boilermakers have taken an absolutely uncompromising attitude from start to finish, and have been expelled from the Federa- tion. They number some ten thousand, and it is cal- culated that the refusal of these ten thousand key men to work under the agreed conditions has thrown out of employment at least another sixty thousand. It has led, of course, to an enormous expenditure in poor relief, and to a loss in wages amounting to some £3,000,000. Besides, orders in the shipbuilding trade were beginning to come in and employment would not, it is said, have been particularly bad had the industry been in normal running order. As it is, most of these orders have had to go elsewhere, and are now lost.
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