Strike action: Difference between revisions

In 1842 the demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern [[1842 General Strike|general strike]]. After the second [[Chartism#1842: Chartism's biggest petition and 'the General Strike'|Chartist Petition]] was presented to Parliament in April 1842 and rejected, the strike began in the coal mines of [[Staffordshire]], [[England]], and soon spread through Britain affecting [[factory|factories]], [[Mill (grinding)|mills]] in Lancashire and [[coal mine]]s from [[Dundee]] to South [[Wales]] and [[Cornwall]].<ref name="Plug Plot">{{cite web |url=http://web.bham.ac.uk/1848/document/poppro.htm |title=The General Strike of 1842: A Study in Leadership, Organisation and the Threat of Revolution during the Plug Plot Disturbance|author=F.C.Mather|publisher=George Allen & Unwin Ltd London|work=web.bham.ac.uk/1848|year=1974|access-date=2008-01-30}}</ref> Instead of being a spontaneous uprising of the mutinous masses, the strike was politically motivated and was driven by an agenda to win concessions. Probably as much as half of the then industrial work force were on strike at its peak – over 500,000 men.{{Citation needed|date=May 2015}} The local leadership marshalled a growing working class tradition to politically organize their followers to mount an articulate challenge to the capitalist, political establishment. [[Friedrich Engels]], an observer in [[London]] at the time, wrote: