Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

====Organisation of labour====
{{See also|Trade union#History}}
The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories, and mines, thus facilitating the organisation of ''combinations'' or [[trade union]]s advance the interests of working people. A union could demand better terms by withdrawing and halting production. Employers had to decide between giving in at a cost, or suffering the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were difficult to replace, and these were the first to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining.

The main method unions used, and still use, to effect change was [[strike action]]. Many strikes were painful events for both unions and management. In Britain, the [[Combination Act 1799]] forbade workers to form any kind of trade union until its repeal in 1824. Even after this, unions were severely restricted. A British newspaper in 1834 described unions as "the most dangerous institutions that were ever permitted to take root, under shelter of law, in any country..."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Tolpuddle Martyrs|last=Evatt|first=Herbert|publisher=Sydney University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-586-03832-1|location=Sydney|page=49}}</ref>

The [[Reform Act 1832]] extended the vote in Britain, but did not grant [[universal suffrage]]. Six men from [[Tolpuddle]] in Dorset founded the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers to protest against the lowering of wages in the 1830s. They refused to work for less than ten shillings per week, by this time wages had been reduced to seven shillings and were to be reduced to six. In 1834 James Frampton, a local landowner, wrote to Prime Minister [[Viscount Melbourne|Lord Melbourne]] to complain about the union, invoking an obscure law from 1797 prohibiting people from swearing oaths to each other, which the members of the Society had done. Six men were arrested, found guilty, and [[Convicts in Australia|transported to Australia]]. They became known as the [[Tolpuddle Martyrs]]. In the 1830s and 40s, the [[Chartism|chartist]] movement was the first large-scale organised working-class political movement that campaigned for political equality and social justice. Its ''Charter'' of reforms received three million signatures, but was rejected by Parliament without consideration.

Working people formed [[Friendly society|friendly societies]] and [[cooperative]] societies as mutual support groups against times of economic hardship. Enlightened industrialists, such as Robert Owen supported these organisations to improve conditions. Unions slowly overcame the legal restrictions on the right to strike. In 1842, a [[general strike]] involving cotton workers and colliers was organised through the chartist movement which stopped production across Britain.<ref name="archive5" /> Eventually, effective political organisation for working people was achieved through trades unions who, after the extensions of the franchise in 1867 and 1885, began to support socialist political parties that later merged to become the British [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]].