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The Local Disputes One has now to assess the essential characteristics of the conflict which manifested itself by the pickers challenging the right of the employer to unilaterally set the piece-rate, when and at what amount he saw fit. The strikes demonstrate that as a work group or a coalition of work groups, the pickers held an awareness that they could, by acting in unison, secure preferable rates. The strikes also demonstrate a reluctance among the "home-dwellers" to engage in direct forms of rank-and-file action against their employers. 38 In situations of overt conflict, the work-force tended to display a dual nature. Thus, the militancy of the migrant casuals was contrasted with the deferential nature of the indigenous labourers. To stress that a gap of consciousness existed between the attitudes of an urbanised proletariat and their rural counter-parts is to make much too fine a point, especially considering the limited evidence used in this essay. However, we can examine the differences between the two work groups and suggest why the Londoners displayed a propensity towards militancy and an awareness of their bargaining strength.
What were the factors that can be attributed as forming the pickers' bargaining strength? Clegg suggests that there are three factors that contribute towards a work group's bargaining strength. 39 These consist of firstly, the difficulty the employer experiences in replacing the work group, secondly the craft or skills that the work group holds, and thirdly the strategic position that the work group holds in the production process, which can also be termed as the vulnerability of the employer.
First we will examine the difficulty that the grower had if he wished to replace a recalcitrant work group. The migrant pickers were there to meet the shortage in the local labour supply for the picking season. Their employment was also arranged by correspondence in advance which would preclude the possibility of growers drafting in new pickers immediately. Once the pickers had been hired they also felt they had the exclusive right to work that farm and would challenge the authority of the employer to draft in other pickers, as a strike at Chatham in 1905 successfully showed. 40
This is similar to the attitudes found among the dockers' gangs who, once having been hired for the job, would negotiate piecerates with the owners in the belief that they had a legitimate right to the job and therefore other dockers would not undermine their bargaining position. 41
Secondly, we must consider the question of skill as a determinant of the bargaining strength of the pickers. Without doubt, one can conclude that the picking required little skill that could be considered as contributing towards a strong economic bargaining factor. The unskilled nature of the picking was similar in many ways to the unskilled nature of the migrant pickers' London occupations in as much as intrinsically they held little economic labour power based upon craft or skill. what economic labour power these groups of workers possessed was as a result of their ability to engage in spontaneous rank-and-file activity. Groups of casual workers such as the Gas-workers and the Dockers had also started to organise formally by the end of the century in the "new unions". Richard Price has argued that "some of the best examples of the primacy of the work group action are to be found amongst the unskilled labourers in the building trades." 42 He suggests an important factor in the bargaining strength of the work group is its ability to "act in a cohesive and decisive manner." 43
The ability of the migrant pickers to act together is amply demonstrated in the reports of the strikes we examined and supported by the testimonies of the local pickers. Once a decision to strike was arrived at, the migrants displayed an ability to maintain the cohesion of the pickers, either by persuasion or intimidation. Thirdly, one has to consider the vulnerability of the employer as a factor in the bargaining strength of the pickers. Two reasons contributed towards the grower being in a vulnerable position. One was because hops were a speculative investment in as much as there was a high level of capital investment with an extremely uncertain return. This is because the yield was so variable, the crops were prone to climatic changes and there were great fluctuations in the hop market. 44 The crop yield could vary by afactor of three and when it was ready for picking it was still susceptible to bugs and mould, or even the ravages of the wind. One picker commented on the risk of the wind blowing the field to "smithereens" if the crop was left unharvested due to the farmer failing to meet their demands. Another pointed out that the crop would only last three weeks once it was fully grown, and therefore the farmer risked losing his whole crop if the pickers stayed on strike. 46 The strike at Harbledown provides a good example of the potential financial loss to the grower that a strike presented. It was reported that the estimated value of the crop left exposed to the climate was between œ15,000-20,000. 47 The vulnerability of the employer was increased because the pickers were hired for the closing stages of the production process, thus the conclusion of a year's careful nurturing of the hops rested in their hands. 48It can be seen that the pickers' awareness of the employer's vulnerability was similar to the dock gangs' awareness of the stevedoring contractors' vulnerability once the gang had been hired. Like the pickers' work, the dockers' work was usually a 'one-off' job, whereupon being hired the ganger would estimate the total piece-work yield and, after consultation with the gang, put forward claims for supplementary payments to the contractor. Factors such as the turn-round time for the ship or the perishability of the cargo meant that the contractor was under pressure to reach a settlement with the gang. 49 As David Wilson has suggested: "This rank-and-file participation ... under the casual labour system, working on jobs which never repeated themselves created a situation where solidarity gave power"50 To what extent a direct link can be made between the pickers' awareness of their ability to exact concessions by engaging in spontaneous collective action an be attributed to the experience and traditions of rank-and-file activity amongst the dockers is hard to ascertain. However, as stated earlier, some of the indigenous pickers were prepared to blame the "dockies" and their families for causing strikes. A conversation with John Blest who wrote the post-script to "Orwell in Kent" and also owns the hop-gardens where Orwell worked, said that he believed many of the strikes occurred after the dockers had been down to visit their families for the week-end. 51 However, despite the evidence suggesting links between the occupations and urban experience of the migrant workers being a contributing factor towards their propensity to strike vis-a-vis, the indigenous workforce, one still needs to examine why the indigenous pickers displayed a reluctance to challenge the authority of the grower. The strike at Loose demonstrated how it was the home-pickers who were the first to complain about the "tally", although they deferred when the "immigrants" decided to strike and continued to work until they were "picketed out". 52 As mentioned earlier, the recollections of Mrs Vidgen 53 and the complaints made by the London pickers suggest a reluctance to strike amongst the home-dwellers. Howard D Newby's study of rural labourers in Suffolk suggests a number of reasons as to why agricultural workers display an outwardly deferential nature. He argues that, rather than actually being deferential, agricultural workers are dependent upon their employers much more than urban workers. This dependence is achieved because the employer has an influence in the social and domestic lives of the employee. Thus, the employer's role in the village institutions and his likely control over tied housing, all contribute to the employees' dependence upon the farmer. Newby uses Coser's argument and suggests that farms are "greedy institutions" because they:
"make total claims on their members, seeking exclusive and undivided loyalty and attempting to reduce the claims of competing roles and status positions on those they wish to encompass within their own boundaries." 54 Despite attempts by industrial employers to create "greedy institutions", they fail to create a deferential or rather a dependent work-orientation among the workforce, because employers can only attempt to impose commitment within the actory gate. Newby also argues that the paternalism and sociability of the farmer as compared with the industrial employer reduces an aggressive assertion of workers' rights. He sees gifts at Christmas, joint cultural activities, friendly interest concerning the worker's family and the inter-mixing of employer and employees' children as factors that dampen an expression of workplace conflict. In the case of the indigenous pickers, many of them would also have husbands that relied upon the farmer for work throughout the year and therefore, unlike the migrant pickers, they could not necessarily view the harvest as a 'one-off' job. Newby also suggests that a sense of identification existed between the rural worker and employer which stemmed from a rural response to urban workers. He argues that the rural population perceived the urban worker as being constantly on strike and therefore causing the price of goods to rise, whilst making demands for cheap food at the expense of the rural population. This could account for some of the home-pickers' reluctance to join with the demands of their urban counter-parts. However, Newby's main argument is that: "This quiescence, however, must be seen to result from the agricultural worker's dependence rather than from his deference. The dependence of the agricultural worker upon the farmer for employment, and in many cases for housing in addition, militates against overt expression of dissatisfaction." (55) One can see two distinct influences contributing towards the dual nature of the workforce. Not only have we seen two distinct work groups engaged in the same work, but we can also see influences upon the work orientation of each group. Thus, one has seen how the influence that urban casualism may have had towards the militancy of the migrant pickers and we have also looked at how dependency may have influenced the deferential nature of the home-dwellers. Newby's study of Suffolk agricultural workers is helpful because many of the factors that he views as contributing towards their deferential nature may also apply to the Kentish hop-pickers. The home-dwellers, like the Suffolk workers, were also dependent upon the farmer for employment for themselves and their families throughout the rest of the year. Unlike the migrant pickers, the home-dwellers sought work within a small rural labour market consisting of a few employers. Therefore, the risk of become 'black-listed' by the local farmers was more serious for the indigenous worker than it was for the migrant worker.
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HOP-PICKING
HOP-PICKING | Rural Conflict and Strikes | The Hop-pickers Work | Who were the Migrant Pickers | Work Place Regulation | The Payment System | The Dynamics of Conflict | Conclusion | References | Hop Production in the UK | Reading
Derek Bright walk@awhile.co.uk
Date Last Modified: 21/11/03