ABSTRACT
The metal trades, regarded as a whole, employ-more workers than any other group of industries. The group has therefore to be broken up into smaller units; for there is little in common between all its constituent elements. The main sub-groups falling within it are iron and steel manufacture, engineering—itself further divisible into a number of related industries—shipbuilding, vehicle manuacture, the electrical trades, and the minor metal trades. The foundry workers in the light castings trades, as distinct from the moulders in heavy iron-founding, who are in the National Union of Foundry Workers, have two Unions of some importance—the National Union of Stove, Grate and General Metal Workers, and the Iron Founding Workers’ Association, the latter being mainly Scottish. The largest body of craftsmen in the vehicle trades is in the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and in the other engineering craft Unions such as the Patternmakers and the Foundry Workers.
