ABSTRACT
Engineering and shipbuilding Trade Unions have a good deal in common. The A.E.U. can be taken as typical of the large number of craft Unions in the engineering and shipbuilding trades. Craft Unions have as one of their principal purposes the protection of their respective crafts from encroachments either by less skilled workers or by members of kindred crafts. Disputes between skilled craftsmen concerning the ‘right’ to do a particular job, or to work a particular machine, are called ‘demarcation disputes’; and there is usually some recognised procedure for settling them. Subject to continual encroachment on skilled work through the improvement of automatic or semi-automatic machines, they fight a perpetual rearguard action in order to preserve as much work as possible for members of the craft. There is urgent need for some Union inclusive enough and militant enough to transcent craft boundaries and fight the battle of the classes of workers.
