ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a case study of an industry which has a long tradition of strong organisation amongst masters and men. The history of employers’ organisations and capitalist labour relations policies is a woefully neglected area of study, and despite the efforts of a few recent researchers to fill this void, a very serious gap still remains. Employers' activities often encompass trade regulation, pressure group action relating to legislation, and labour relations. Spatial segregation and product specialisation played an important part in limiting solidarity and organisation amongst masters in the spinning section of the cotton industry. Despite divisions within their ranks, the local cotton employers’ associations were amongst the best organised groups of the employers in British industry, the largest associations having over 70 per cent of local firms in membership as early as the 1890s. The cotton spinning and weaving employers’ organisations remained distinct from each other and autonomous in their labour relations strategy prior to World War One.
