ABSTRACT
The first generation of labour historians had no trouble identifying the causes and significance of the New Unionism. The New Unionism reflected an initial response to a slowly gathering and fractured shift in economic development from competitive to monopoly capitalism whose most visible manifestation was the collection of 'inflammable material' at the workplace waiting to be set alight by trade cycle movements or the pressure of work intensity. Social relations of production in the semi-skilled sector, then, were primarily disrupted between the men and the employers, and the basic question was to what extent their material base had altered to allow permanent organization. The conventional explanation of the New Unionism typically conflates cause and effect. It attributes the ability of the New Unionism to emerge at the end of the 1880s to the arrival of socialist propagandists from outside the group in question to show them the tricks of the trade.
