These Councils lent a powerful support to the policy of seeking to secure, by means of Parliamentary action, the social and industrial improvement of the working class, which the leaders of Trade Unions adopted from about 1860 onwards. Under Campbell's leadership the Glasgow Councils, along with those of other towns, took an active part in helping to carry the Reform Bill of 1867-68, which enfranchised the artisan in the towns. Glasgow was again in the forefront of the agitation for the reform of the Master and Servant Act, which favoured the master at the expense of the servant, breach of contract on the part of the latter being, under this Act, a crime punishable by imprisonment, whilst the former could only be sued for damages for the same offence. Moreover, the law allowed the master, but not the servant, to bear witness on his own behalf. Campbell and MacDonald brought the question before the Glasgow Council, and as the result of the combined action of those of Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, and the English provincial towns, seconded by the Trade Unions throughout the United Kingdom, the law was amended in 1867. This amendment constituted " the first positive success of the Trade Unions in the legislative field." They also co-operated effectively in the passing of the Act of 1871 entitling Trade Unions to register as legal associations and thus securing legal protection for their funds. The keen resentment over the failure to prevent the passing of another Act restricting strike action on their part intensified the determination to secure direct labour representation in the House of Commons. MacDonald had in 1868 become a candidate for the Kilmarnock Burghs, but had retired before the election. At the General

Election of 1874 he and Thomas Burt, another leading official of the Miners' National Union, were returned for Stafford and Morpeth respectively—the first two Labour members to enter Parliament. The result was the repeal of the Act restricting strike action and the substitution for the Master and Servant Act of the Employers and Workmen Act, which put employers and employees on an equal footing before the law and fully recognised the right of collective bargaining after fifty years of organised effort. There was ample reason in this legislation for the enthusiasm with which Mr G. Howell, at the Trade Union Congress at Glasgow in 1875, eulogised Mr Cross, the Conservative Home Secretary, who had been the sympathetic instrument of placing on the Statute Book "the greatest boon ever given to the sons of toil."

'Calton Weavers' Memorial - 1787' by Harry McShane 

By Robin McKie

Sodexho used these measures to good effect in a dispute with hospital workers at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 2002. When early in 2002, UNISON helped exposed the unsanitary conditions there, the company responded with what branch secretary, Carolyn Leckie called ‘a climate of fear’ against union members. In August 2002, hospital services workers went on strike over the low wages they were being paid £4.20 – £4.67 an hour. This is much less than other staff working directly for the Health Authority. Sodexho attempted to break the strike by flying in scab workers from up to 400 miles away, paying £42.50 a night for accomodation and £10 pounds an hour. Despite this, in August 2002, around 300 staff won an increased pay and conditions package including £5 an hour minimum wage and three months full sick-pay.88

These concessions, however, did not come from the goodness of Sodexho’s heart. As local UNISON branch secretary Caroline Leckie said, “the only reason we won was the strike – there was no way Sodexho would have conceded without that.”89

Following Glasgow’s success, 900 Sodexho employees at the Liverpool Royal Hospitals went on strike in November 2002 in pursuit of a pay claim of £5 / hour. Porters, catering, and housekeepers, earning £4.15 an hour, were involved in the action. During the strike, a Sodexho manager on £70,000 / year came forward as a “volunteer”, handing out tea to patients.

For more info on strike action taken against Sodexho in the UK, see