The early labour movements in Western Europe and North America were all dominated by urban artisans, a fact reflected most clearly at the programmatic level by the prominence of demands for producers' cooperatives. This article presents a proposal for and an extremely brief sketch of a comparative investigation of this first phase of the labour movement in England, France, Germany, and the United States. Different aspects of class formation, such as the economic situation of the trades, the social relationships within them, or the role of artisanal and corporate traditions in artisanal politics and trade-union organization, are discussed. Comparative labour history, it is argued, must employ such a theoretical framework, one that allows the integration of the many dimensions of class formation; otherwise it will have to sacrifice whatever progress the last generation of labour historians has achieved.

This article reviews the existing literature on the rise of the New Unionism and suggests some revisions of the nature of the phenomenon based on recent research. One finding is that as institutions the unions were not militant but from their inception favoured a moderate stance regarding relations with employers. The causes of the New Unionism and the strike wave of 1889–1890 are analysed within a framework of neoclassical economics and the major operator in the situation is identified as the dwindling supply of rural labour which increased the value and bargaining power of the unskilled toward the end of the nineteenth century.

The article takes shipbuilding as a case study in the development of collective bargaining in Britain during the period 1889–1910. During the period shipbuilding employers established an effective national organisation and were successful in drawing the unions into an industry-wide disputes procedure. These developments occurred notwithstanding marked differences in outlook and interest as between the two main centres of activity in the industry, the Clyde and the northeast coast. The more militant posture of the Clyde employers towards the unions is examined in relation to a number of key issues – the apprentice and machine questions, managerial prerogative, wage control. In interpreting the general nature of the transition that occurred in the industry's labour relations, the article questions the view that the move to national bargaining was associated with a general commitment to the joint regulation of employment rules. It further suggests that the general level of employer acceptance of trade unionism may have been less than is sometimes assumed. These conclusions may well have a significance beyond the case in question.